Mac Studio -- 32 or 64Gb of RAM?

[Rafael Santos]

Finally, they're on sale in Brazil! I'm going to order one Mac Studio with the max processor, 10 core CPU/24 core GPU/16 core NE but will add a 1TB SSD.

I was thinking about future-proofing it and buying the 64GB memory version. I can do that or add a 2TB SSD for the same price.

I am using a late 2013 iMac 27" (with 24Gb RAM, 1Tb SSD) for some development, editing HD videos, etc.

Do you all think that the 32 additional Gb of RAM will be useful or should I go with the additional 1Tb of SSD? I have plenty of external hard drives.

 

[fcracer]

Go with more RAM. You can always run a TB external drive, but you can’t expand the RAM.

 

[F-Train]

Finally, they're on sale in Brazil! I'm going to order one Mac Studio with the max processor, 10 core CPU/24 core GPU/16 core NE but will add a 1TB SSD.

I was thinking about future-proofing it and buying the 64GB memory version. I can do that or add a 2TB SSD for the same price.

I am using a late 2013 iMac 27" (with 24Gb RAM, 1Tb SSD) for some development, editing HD videos, etc.

Do you all think that the 32 additional Gb of RAM will be useful or should I go with the additional 1Tb of SSD? I have plenty of external hard drives.

32GB of memory is more than enough for high definition video. Unless you're doing things that have a high demand for short-term memory, 64GB is major overkill.

There are a fair number of people in the Mac Studio threads who are engaging in serious memory inflation. I think that it's because the Mac Studio comes with a minimum of 32GB, and all of a sudden that's been turned into some kind of minimum for some people.

There are legions of people editing high definition video on 16GB of RAM, let alone 32GB. I would venture that only a minuscule percentage of people who are running successful YouTube channels, including people who are releasing videos in 4K, are using a computer with 64GB of memory.

 

[ixxx69]

Do you all think that the 32 additional Gb of RAM will be useful or should I go with the additional 1Tb of SSD? I have plenty of external hard drives.

@F-Train states it really well.

I would add that editing video can use up (temporarily) gobs of space when working on a video project, so the 2TB SSD may prove a nice convenience to have rather than immediately having to add an external SSD to your system.

 

[F-Train]

@F-Train states it really well.

I would add that editing video can use up (temporarily) gobs of space when working on a video project, so the 2TB SSD may prove a nice convenience to have rather than immediately having to add an external SSD to your system.

Your comment about storage reflects some the thinking when I was configuring my own Studio Mac.

@Rafael Santos may be interested in this post, and the one two down from it, which explain the thinking for the configuration in my signature. I use a Blackmagic Cinema Camera and edit 4K video from it with Final Cut and DaVinci Resolve, which the post also addresses: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-for-pickup-on-march-18.2337388/post-30991854

I have no doubt whatever that 32GB of memory is more than enough for his purposes (I chose 64GB of memory for the reason stated in the post, which is unrelated to video), and in his place I would also be inclined to skip the increase in graphics cores.

 

[ewu]

go for 128GB ram,
32GB is too small, 64GB is just beginning.

 

[glenthompson]

Have you looked at memory performance in Activity Monitor on your current Mac? How does that 24gb fare? If you often get into the yellow, it’s possible that 64 might be a better choice. On my MacBook Air the 8gb occasionally gets into the yellow with 8gb without a lot of apps running at one time. That’s why I went with 16 on my iMac. Never any memory pressure issues.

How long do you expect to hang onto the Studio? That could play a part in the decision. Somebody that swaps computers every couple of years will see things differently than someone that keeps it for 5-7 years or more.

If this was a laptop, I would definitely opt for more SSD over memory since external drives are a pain on laptops. For a desktop, it’s easy to add more storage.

To paraphrase the “can’t be too thin or too rich” quote, you can’t have too much ram or too much disk space.

 

[ashman70]

32GB should be more than enough.

 

[darngooddesign]

Do you all think that the 32 additional Gb of RAM will be useful or should I go with the additional 1Tb of SSD? I have plenty of external hard drives.

I kind of feel like if you don't already know that you will benefit from 64GB RAM, you likely wont.

If you are fine using external drives, then just keep doing that because 1TB is plenty or the OS, apps, and RAM Swap.

So unless you really anticipate a change in workload, or the extra costs aren't a big deal for you, save the RAM and SSD money. Put it towards upgrading your computer in five years.

 

[mcnallym]

I went with a base studio so 512gb ssd and 32gb memory.

However I have also bought a sonnet enclosure along with highpoint card with 4 ssd slots that populated with 2 x 1TB WD Black and 2 x 2TB WD Black for working Storage.

The 512gb is just OS and Apps.

Am replacing a hackintosh that z390 i9900k and sapphire pulse rx580 so as close to 2019 iMac, as could be. However slow down, Samsung 970evo and opencore with newer Mac OS then figured would swap.

Even when video editing and encoding at same time then never left green on the memory pressure.

However is 1080 video that working with.

 

[cinder]

Personally, I went with 64GB because much of my work is in Figma + Slack and I run two Chrome instances (work and personal) which means these apps are devouring tons and tons of memory (Figma and Slack are both Electron apps so they are basically additional Chrome instances). I had 64GB on my old 27" i5 iMac and that was plenty, but previous to that i was running into issues, and my current M1 iMac is not cutting it with 16GB.

I'll be the first to admit that I have way too many tabs open but I'm just being realistic about the type of user I am.

 

[ronm99]

If you are planning on keeping your computer for a long time, then my advice is to always focus on RAM upgrades over everything else. The CPU falls behind newer machines gradually over time, but when a computer starts to run out of RAM it hits a wall and is no longer useful.

But if you like to upgrade your computers after 3-4 years, then get what you need now, and as others have said, 32GB is almost definitely enough.

 

[armhol]

Your comment about storage reflects some the thinking when I was configuring my own Studio Mac.

@Rafael Santos may be interested in this post, and the one two down from it, which explain the thinking for the configuration in my signature. I use a Blackmagic Cinema Camera and edit 4K video from it with Final Cut and DaVinci Resolve, which the post also addresses: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-for-pickup-on-march-18.2337388/post-30991854

I have no doubt whatever that 32GB of memory is more than enough for his purposes (I chose 64GB of memory for the reason stated in the post, which is unrelated to video), and in his place I would also be inclined to skip the increase in graphics cores.

@F-Train, I'm about to pull the trigger on a Studio too and have the same quandary over memory vs SSD storage. My current iMac has a 3.12TB drive and I'm using 2.33TB of it. I was thinking of configuring the Studio to have 2TB SSD and offload not often used data to an external storage drive.
My question(s) to you is, if you don't mind; which enclosure are you using to house your two 2TB Samsung 980 Pro's? Is it easy to configure the external drive to be the place that MacOS looks for the user folder? I mean automatically, rather than having the navigate to it when saving/opening files etc? Is it as fast as the internal storage?
Thanks.

 

[pshufd]

I have the base studio. If I had it to do over again, and I could get it at the store, I would have gone with 1 TB, 64 GB, 32 GPU cores. Or would have picked up an Ultra if they sold them at my store. My current workload is using up to 24 GB of RAM but I'm running a bunch of things on another computer right now. I'm also using about 80% GPU. Additional space would be a nice to have though I plan to add a 2 TB external drive soon. I can live with this for now though. I did not want to wait for BTO.

 

[rorysky]

importance: memory > ssd > cpu

 

[designerdave72]

I have just pushed the button on an M1 Max 10-core CPU, 32-core GPU with 64gb and 1TB. For 8 years I’ve been using a late 2014 iMac with 32gb of maxed out memory which, on an Intel, is not enough with the latest bloated apps.

If I was able to upgrade to a 2020 i9 iMac when I had the chance then I would’ve bought 128gb. My urge with the new spec was to buy the Ultra with 128gb but there’s no way I can justify spending the ridiculous amount of £4799. Some people may need that though so it’s all about accommodating for your computing needs.

 

[Shazaam!]

Finally, they're on sale in Brazil! I'm going to order one Mac Studio with the max processor, 10 core CPU/24 core GPU/16 core NE but will add a 1TB SSD.

I was thinking about future-proofing it and buying the 64GB memory version. I can do that or add a 2TB SSD for the same price.

I am using a late 2013 iMac 27" (with 24Gb RAM, 1Tb SSD) for some development, editing HD videos, etc.

Do you all think that the 32 additional Gb of RAM will be useful or should I go with the additional 1Tb of SSD? I have plenty of external hard drives.

This is what Studio 32GB of RAM memory pressure for normal usage looks like. Unlikely to ever need more. Buy a 2TB SSD instead.

 

[pshufd]

I have just pushed the button on an M1 Max 10-core CPU, 32-core GPU with 64gb and 1TB. For 8 years I’ve been using a late 2014 iMac with 32gb of maxed out memory which, on an Intel, is not enough with the latest bloated apps.

If I was able to upgrade to a 2020 i9 iMac when I had the chance then I would’ve bought 128gb. My urge with the new spec was to buy the Ultra with 128gb but there’s no way I can justify spending the ridiculous amount of £4799. Some people may need that though so it’s all about accommodating for your computing needs.

Sounds like my setup, maxed 2014 iMac 27 + Mac Studio Max. I would have preferred 64/1 but will make do with the base model. I added a 2 TB external SSD and a 500 GB external SSD so it is now the home NAS. One thing about the Studio if you're upgrading from other Apple hardware is that it's really smooth.

 

[southerndoc]

I don't think anyone who gets 64GB will ever doubt their decision.

 

[designerdave72]

It's a shame they didn't offer the Max with a 96gb memory option 🤷‍♂️

 

[hpucker99]

This is what Studio 32GB of RAM memory pressure for normal usage looks like. Unlikely to ever need more. Buy a 2TB SSD instead.

View attachment 2114638

Shazaam!, what program gives you this graph?

 

[Shazaam!]

iStat Menus

 

[hpucker99]

iStat Menus

Thanks.

 

[lie2me]

For comparison on RAM pressure and Istat.

I have an M1 Mac Mini 16GB and 2TB and dual monitors running. Istat menu is showing that I am hitting peaks of 50% memory pressure with all the apps that I run simultaneously - no lone video editing. When I hit 50% memory pressure, the M1 Mac Mini is dog slow. Spinning beach balls occur occasionally. The memory swap space seems high. I would avoid a Mac Mini with only 16GB for sure now. If I had 32GB, theoretically I might drop those peaks down to 25% memory pressure. 2TB I think should be a minimum for an SSD these days. If you are running close to full on an SSD, the errasures and rewrites to flash memory are going to increase significantly. One thing that kills an SSD more quickly is the errase and rewrite cycles. With more headroom in an SSD, particulalry those soldered down, they will wear out more slowly. My ideal system would be 64gb Ram and 4tb Flash SSD but it is prohibitively expensive with a Mac. Probably overkill for my purposes. My 02 cents. External flash is available so my next option would be 64g Ram, 2tb internal (apps, virtual memory), and 2tb external data.

 

[Fishrrman]

32gb is "enough", unless you have a specific use case that requires more.

I say, get 32gb of RAM and a 1tb SSD.