Is 64GB Memory Enough?

[gcortes]

I'm considering a Mac Studio M5 Max. My current, very old, Mac Pro has 160GB. When I check the Activity Monitor, I'm using 70-76GB of memory with over 100 app/services running. The price jump from 64 to 128GB of memory is $1600. I only use one app at a time with many just sitting idle so I don't have to bring them up when I need them. Others, like mail, run in the background periodically. If I go with 64GB, I assume some apps/service will be moved to the swap file. Will this be much of an issue give my usage?

 

[aakshey]

I'm considering a Mac Studio M5 Max. My current, very old, Mac Pro has 160GB. When I check the Activity Monitor, I'm using 70-76GB of memory with over 100 app/services running. The price jump from 64 to 128GB of memory is $1600. I only use one app at a time with many just sitting idle so I don't have to bring them up when I need them. Others, like mail, run in the background periodically. If I go with 64GB, I assume some apps/service will be moved to the swap file. Will this be much of an issue give my usage?

With your usage best to get 128+ gb I guess

 

[Starfia]

gcortes –

I'm not sure I have a complete picture of what you're doing with software, but even an entry-level Mac mini M1 with 8 gigs of memory is more than enough to run one app at a time with other apps performing routine background tasks like checking for mail.

The Activity Monitor readout on my Mac mini M1 (with 16 gigs of memory) is showing about 650 processes, and I'm sometimes using two or more apps at a time to do more intensive stuff like compressing video, making music, 3D rendering, compiling with Xcode, and so on. I'm sure there's plenty of memory compression and swapping happening, but I almost never perceive any kind of slowdown.