MacBook Air: 8G or 16GM Memory?

[Dave245]

RIP MBP
How much RAM did you have on that?
2-5 yrs from now you'll need 16GB is my prediction. You will probably manage with 8GB for now. But why?
You sound like a 'future proofing' guy if you had that MBP 7yrs.

Only you will know if it's worth it for you.
It's not a lot of extra money for 16GB, when the MBA is expensive anyway?
I can only speak from own experience, really. So does everybody else

I maxed it out at the time, which was 8GB, it served me very well over the years I used it through university and even my first few jobs

I was amazed that a computer could be that reliable (never had an issue) and that strong (it got used very heavily around university). Usually if I buy a new computer I like them to last, another point is my 2012 iMac, it still works great to this day and I’ve only recently thought about upgrading because I saw how great the 5K display was in store

I do also get a corporate discount, so the Ram upgrade would be £169.20 rather than the £180, the machine itself will save me about a couple of hundred £ that includes 512GB SSD and 16GB Ram, with that saving I was thinking of getting the Apple Care +

 

[maerz001]

It's not an investment, it's future proofing of quality things I buy, big difference!

Thats legit. When you keep it for many years it can make sense to go for higher ram.

But when you state somebody will get more money when he sells it 2years later its just false. And in that case of the OP 8GB would be just fine. For his wallet and for his use!

 

[EugW]

95% 8 GB is fine for me. 5% of the time it isn’t, and that was with High Sierra in 2017.

I got 16 GB, esp. since I tend to keep my laptops 4-5 years.

BTW, I bought my MacBook Pro with 2 GB. Now I have 8 GB in that machine. Even just for surfing and light usage, 4 GB is quite constraining, and 8 GB is preferred. For a main work machine, getting just 8 GB seems risky.

 

[Kimcha]

Guys you are crazy if you are seriously discouraging people from getting 16gb.

Here is what I am running right now:

This is pretty light usage. With about 10 tabs in safari.

Since Activity Monitor makes it really hard to see how much an app uses in memory in total with all of its sub-processes I exported the data to excel and made a pivot table.

You can see I am using over 12gb. Even if I didn't use Photoshop right now, I would still be at 9gb.

And sure, if I only had 8gb RAM, the OS would unload some stuff... But damn... why do you suggest people live on the RAM edge... at a time when RAM usage is going up significantly for many apps?

Skype just recently updated from a native app to an Electron app that is using 3-4 times more memory for example. This is going to continue happening over the years.

8 GB is going to cut it with light usage TODAY. You save $200 today, but in a few years you will need to spend another $1,500 for a new computer out of frustration.

If money is really tight, then yeah... get 8gb... But if you can spare it DEFINITELY go for 16gb and don't let people here discourage you.

 

[Caspavio]

Need some assistance making a simple, but important, decision. Do I go with the 8GB or 16GB memory? Here's some information about my computer usage...

• I don't do use any Pro-like apps (no video editing or things of that sort).
• Despite the above, I am a heavy computer user and am opening 50MB spreadsheets all day (which doesn't sound like a lot but they do take time to load and time to manipulate all that data).
• I currently use a late 2012 MacBook Pro (which is what the new MacBook Air is replacing).
• This is both my work and personal laptop.

Any thoughts, questions or feedback? I realize it's a small request for assistance but any and all replies are appreciated.
Cheers.

are you in finance? if there is a chance of the spreadsheets getting larger, then get 16gb, especially if you are working on multiple of them at once. otherwise, i think 8gb will be sufficient for your needs (see table below).

i saw many advice here talk about 16gb for future proofing. it isnt wrong, the OS may need more ram in future, in particular chrome gobbles ram. im just not so sure about it because that keyboard looks iffy, so idk how many years you can get out of that.

 

[Lioness~]

I maxed it out at the time, which was 8GB, it served me very well over the years I used it through university and even my first few jobs

I was amazed that a computer could be that reliable (never had an issue) and that strong (it got used very heavily around university). Usually if I buy a new computer I like them to last, another point is my 2012 iMac, it still works great to this day and I’ve only recently thought about upgrading because I saw how great the 5K display was in store

I do also get a corporate discount, so the Ram upgrade would be £169.20 rather than the £180, the machine itself will save me about a couple of hundred £ that includes 512GB SSD and 16GB Ram, with that saving I was thinking of getting the Apple Care +

If you had 8GB then, it seems reasonable that you upgrade to 16GB for the next period.
Apple Care + isn't free, it adds to the costs. So there I understand your hesitation.
I wont buy it this time. I had it with my last MBA, and MBP, and had no use for it.
No accidents with my iPadAir2 the last 4yrs either, just a aging battery now.

My home insurance covers a lot for electronic. But I'll call my 'guy' to check with him tomorrow.
I had AppleCare on my iMac 27" however, as I don't tend to have a car all the time. So pickup when it had use of service the very few times I've needed it has been great.
Now AC is out, so I hope it will stay good until it will be time to buy a new one in 2-4 yrs
It's better to buy a lasting portable now, as I will move around more the coming yrs.

 

[Dave245]

If you had 8GB then, it seems reasonable that you upgrade to 16GB for the next period.
Apple Care + isn't free, it adds to the costs. So there I understand your hesitation.
I wont buy it this time. I had it with my last MBA, or MBP, and had no use for it.
No accidents with my iPadAir the last 4yrs either, just a aging battery now.

My home insurance covers a lot for electronic. But I'll call my 'guy' to check with him tomorrow.
I had AppleCare on my iMac 27" however, as I don't tend to have a car all the time. So pickup when it had use of service the very few times I've needed it has been great.
Now AC is out, so I hope it will stay good until it will be time to buy a new one in 2-4 yrs
It's better to buy a lasting portable now, as I will move around more the coming yrs.

I didn’t know that house insurance covered laptops? I’ll have to check that one as I may be covered as well and may not need Apple care +

It’s £229 here in the U.K. for Apple Care, if I don’t need it I won’t bother i tend look after my products anyway, every iPhone (3GS, 4S, 5S, 6 Plus, 7 Plus and now X) iPad (iPad 3, iPad Air 2, iPad Pro 2015 and now iPad 2017) along with my Apple Watches have all been ok with no problems, the only reason i had Apple Care with my iMac 2012 was because it was free at the time of being a student and having a student discount. I might just save the £229

 

[trifid]

I’d prioritize 512gb of SSD over RAM, it’s a huge pain running out of space, and the ssd is soldered.

That 8gb is aided by the ridiculously fast NVMe so it shouldn’t be a huge issue like in the past when we had mechanical drives and swapping bringing everything down to a crawl.

 

[EugW]

I’d prioritize 512gb of SSD over RAM, it’s a huge pain running out of space, and the ssd is soldered.

That 8gb is aided by the ridiculously fast NVMe so it shouldn’t be a huge issue like in the past when we had mechanical drives and swapping bringing everything down to a crawl.

If you need 512 GB or if you think you might need 512 GB then sure. However, I don't think that's a good reason to scrimp on RAM.

Plus, you can extend the storage with external drives. You can't extend RAM with external drives.

 

[Dave245]

If you need 512 GB or if you think you might need 512 GB then sure. However, I don't think that's a good reason to scrimp on RAM.

Plus, you can extend the storage with external drives. You can't extend RAM with external drives.

Or add more iCloud storage, at this point it’s so cheap, here in the U.K. it’s £0.79 a month for 50GB or £2.49p a month for 200GB, iCloud storage tops out at 2TB which is still only £6.99 per month that is a lot of storage! Personally I use the 50GB option and I only use about 12.5GB of that at the moment.

I’ve decided that after the reviews and hands on videos start to drop, I will be buying a 16GB, 512 SSD version

I just saw on Twitter that Walt Mossberg was at the Apple event, he seems impressed with the new Air

https://twitter.com/waltmossberg/status/1057346391381557248

 

[Big Apple]

5 years ago when I bought my MBP, the base model was 4GB/128GB. It was definitely all I needed at the time, especially since at that point I had only been buying much cheaper windows laptops every year and it never even crossed my mind that I might be using the same laptop for 5 years. My husband who is in IT, recommended I upgrade up to the 8GB/256GB "just in case" and well here I am, only now finally looking to upgrade (and that is mainly because I want to switch to something lighter than this 3.5lb MBP). My current MacBook still runs great 5 years later and 8GB RAM has been more than fine, but I'll be upgrading to 16GB/512GB this time too "just in case".

 

[[AUT] Thomas]

Generally, go with 16GB of RAM unless you are sure you're OK with 8GB. 16GB is currently becoming standard for a decent machines, however 8GB will be "enough" to get most jobs done.
I will buy the Air as light travel notebook so I can do basic stuff a tablet can't do (which sadly is mostly a limitation of iOS) but without sacrificing on the screen or battery runtime. As it also won't be my primary machine, I'll stick with the cheapest version of it. Imho, for heavier load, I'd seriously consider the Pro instead, as its CPU will better handle the load.
Especially if it's going to be your primary machine for the next few years 16GB are a no-brainer, as well as at least 256GB storage. Keep in mind RAM can be used for caching/prefetching as well, increasing performance even if it is not being actively used by an App. 16GB may also become crucial if you ever happen to require a virtual machine (Windows on Parallels).

 

[stratokaster]

That 8gb is aided by the ridiculously fast NVMe so it shouldn’t be a huge issue like in the past when we had mechanical drives and swapping bringing everything down to a crawl.

That was my reasoning when I got my current nTB MBP, however the laptop still begins to stutter noticeably when it runs out of RAM and starts swapping.

I also don't think 8GB is enough if you're doing heavy lifting in Excel. I have to use Excel every day at work, and I'm working with small- to medium-sized Excel files (10s of thousands of rows at most), but they have elaborate filtering/condition matching/external sources with automatic updates etc. When I had just 8GB of RAM in my work machine, it was a bit painful to be honest, but when I persuaded our IT dept to upgrade me to 16GB, things became much smoother.

 

[ssl0408]

5 years ago when I bought my MBP, the base model was 4GB/128GB. It was definitely all I needed at the time, especially since at that point I had only been buying much cheaper windows laptops every year and it never even crossed my mind that I might be using the same laptop for 5 years. My husband who is in IT, recommended I upgrade up to the 8GB/256GB "just in case" and well here I am, only now finally looking to upgrade (and that is mainly because I want to switch to something lighter than this 3.5lb MBP). My current MacBook still runs great 5 years later and 8GB RAM has been more than fine, but I'll be upgrading to 16GB/512GB this time too "just in case".

I’m leaning towards those specs but I’m concerned about the weaker processor used in the Air. I might wait to see if there’s a March refresh of the non Touch Bar MacBook Pro.

 

[raqball]

Well... In the case of the Air I doubt many are going to be doing the heavy lifting since it's a Y processor.. Is 16GB needed on an Air with a Y processor? Probably not for most...

I get a kick out of the 'future proofing' comments. People have been saying for years 8 was getting phased out and you need 16.. OS's are getting better not worse as are many apps in RAM management...

I think 8GB on the Air will be more than enough for 95% of buyers... It's a fanless Y processor so what exactly are people planning on doing with this machine that requires 16GB?

What happens all the time in threads like this are people justify their purchase...

If I were to order the Air, I'd be content with 8GB,....

 

[Dimwhit]

For what it's worth, I have an early 2014 MacBook Air with 4GB RAM. It's running Mohave just fine. I'm not a major power user, but I've done some light photoshop, plenty of excel, etc. and I still love this thing. No problems with it.

 

[stratokaster]

Yes, it's a Y-series CPU, but at least in benchmarks it seems to be on par with Core i7 in 2015 MBP 13" and with Core i5 in 2016 nTB MBP. For what it's worth, it benchmarks just slightly lower than 2012 quad-core MBP 15" (baseline model). YouTube is full of videos of people using their 12" MacBooks to edit 4K video in Final Cut and run gigs with Logic and Mainstage. I wouldn't dismiss the Air as a glorified typewriter only because it has a Y-series CPU. And even a glorified typewriter would run better with more RAM

 

[raqball]

I wouldn't dismiss the Air as a glorified typewriter only because it has a Y-series CPU. And even a glorified typewriter would run better with more RAM

Who said it's a glorified typewriter? And no, a glorified typewriter would not benefit from more RAM unless you don't understand what RAM is and does...

Sure some will push it beyond it's intended purpose and that 5% or so who will made a terrible purchasing decision in my opinion. If someone is taxing the machine to the point where they need 16GB RAM then they probably bought the wrong computer to start.

But yes, I had a 12" rMP with the m5 back in 2016 and used it to edit high def GoPro video. It was slow but it did get the job done. Was it the right machine for someone who will edit video on a consistent basis? Nope! Plopping 16GB of RAM into it would not have helped at all..

The Air is a nice machine that serves a purpose. Understand it's purpose and what the use case will be and decide from there if you go with the Air or a Pro...

I highly doubt there are very many who'd need 16GB or RAM in a Y based machine.. Specific use cases? Sure but they are the minority..

 

[Kimcha]

I highly doubt there are very many who'd need 16GB or RAM in a Y based machine.. Specific use cases? Sure but they are the minority..

More than 15 tabs, a bit of excel and other apps running in the background will benefit from 16gb.

And for your use-case... what about someone who needs good battery life and a portable mac 95% of the time, but once in a while wants to add some videos... THAT person will benefit from 16gb... In day to day life he won't have to worry about closing apps and in the few cases where the person wants to push the machine, he will be able to.

If someone is super short on cash, sure go with 8gb... Everyone else should get 16.

 

[raqball]

If someone is super short on cash, sure go with 8gb... Everyone else should get 16.

Disagree.... The Air serves a specific purpose which should be evident by the Y processor and the dim (300 nit screen) and power use is not it.....

Most (95% - my guess) will get by just fine on the Air with 8. Spending the extra $200 for more RAM that will hang out and do nothing - other than give you a warn and fuzzy feeling when you look at system stats is okay I guess if a warm and fuzzy feeling is what someone is after...

It's not always about people being broke bums who can't afford the $200....... It's about not flushing $$$ down the toilet for something that's not needed....

If someone needs 16GB of RAM then they have probably chosen the wrong computer.. Are there some use cases even on the Air where 16 would be preferred? Sure but like I said, they will be in the minority...

 

[Kimcha]

Disagree.... The Air serves a specific purpose which should be evident by the Y processor and the dim (300 nit screen) and power use is not it.....

Most (95% - my guess) will get by just fine on the Air with 8. Spending the extra $200 for more RAM that will hang out and do nothing - other than give you a warn and fuzzy feeling when you look at system stats is okay I guess if a warm and fuzzy feeling is what someone is after...

It's not always about people being broke bums who can't afford the $200....... It's about not flushing $$$ down the toilet for something that's not needed....

If someone needs 16GB of RAM then they have probably chosen the wrong computer.. Are there some use cases even on the Air where 16 would be preferred? Sure but like I said, they will be in the minority...

I showed you a break down of ram usage here. A handful of tabs and a few productivity apps used 9gb. VERY light editing of a few images in photoshop added another 3gb. That's TODAY.

This is a totally reasonable use-case for the macbook air. It's not pro... And it is only barely usable on 8gb.

Using 10-20 tabs in a browser + a bunch of other apps is also totally reasonable.

Everyone will benefit from 16gb. Sure, many people won't need ALL 16gb.

But even if they only need 10gb and only have 8gb it's an issue. Especially if they are buying a computer they are going to keep for 3 or more years.

 

[auxbuss]

More than 15 tabs, a bit of excel and other apps running in the background will benefit from 16gb.

I have 16Gb MBP here. To test your assertion, I loaded the following: browser (40 tabs); Airmail; Numbers (large multi-tabbed spreadsheet); Pages (five typical docs); Sublime Text (20 tabs); Scrivener (120k-word novel + images, etc.); Stellarium (memory hungry); Scapple (large doc); Aeon Timeline (huge history of the world timeline); macOS Dictionary.

Edit: Forgot to add login apps: Moom; PopClip; Flux
Edit: Also, redis database

That lot is just under 8Gb (with <2Gb wired).
Edit: I rebooted and loaded the above. 6.6Gb Memory used (1.4 wired).

So, only there or there abouts with all the above loaded would you begin to benefit from >8Gb memory. (Usual caveats about having some memory head space for working apps, etc.) Also, once >8Gb is needed, macOS will start moving things to swap. SSD swap is fast, so unless you are cycling through all you apps a lot of the time – which would be strange – you probably/might not notice.

I'm probably going to by the MBA – as a spare, because my old spare died recently. I see no reason why I would need >8Gb memory.

 

[StellarVixen]

We are in 2018, almost in 2019 actually, and RAM requirements are only gonna increase, not decrease further.

If I was in for a MB Air, I would go for 16 GB, and never look back.

 

[raqball]

I have 16Gb MBP here. To test your assertion, I loaded the following: browser (40 tabs); Airmail; Numbers (large multi-tabbed spreadsheet); Pages (five typical docs); Sublime Text (20 tabs); Scrivener (120k-word novel + images, etc.); Stellarium (memory hungry); Mindnode (~1,000 node mindmap); Scapple (large doc); Aeon Timeline (huge history of the world timeline); macOS Dictionary.

That lot is just under 8Gb (with <2Gb wired). (Without a reboot, I can't tell if any of the 6Gb cached file are from earlier usage.)

So, only there or there abouts with all the above loaded would you begin to benefit from >8Gb memory. (Usual caveats about having some memory head space for working apps, etc.) Also, once >8Gb is needed, macOS will start moving things to swap. SSD swap is fast, so unless you are cycling through all you apps a lot of the time – which would be strange – you probably/might not notice.

I'm probably going to by the MBA – as a spare, because my old spare died recently. I see no reason why I would need >8Gb memory.

Agree!

It's really about people self-justifying their purchase decision.. There was a thread a while back where the OP was a student, described what would be considered light usage by anyone standard and that thread was bombarded by the 'future proofing' and justifying their own purchase crowd. It was pretty funny seeing people defend their 16GB RAM recommendation to this user....

I am on a Pixelbook right now with 8GB of RAM. I just opened 100 chrome tabs, 5 linux programs and 5 play store apps.... RAM usage? Currently chillin at 6 used a 2 free.... Sure it's a Chromebook but considering Chrome is a RAM hog, and the linux aps are taxing the system, I'd say all is good

How often am I going to use a machine in this manner? Never! People can come up with all kinds of wild scenarios to justify more RAM but is it practical? Probably not... If that's their normal usage then they've chosen the wrong computer to start...

My .02

We are in 2018, almost in 2019 actually, and RAM requirements are only gonna increase, not decrease further.

If I was in for a MB Air, I would go for 16 GB, and never look back.

That exact same argument was used 3-4 years ago and RAM management has gotten better, not worse.... OS's, programs and apps have gotten much better at RAM usage and will probably continue to do so...

I don't disagree that some need 16GB or more but if they do is the Air with a Y processor and a 617 GPU the best choice?

 

[Kimcha]

I have 16Gb MBP here. To test your assertion, I loaded the following: browser (40 tabs); Airmail; Numbers (large multi-tabbed spreadsheet); Pages (five typical docs); Sublime Text (20 tabs); Scrivener (120k-word novel + images, etc.); Stellarium (memory hungry); Mindnode (~1,000 node mindmap); Scapple (large doc); Aeon Timeline (huge history of the world timeline); macOS Dictionary.

That lot is just under 8Gb (with <2Gb wired).
Edit: I rebooted and loaded the above. 6.6Gb Memory used (1.4 wired).

Well, let me counter that with my usage:
6 tabs in safari, 6 in opera. A few productivity apps... 12GB.

OS's, programs and apps have gotten much better at RAM usage and will probably continue to do so...

This is wrong. Apps RAM requirements will become higher. usage will become higher, because Electron apps are becoming more and more popular. Skype recently switched from a native app to that framework and the memory requirements have gone up by 3-4x.

Here I am quoting myself:

Always get the max, because it’s not upgradable.

Software is using more and more RAM.

A lot of apps nowadays use the Electeon framework to create cross-platform apps. These are not “real” apps, but instead web-apps that run in a special version of chrome.

But each one of these apps is running its own chrome with all the crap it requires.

Some apps that use these frameworks are Skype, Spotify, slack and many more.

If you, like many, run these three apps you already run three versions of chrome. Each one using at least 400mb of ram.

Using this framework means developers can use only one code-base and support Mac, windows and Linux. It saves them A LOT of money at the expense of your RAM.

This will become only more common. So even though 8gn may be enough today, likely won’t be in a few years because of this.