Macbook Air M2 - 8gb Memory enough?

[CalMin]

On a side note, doing a video call and having 2-3 office documents open on an 8GB windows machine is s l o w h e l l. But that’s just windows for ya….

This may be why the conventional wisdom keeps people thinking that 8GB is not enough RAM in 2023. I have a Windows desktop and stuffed it with 48GB to run Flight Sim. The machine came with 16GB out of the box and really needed more for it to feel punchy. RAM is RAM, but gig for gig, Apple silicon and MacOS are just better at handling things than x86 and Windows.

It has consistently amazed me that my 8GB M2 Air with 256GB SSD (i.e. the 'slow' one that is 'junk' and no-one should buy) can handle literally everything I throw at it. It is only used for email, browser, MS Office, iPhotos, light video and photo editing, etc. But it never slows down. I tried opening all the apps, and a stupid silly number of browser windows to bring it to it's knees one time, but it never slowed down. Some animations got a little choppy, memory pressure was red, and there was GB's of swap, but the machine responded to every input without lagging.


This is what the YouTubers and trolls don't tell you because it's all about benchmarks. Synthetic benchmarks are a good thing in that they allow for meaningful comparisons. BUT if your workflow is a normal workflow, then a faster machine won't make a difference. A Ferrari won't help me drive more quickly through my neighborhood. Sure its top speed benchmarks higher than a Prius, but if you're not using it to chase tenths around a racetrack then either one will get you to the supermarket just fine.

 

[Cricketman]

I debated this a lot too.

My perspective? The computer I bought in 2011 had 8gb of RAM. If felt really really weird to me to buy the same amount 12 years later. I’m sure there are differences in the type of RAM, and the software probably optimized RAM usage more, but my non-tech brain still felt weird about it.

8 gigs may be plenty for now… and maybe in 2 years too. But I think eventually it will show its age. Just bite the bullet and go for 16, and then you won’t ever think “what if?”. It’s $180, it sucks, it’s a rip off. But you probably won’t think about it after you charge the card… if 180$ is going to seriously hurt your finances I would hold off on buying the computer

 

[Algus]

This may be why the conventional wisdom keeps people thinking that 8GB is not enough RAM in 2023. I have a Windows desktop and stuffed it with 48GB to run Flight Sim. The machine came with 16GB out of the box and really needed more for it to feel punchy. RAM is RAM, but gig for gig, Apple silicon and MacOS are just better at handling things than x86 and Windows.

It has consistently amazed me that my 8GB M2 Air with 256GB SSD (i.e. the 'slow' one that is 'junk' and no-one should buy) can handle literally everything I throw at it. It is only used for email, browser, MS Office, iPhotos, light video and photo editing, etc. But it never slows down. I tried opening all the apps, and a stupid silly number of browser windows to bring it to it's knees one time, but it never slowed down. Some animations got a little choppy, memory pressure was red, and there was GB's of swap, but the machine responded to every input without lagging.


This is what the YouTubers and trolls don't tell you because it's all about benchmarks. Synthetic benchmarks are a good thing in that they allow for meaningful comparisons. BUT if your workflow is a normal workflow, then a faster machine won't make a difference. A Ferrari won't help me drive more quickly through my neighborhood. Sure its top speed benchmarks higher than a Prius, but if you're not using it to chase tenths around a racetrack then either one will get you to the supermarket just fine.

Yeah, hyperbole is rampant in the quest for clicks and views. Very rarely do a lot of reviews that evaluate the performance of a device actually discuss how that device functions in real world settings either. It's a shame. I ran an M1 Air base spec (which even in 2020 people were like "lol its so slow!") and it was an absolutely fantastic machine. Taking it to another level, I still have a 2012 Mac mini on my desk at home. Now it is certainly slower than an Apple silicon machine but it is also able to handle my workflow just fine with only a little hang time when apps are loading.

When the 15'' M2 Air came out, I went for the 16 GB/512 GB (ie "the minimum you need for it to even be useful!") and in day to day, I can't even tell a difference between how my M1 performed.

It's to bad because a lot of lower information people come to YouTube, come to Internet forums, etc. and they are all using for help because they don't spend time watching and reading all of this technical information and then they're told they need to spend many hundreds of dollars more than they actually do.

 

[StoneJack]

Yeah, hyperbole is rampant in the quest for clicks and views. Very rarely do a lot of reviews that evaluate the performance of a device actually discuss how that device functions in real world settings either. It's a shame. I ran an M1 Air base spec (which even in 2020 people were like "lol its so slow!") and it was an absolutely fantastic machine. Taking it to another level, I still have a 2012 Mac mini on my desk at home. Now it is certainly slower than an Apple silicon machine but it is also able to handle my workflow just fine with only a little hang time when apps are loading.

When the 15'' M2 Air came out, I went for the 16 GB/512 GB (ie "the minimum you need for it to even be useful!") and in day to day, I can't even tell a difference between how my M1 performed.

It's to bad because a lot of lower information people come to YouTube, come to Internet forums, etc. and they are all using for help because they don't spend time watching and reading all of this technical information and then they're told they need to spend many hundreds of dollars more than they actually do.

Yes, I also went with 16/512 for M1 MBA; after using it for a year, sold and bought M2 MBA, this time stock 8/256. Lesson learned, absolutely identical performance (m2 slightly faster overall).

 

[RyanC1384]

Do people do research anymore? Always asking the same questions…

Do some research and let us know what you find out...

 

[Isamilis]

I debated this a lot too.

My perspective? The computer I bought in 2011 had 8gb of RAM. If felt really really weird to me to buy the same amount 12 years later. I’m sure there are differences in the type of RAM, and the software probably optimized RAM usage more, but my non-tech brain still felt weird about it.

8 gigs may be plenty for now… and maybe in 2 years too. But I think eventually it will show its age. Just bite the bullet and go for 16, and then you won’t ever think “what if?”. It’s $180, it sucks, it’s a rip off. But you probably won’t think about it after you charge the card… if 180$ is going to seriously hurt your finances I would hold off on buying the computer

The problem is many people has to choose between 16gb RAM or 512gb SSD, and couldn't afford both. They're trapped to 16gb with limited storage and brought external SSD everywhere, which is funny due to they are actually just fine using 8gb and enjoy 512gb storage.

 

[CalMin]

The problem is many people has to choose between 8gb RAM or 512gb SSD, and couldn't afford both. They're trapped to 16gb with limited storage and brought external SSD everywhere, which is funny due to they are actually just fine using 8gb and enjoy 512gb storage.

I think this the reason that for the two default configurations avaliable in stores, Apple offers 8GB/256GB and 8GB/512GB. Most 'normal' computer users (i.e. the target market for the MB Air) will never notice the difference between a 16GB RAM and 8GB RAM machine and it would be a waste of money for them. At least with a larger SSD, they will be able to store more photos and documents which will prolong the life of the machine much more than 16GB RAM - (again for a normal user).

Most of the computer problems I see with family members and less tech-savvy friends is that they fill up their Mac with tons of files and run low on space. It's rare that I ever have to advise them to get a new machine with more RAM.

 

[ignatius345]

I tried opening all the apps, and a stupid silly number of browser windows to bring it to it's knees one time, but it never slowed down. Some animations got a little choppy, memory pressure was red, and there was GB's of swap, but the machine responded to every input without lagging.

This has largely been my experience with the base model M1 Air as well. If you're really interested in actually slowing it down, though, try having two or three user accounts logged in at the same time and use Fast User Switching to go between them. That's the one thing that makes my Air fairly unhappy for a few seconds.

(And no, I would not call this a "normal" workflow by any means -- I have a personal account, one for work, and a third I sometimes use as a distraction-free environment for writing.)

 

[Yebubbleman]

How many browswer tabs do you leave open at any one given time? If around 15 or less, 8GB should be fine. If not, get 16GB or more.

Do you close programs you are not using? If yes, 8GB might be fine. If not, get 16GB or more.

Will you have more than Messages, Mail, Safari/Chrome/Firefox/Edge/Opera/InsertOtherChromiumBroswerHere with more than around or exceeding around 15 browser tabs, Maps, Notes, any one or more Microsoft apps, give or take others, all open and running at the same time? Get 16GB or more.

RAM is how much the computer can comfortably juggle at once without having to use your SSD (which is slower). So, if you're not doing that much at once, it won't be a problem, but if you do, it will.

That said, you can't upgrade it after the fact and having it while not needing it is way less inconvenient than needing it and not having it.

 

[Yebubbleman]

I think this the reason that for the two default configurations avaliable in stores, Apple offers 8GB/256GB and 8GB/512GB.

No. Apple did that because storage is cheaper than RAM and they know that they can gouge you on a RAM upgrade because you have no choice but to pay for their RAM upfront.

 

[CalMin]

No. Apple did that because storage is cheaper than RAM and they know that they can gouge you on a RAM upgrade because you have no choice but to pay for their RAM upfront.

Respectfully, I have to disagree. True "gouging", as you put it, is charging people for RAM they don't need. The majority of M2 Air buyers will not be better served with 16GB RAM.

I was skeptical, but having had the 13" M2 Air8GB/256GB for over 6-months now, I am convinced that most people I know don't need more computer than this. I am talking about normal computer users, not tech-fiends like you and I, but people like my Mom, or my niece who needs a laptop for college, or my cousin, who needs a laptop for email, web, writing the occasional letter and spreadsheet.

With smartphones, the biggest problem that these people have is they take thousands of photos, but don't want to pay for iCloud every month. They back their pictures up to their laptop and then run out of SSD space and wonder why they can't upgrade MacOS. They run out of space long before they need to upgrade their RAM.

 

[pugxiwawa]

Most people don't need 16GB, 8GB is plenty. Even if on occasion the usage requires more ram, it would just be a little slower. It's really not a big deal.

 

[Yebubbleman]

Respectfully, I have to disagree. True "gouging", as you put it, is charging people for RAM they don't need. The majority of M2 Air buyers will not be better served with 16GB RAM.

I was skeptical, but having had the 13" M2 Air8GB/256GB for over 6-months now, I am convinced that most people I know don't need more computer than this. I am talking about normal computer users, not tech-fiends like you and I, but people like my Mom, or my niece who needs a laptop for college, or my cousin, who needs a laptop for email, web, writing the occasional letter and spreadsheet.

With smartphones, the biggest problem that these people have is they take thousands of photos, but don't want to pay for iCloud every month. They back their pictures up to their laptop and then run out of SSD space and wonder why they can't upgrade MacOS. They run out of space long before they need to upgrade their RAM.

I take issue with what I've quoted in bold. Because that assumes that I ONLY use my computers for high-end tasks and that I don't have my moments where I, like your mom or niece, or cousin, am just a basic computer user.

I own 5 M1 MacBook Air models that are all the base 8GB RAM/256GB SSD/7 GPU Core model; I also have a 2-port 24-inch iMac with those exact same specs. I own 2 M1 13-inch MacBook Pros and a couple of Mac minis; all with 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD (with one of them being 1TB) and 8 GPU cores. I will often be a basic computer user on the former. If you have Mail, Messages, Maps, Calendar, and any one other app and more than 15 browser tabs all open, your Mac will slow down noticeably on 8GB of RAM. I have this experience regularly and can comment on it firsthand.

As is the case with most Apple base models, it's an entry point. But, 8GB on any Mac with a $1100 or higher price tag in 2023 is price gouging.

 

[CalMin]

I take issue with what I've quoted in bold. Because that assumes that I ONLY use my computers for high-end tasks and that I don't have my moments where I, like your mom or niece, or cousin, am just a basic computer user.

I own 5 M1 MacBook Air models that are all the base 8GB RAM/256GB SSD/7 GPU Core model; I also have a 2-port 24-inch iMac with those exact same specs. I own 2 M1 13-inch MacBook Airs and a couple of Mac minis; all with 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD (with one of them being 1TB) and 8 GPU cores. I will often be a basic computer user on the former. If you have Mail, Messages, Maps, Calendar, and any one other app and more than 15 browser tabs all open, your Mac will slow down noticeably on 8GB of RAM. I have this experience regularly and can comment on it firsthand.

As is the case with most Apple base models, it's an entry point. But, 8GB on any Mac with a $1100 or higher price tag in 2023 is price gouging.

No offense was intended but, again, respectfully I disagree. I think that’s mostly because my experience with 8GB ram in the M2 Air is different to yours.

I just don’t observe the slow downs of which you speak no matter how hard I push the machine. I see memory pressure go up, but the machine doesn’t slow down. it’s what has impressed me most. It feels just as faat as my workforce M1 Pro which has 16gb ram.

I’m still recommending 8GB to my family and friends, but I will advise to get more storage if that’s what they need.

 

[Yebubbleman]

No offense was intended but, again, respectfully I disagree. I think that’s mostly because my experience with 8GB ram in the M2 Air is different to yours.

I just don’t observe the slow downs of which you speak no matter how hard I push the machine. I see memory pressure go up, but the machine doesn’t slow down. it’s what has impressed me most. It feels just as faat as my workforce M1 Pro which has 16gb ram.

I’m still recommending 8GB to my family and friends, but I will advise to get more storage if that’s what they need.

Recommend to your people whatever you want. 8GB is fine for basic needs that entail only having one or two applications open at once and a small amount of concurrent browser tabs open (I've found that the average user is a tab hoarder and that 8GB of RAM is not ideal for those use cases; but to each their own! ). Ironically, it is on the 8GB machines that I do most of my IT testing. It's when I attempt to use those machines the way I casually use computer that I start to feel the limits of 8GB of RAM. Furthermore, go price out any Dell or HP ultrabook and you'll find that 8GB of RAM at a $1100 price point is absurd.

 

[CalMin]

Recommend to your people whatever you want. 8GB is fine for basic needs that entail only having one or two applications open at once and a small amount of concurrent browser tabs open (I've found that the average user is a tab hoarder and that 8GB of RAM is not ideal for those use cases; but to each their own! ). Ironically, it is on the 8GB machines that I do most of my IT testing. It's when I attempt to use those machines the way I casually use computer that I start to feel the limits of 8GB of RAM. Furthermore, go price out any Dell or HP ultrabook and you'll find that 8GB of RAM at a $1100 price point is absurd.

If you’re cross shopping with Dell, you’re doing it wrong! 8Gb for Windows on x86 is unusable.

We can’t reconcile this. We’re clearly experiencing something different. My 8gb M2 MacBook Air basically doesn’t slow down under basic or even heavy normal usage. This has really surprised me because I bought it as a secondary computer for my den for light computing, but I found it handles everything I throw at it like butter. Do know that I can get memory pressure into the red quite easily, but the machine never slows or becomes unresponsive.

It seems that you’re finding the opposite i.e. you’re seeing the limits of 8Gb under normal situations. I have no explanation for that. I can get the animations to get choppy with stupid numbers of apps and tabs open, but never slow.

 

[StoneJack]

most people do not understand the difference between 8GB usage on a typical Windows machine and Apple's M chip. on Apple M1 or M2 8GB is just a part of overall, much larger VM, which also includes memory for graphic usage. The only difference is probably a speed, with physical RAM being fastest (and Apple uses very fast RAM), the rest of VM is based on the 256GB flash memory of the storage, which is a bit slower than RAM but still much faster than any conventional hard drives. Therefore, Mac M1/M2 can handle operations which require a lot of memory even with 8GB, just a tad slower. Increasing RAM to 16GB or 24GB will not change fundamentals of M chip computing, it will just increase a bit the data access speed. In that sense, having higher speed storage (512 vs 256) actually helps to increase overall speed of the machine. But even in stock 8/256 configuration, M chip will not be as slow as a typical Windows machine with same amount of RAM. I am too lazy to bring and cite all the data regarding the process, one can look up the data, if interested.

Thus I said that 8/256 is a most budget and 8/512 is actually a most efficient configuration. Of course, one can purchase 16, 24GB of RAM and 1 or 2TB of storage, but that will be not most budget configuration anymore. Difference between 8 and 16GB on Apple chip will be actually negligible on most operations and will be revealed mostly during video exporting, all other operations having similar speed.

As I said, I already had 16/512 M1 and 8/256 M2 macbooks and I found no difference in speed in day-to-day operations between the machines, with 8/256 m2 probably being actually a tad faster due to faster CPU and GPU.

 

[Isamilis]

most people do not understand the difference between 8GB usage on a typical Windows machine and Apple's M chip. on Apple M1 or M2 8GB is just a part of overall, much larger VM, which also includes memory for graphic usage. The only difference is probably a speed, with physical RAM being fastest (and Apple uses very fast RAM), the rest of VM is based on the 256GB flash memory of the storage, which is a bit slower than RAM but still much faster than any conventional hard drives. Therefore, Mac M1/M2 can handle operations which require a lot of memory even with 8GB, just a tad slower. Increasing RAM to 16GB or 24GB will not change fundamentals of M chip computing, it will just increase a bit the data access speed. In that sense, having higher speed storage (512 vs 256) actually helps to increase overall speed of the machine. But even in stock 8/256 configuration, M chip will not be as slow as a typical Windows machine with same amount of RAM. I am too lazy to bring and cite all the data regarding the process, one can look up the data, if interested.

Thus I said that 8/256 is a most budget and 8/512 is actually a most efficient configuration. Of course, one can purchase 16, 24GB of RAM and 1 or 2TB of storage, but that will be not most budget configuration anymore. Difference between 8 and 16GB on Apple chip will be actually negligible on most operations and will be revealed mostly during video exporting, all other operations having similar speed.

As I said, I already had 16/512 M1 and 8/256 M2 macbooks and I found no difference in speed in day-to-day operations between the machines, with 8/256 m2 probably being actually a tad faster due to faster CPU and GPU.

Well said.

 

[DallasCowboysFan]

Is it practical to add RAM or do you need to buy it with the computer, new?
Asking for a friend that bought his first MacBook last week.

 

[Hornby]

Is it practical to add RAM or do you need to buy it with the computer, new?
Asking for a friend that bought his first MacBook last week.

You can only buy it with the computer, new.

 

[Corefile]

8GB is fine usually. But, I'm thinking of some moments where they might want to do photoshop and multiple windows of office work, which may run into swap.

So who cares if it swaps? Why is that a problem?

 

[Mezelluf]

Is it practical to add RAM or do you need to buy it with the computer, new?
Asking for a friend that bought his first MacBook last week.

Unfortunately, you can't upgrade anything after buying a new Apple Silicon computer.

 

[hans1972]

How many browswer tabs do you leave open at any one given time? If around 15 or less, 8GB should be fine. If not, get 16GB or more.

Do you close programs you are not using? If yes, 8GB might be fine. If not, get 16GB or more.

Will you have more than Messages, Mail, Safari/Chrome/Firefox/Edge/Opera/InsertOtherChromiumBroswerHere with more than around or exceeding around 15 browser tabs, Maps, Notes, any one or more Microsoft apps, give or take others, all open and running at the same time? Get 16GB or more.

This is exactly the scenario where 8Gb of RAM on Apple Silicon will shine.

You don't need all those browser tabs and applications in memory at once. They will be swapped aggressively to disk and you'll not notice anything with maybe the exception of Chrome who is too memory hungry.

BTW, using swap is a good thing.

 

[hans1972]

8GB is fine usually. But, I'm thinking of some moments where they might want to do photoshop and multiple windows of office work, which may run into swap.

Which is a good thing.

A normal user will not notice swapping since Macs to a large degree do what I call pre-emptive swapping. It happens before you run out of memory so when the memory needs to be freed, it's already in the swap file.

 

[hans1972]

Recommend to your people whatever you want. 8GB is fine for basic needs that entail only having one or two applications open at once and a small amount of concurrent browser tabs open (I've found that the average user is a tab hoarder and that 8GB of RAM is not ideal for those use cases; but to each their own! ).

I don't see any slowdowns either with 8Gb of RAM and 256 SSD.

Maybe you're not good at using Mac's with little memory?