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M2 Air for Creative Cloud CC

V

vgolfoz

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 27, 2023
22
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Looking at getting the M2 Air. I mainly use my machine for the usual Office stuff and Adobe applications - Photoshop, Illustrator and Dreamweaver for the most part. Not super intensive photo editing in PS - mainly web type graphics etc.

I'll probably get the 512GB HD model...my question is, will it still work well with 8GB RAM? I know ideal world I'd get the 16GB RAM...just in the current environment, things are slightly tight.
 
Photoshop's RAM usage is all about the files you're editing or creating in Photoshop. If the PSD is a couple GB, your mac is going to eat into swap really fast. This is because the file is in RAM, the edits you do additionally are in RAM, and the whole OS is in RAM.

Personally, with modern macs and M1/M2 chips, I don't mind the mac using swap. So get the 8GB.

Heck, in 2006 I had a white macbook with 4GB of ram and would edit 4GB photoshop files. Sure it was slow, but I bit the bullet because I wasn't doing it everyday.

These days people are more impatient and paranoid that using their devices will kill them exponentially faster than if they babied them.
 
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Thanks for that. The files I edit in Photoshop are rarely more than 100-150MB...but I do often flip between Photoshop, Illustrator and Acrobat so they'll all be open at the same time.

My old MBP died a little while ago...so I've been using an oldish Alienware Windows laptop but it's horrendous even though it's an i7 with 16MB RAM...think there's some issue with the GPU.
 
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8 Gig should be fine now, but what about the future? The M2 is not upgradeable. I have the M2 with 16 Gig and 1 TB and use Photoshop for some large images with dozens of layers. Performance has not been an issue. The computer is faster than my fingers or mouse.

Where I have issues is with Lightroom and de-noising software. That really taxes the machine and can max out the CPU for a significant time.

Based on my experience the 16 Gig is the better option. That along with the 1 TB drive seems to be a combination that Apple likes as it is in stock in the stores. Any other options beyond the basic configuration require ordering and waiting for delivery.
 
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If you ever move up to anything more intensive, you're going to wish you had the extra ram. as others have said, you cant upgrade it later. Depends on budget constraints at the end of the day for you, but especially running all of those at once, it will definitely dip into swap
 
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Thanks for all the suggestions. I suppose my other option is to save a little and just get a Macbook Pro. Given how long I kept my last one, for a few hundred extra, it may be worth it longer term.
 
vgolfoz said:
Thanks for all the suggestions. I suppose my other option is to save a little and just get a Macbook Pro. Given how long I kept my last one, for a few hundred extra, it may be worth it longer term.
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Lots of options, definitely up to you. Depends how you're using it, do you carry it around lots? use on the couch? Or is it mostly going to be docked and hooked to a monitor? The main reason i went with the air was because i loved the fanless and very portable design, plenty of power and crazy good battery life.
 
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I use it mainly docked to a desk...but that was due in major part to the battery on my old MBP being stuffed...so there was no point undocking it. The super portable nature of the Air is appealing.

Starting to confuse myself now! 😄
 
I will be the dissenting voice here - GET MORE RAM! It is no secret that M series Mac really gobble up a lot of RAM and swapping should not be a regular occurrence but something done when more intense apps are used and multiple apps are open (as example). I really find it unbelievable people would say get 8 gigs when so many have shared their experiences with having to upgrade to more RAM. As someone else said when comparing Intel to M chips - 16 gigs is the new 8 gigs (as in 16 gigs is about the same behavior as 8 gigs on an Intel system). If you are planning to keep your Air laptop for a while, know that future apps can be more intensive and that additional RAM will come in handy.

Simply stated - some people will say how well things work for them with 8 gigs and don't mind the swap. Geeks will tell you to avoid swap when possible and some (of us) will let you know 8 gigs did not do well for them and they ended up with systems that had more RAM. Candidly I agree with the above statement that 16 is the new 8.
 
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vgolfoz said:
Thanks for all the suggestions. I suppose my other option is to save a little and just get a Macbook Pro. Given how long I kept my last one, for a few hundred extra, it may be worth it longer term.
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Don't forget to check out refurbished or use price matching across the major stores to get the best deal. Refurbished from Apple has always been stellar for me, and helps when you're working with a limited budget.

This seems to be in line with what you want, with the 16GB from Apple Refurb, and less than the retail cost of the 8GB. They have the other colors available as well if you look.

Refurbished 13-inch MacBook Air Apple M2 Chip

Personally, I'd suggest the 16GB at minimum for a little future proofing. Though, as someone above mentioned, the swap with the SSD on the M1/M2 does pretty great.

Best of luck!
 
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I have a base config M1 MBA and the only time I notice that 8 GB of RAM isn’t enough is when I use Parsec (work), Edge (work), Safari (personal), Messages an WhatsApp at the same time. That’s when memory pressure goes up and a couple hundred MB swap are used. (Although running stuff through Rosetta seems to eat more RAM by default.)

With Affinity Photo and Topaz De-Noise running and doing their respective things while also having Safari and Messages open, I have no issues.

That said, at this point in time, I would spring for the 16 GB for longevity.
Not so much for a bigger SSD because I store most stuff on external drives anyway.
 
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One last one...is there any noticeable difference between the 8‑core GPU and the 10‑core GPU for the tasks that I mentioned above?
 
vgolfoz said:
One last one...is there any noticeable difference between the 8‑core GPU and the 10‑core GPU for the tasks that I mentioned above?
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Very Few macOS program can utilise the GPU power of apple silicon, and daily applications are not one of them. You don’t need to worry too much about those mere 2 core differences. By the time GPU intensive application comes to Mac, you might as well upgrade anyway, and you will benefit more than ever.
 
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vgolfoz said:
Looking at getting the M2 Air. I mainly use my machine for the usual Office stuff and Adobe applications - Photoshop, Illustrator and Dreamweaver for the most part. Not super intensive photo editing in PS - mainly web type graphics etc.

I'll probably get the 512GB HD model...my question is, will it still work well with 8GB RAM? I know ideal world I'd get the 16GB RAM...just in the current environment, things are slightly tight.
Click to expand...

I would really try to get the 16 gig if you can. 8 should work fine and would be fine for two years or so but my thought is if you want to keep it for longer, spend the extra few hundred.
 
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I'm running CC apps all day long on my 'ultimate' M2. This is a beautiful machine; I've yet to regret spending the money for 24GB RAM and a 2TB SSD. Mine 'lives' docked to my ASD, and it's been a delightful combination so far ... absolutely no hiccups.
 
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