Has anyone using the MBA M1 Base or 512 with 8 core GPU have any problems running out of ram? And if so what were you doing? I have yet to exceed the limits of my 512/8/8. My heaviest work load was running pages creating a project, 9 tabs in Safari, listening Music, and running Radar Scope in a live feed showing 4 views of radar data. I also had messenger open, Mail, Notability, and the calculator all open. Checked the activity monitor it showed total ram usage at 6.98. Nothing ran slow. No beachball, it ran for 4 hours like this and wasn't even warm.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
M1 MBA with 8 gigs of ram anyone have problems with not enough ram?
- Thread starter AdamNC
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I have the same machine as you, it's with me for close to two months now, no RAM issues, just a few times I had slow downs in Photoshop with files larger than 10mb, but I think there are more CPU based than RAM.
My usual setup is:
Word + Excel + Outlook
Mail
Firefox + Chrome, around 30 tabs
Photoshop
Messenger + Telegram + Skype
Scrivener
But I had my share of other issues though.
My usual setup is:
Word + Excel + Outlook
Firefox + Chrome, around 30 tabs
Photoshop
Messenger + Telegram + Skype
Scrivener
But I had my share of other issues though.
My first MacBook Air was an 8GB/512GB variant with the (8 Core GPU)
I mostly played rust, this specific game requires minimum of 10GB of ram. And it always warned me while playing on a larger server. (WARNING YOUR SYSTEM DOESN'T MEET THE MINIMUM REQUIRMENTS - ARE YOU SURE YOU WISH TO CONTINUE)
The M1 Air with 8GB of ram practically laughed at it. The game would steadily use 15-16GB of ram just for the game..
The M1 Air with only 8GB of ram, easily ran it too.
I currently own the 16GB/1TB model, everything runs about the same. The only difference I notice, is when I would minimize the game rust, and then re-maximize the application. The 16GB of ram model can resume without a skip. And the 8GB model would take a split second to become smooth again. (Not enough to really bother me) actual game play was always smooth with either model.
Outside of this, I see no problems with the 8GB M1. You can seriously push the limits on these machines. And 8GB of ram doesn't limit them in the slightest.
I wanted the 16GB/1TB model M1 Air for further future proofing, and I believe the M1 is probably the greatest silicon available today. And the future is only going to get better! I plan to keep this machine for a while.
Apple operating systems seem to be pretty well optimized, and the M1 8GB can push 20GB of ram usage smooth as anything.. I imagine it'll only get better once applications are actually ran natively.
I haver owned both systems, and if you can only afford the 8GB M1 then you'll be just fine, I assure you! Although, if you can afford a 16GB of ram M1, then absolutely! Why not get 16GB of ram? You can push even further ridiculous amounts of ram usage.
I mostly played rust, this specific game requires minimum of 10GB of ram. And it always warned me while playing on a larger server. (WARNING YOUR SYSTEM DOESN'T MEET THE MINIMUM REQUIRMENTS - ARE YOU SURE YOU WISH TO CONTINUE)
The M1 Air with 8GB of ram practically laughed at it. The game would steadily use 15-16GB of ram just for the game..
The M1 Air with only 8GB of ram, easily ran it too.
I currently own the 16GB/1TB model, everything runs about the same. The only difference I notice, is when I would minimize the game rust, and then re-maximize the application. The 16GB of ram model can resume without a skip. And the 8GB model would take a split second to become smooth again. (Not enough to really bother me) actual game play was always smooth with either model.
Outside of this, I see no problems with the 8GB M1. You can seriously push the limits on these machines. And 8GB of ram doesn't limit them in the slightest.
I wanted the 16GB/1TB model M1 Air for further future proofing, and I believe the M1 is probably the greatest silicon available today. And the future is only going to get better! I plan to keep this machine for a while.
Apple operating systems seem to be pretty well optimized, and the M1 8GB can push 20GB of ram usage smooth as anything.. I imagine it'll only get better once applications are actually ran natively.
I haver owned both systems, and if you can only afford the 8GB M1 then you'll be just fine, I assure you! Although, if you can afford a 16GB of ram M1, then absolutely! Why not get 16GB of ram? You can push even further ridiculous amounts of ram usage.
I own a 8gb ram M1 MBA. I am transitioning from editing my photos in Lightroom to editing in Capture one. I needed to compare the two programs to see which settings yields same results. So yesterday I opened the same 36 megapixel raw photo (which is pretty massive) in both programs and edited simultaneously. It started to get a bit sluggish, but still fast enough for me to be able to do what I needed. Mind you, this is the ONLY time I've had problems with running out of RAM on this machine. I sometimes run World of Warcraft in the background while editing photos, and this causes no problems at all. So in most use cases, 8gb ram will be absolutely fine.
I have a 16gb M1 and to be honest while it is fast it is not as blazing fast as i thought it would be. Maybe it's because i have only ever used top spec Windows machines. I do not do video editing nor gaming. Strictly web browsing, spreadsheets and word processing.
I too edit without problems dozens of 100 Mb photo files in Lightroom on my M1 MacBook Air 8 Gb variety. And while not seeing any ram related issue, I have gotten nervous enough from reading MacRumors that when I ordered the M1 iMac, I did get the 16 gb. Shrugs.
Yesterday was actually the first time in 6 months I have seen any kind of issue with the M1 MacBook Air. I was running a really highly intensive graphics game and after an hour it started to thermal throttle. Mind you it is not optimized for Apple Silicon. Games like WoW give me no problems. Anyway, I anticipate the fan in the iMac to ensure that never happens.
Yesterday was actually the first time in 6 months I have seen any kind of issue with the M1 MacBook Air. I was running a really highly intensive graphics game and after an hour it started to thermal throttle. Mind you it is not optimized for Apple Silicon. Games like WoW give me no problems. Anyway, I anticipate the fan in the iMac to ensure that never happens.
You did the right thing. The 8GB is fine for now but you don't know what the landscape will look like in a few years. Apple devices can last 5-10+ years so it's a long term decision
I know what you mean, I am running out of family and friends to give my old devices too so that I can upgrade! They just keep working for them.
Haha makes it easier to justify the upgrade! But yeah they do last quite some time. I still have friends and family on the iPhone 6, Apple devices sure are expensive but they do last