Macbook Air M2 - 8gb Memory enough?

[vivek28]

Base 15 here. This thing is solid in everyday tasks. I do Safari upto 10-15 tabs, chrome for work tabs with outlook and teams. Some coding in java, browser QA Automation, spotify podcasts, excel sheets and vlc movie playback. Dont do any photo or video edits yet.

A good general computing device. I had stopped looking at activity monitor and enjoying the Mac instead. If any upgrade needed be in future, will get some M4 or M5 ehh.

 

[Corefile]

Base 15 here.

You coming from a 13"? Can you compare/contrast on screen size, if so?

I had stopped looking at activity monitor and enjoying the Mac instead.

This. It's like running benchmarks and procrastinating instead of just using for your needs.

 

[vivek28]

You coming from a 13"? Can you compare/contrast on screen size, if so?

contrast better than m1 air, seems at par with 13 m2.

but size difference lets you enjoy content more on 15.

 

[James Godfrey]

I have pondered this question time and time again is 16GB of RAM worth it… and for the vast majority no it isn’t.

Many will always default to recommend 16GB RAM without hesitation, this is an old Intel habit… and I can pretty much guarantee had apple silicon not have happened it would be very likely all new macs would be coming with 16GB RAM base.

However, with Apple silicon, I truly feel like 8GB feels more like 16GB in real world usage, the memory swap on these new machines is so fast most would even tell if it was swapping or not.

Personally if your not a super intense user, I would always opt for the 512GB SSD over the 16GB of RAM because it brings with it far more benefits for the typical use case… more storage and a faster SSD speed are two things which are more likely to have an effect on your generally day to day usage of the machine over a RAM upgrade.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

I have pondered this question time and time again is 16GB of RAM worth it… and for the vast majority no it isn’t.

Many will always default to recommend 16GB RAM without hesitation, this is an old Intel habit… and I can pretty much guarantee had apple silicon not have happened it would be very likely all new macs would be coming with 16GB RAM base.

However, with Apple silicon, I truly feel like 8GB feels more like 16GB in real world usage, the memory swap on these new machines is so fast most would even tell if it was swapping or not.

Personally if your not a super intense user, I would always opt for the 512GB SSD over the 16GB of RAM because it brings with it far more benefits for the typical use case… more storage and a faster SSD speed are two things which are more likely to have an effect on your generally day to day usage of the machine over a RAM upgrade.

I have a 2018 i5 Mini that I bumped up to 32GB of memory. I fell for the, 8GB isn't enough, you need at least 16GB. I went with 32GB because after I was convinced of the 16GB config, I figured I wasn't in the mood of going thru the hassle of opening up the machine a 2nd time to upgrade it again.

So this time, I decided to buck the trend and go with the base model. I was able to buy it with the edu price of $499 and I had $65 in store credit. So now I have an i5 with 32GB of memory and the faster dual 128GB SSD array and the base M2 Mini with the slower SSD array.

So here's what happened. My M2 base Mini is twice as fast as the i5 Mini with 4x the RAM. It boots 50% faster and it launches apps 50% faster on average. I can have multiple browsers open and a few other apps and "ONLY" twice did it create a swap file of around 250MB. Ninety percent of the time, memory is compressed and speed and response of the Mini, is NEVER a problem.

So when it's time to upgrade, instead of losing 90% value of the memory upgrade, I can just trade in the M2 Mini for the next base Mini in 4-5 years.

 

[Hornby]

I have pondered this question time and time again is 16GB of RAM worth it… and for the vast majority no it isn’t.

Many will always default to recommend 16GB RAM without hesitation, this is an old Intel habit… and I can pretty much guarantee had apple silicon not have happened it would be very likely all new macs would be coming with 16GB RAM base.

However, with Apple silicon, I truly feel like 8GB feels more like 16GB in real world usage, the memory swap on these new machines is so fast most would even tell if it was swapping or not.

Personally if your not a super intense user, I would always opt for the 512GB SSD over the 16GB of RAM because it brings with it far more benefits for the typical use case… more storage and a faster SSD speed are two things which are more likely to have an effect on your generally day to day usage of the machine over a RAM upgrade.

I think you’ve nailed it. I’ve gone from always getting more RAM (for thirty years) but I made an exception on two of three silicon macs and have to say, 98% of the time I see no difference from the one with more RAM.

I’m not a heavy-duty user (but do some basic video editing and run Affinity apps) and just think the 8GB works like a charm. I did get the 512 SSD on my M2 13 Air, but mostly because it’s going to be my only machine soon and I like having all my photos there.

I had an Apple IIc in 1983, a Mac in 1988, then starting in 1993 I have had so many Macs I can’t even count. I’ve always chased and yearned for more storage, more RAM, faster chip, faster modem to handle faster dialup, etc. But now, I feel like we’re into splitting hairs and freaking out that a video render task will take 12% longer with 8GB RAM (even though you only do renders once a month so you lose 38 seconds because it’s slower).

If you are a user doing pro-level stuff ALL the time, it’s a different story where “time is money” but I can’t help but think most people are not in that situation.

It’s amazing to use the M2 MBA with “only” 8GB of RAM.

 

[Hornby]

I have a 2018 i5 Mini that I bumped up to 32GB of memory. I fell for the, 8GB isn't enough, you need at least 16GB. I went with 32GB because after I was convinced of the 16GB config, I figured I wasn't in the mood of going thru the hassle of opening up the machine a 2nd time to upgrade it again.

So this time, I decided to buck the trend and go with the base model. I was able to buy it with the edu price of $499 and I had $65 in store credit. So now I have an i5 with 32GB of memory and the faster dual 128GB SSD array and the base M2 Mini with the slower SSD array.

So here's what happened. My M2 base Mini is twice as fast as the i5 Mini with 4x the RAM. It boots 50% faster and it launches apps 50% faster on average. I can have multiple browsers open and a few other apps and "ONLY" twice did it create a swap file of around 250MB. Ninety percent of the time, memory is compressed and speed and response of the Mini, is NEVER a problem.

So when it's time to upgrade, instead of losing 90% value of the memory upgrade, I can just trade in the M2 Mini for the next base Mini in 4-5 years.

Great take on this. It’s amazing, the comparison.

Sanity. Nicely said.

 

[Yebubbleman]

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

I can tell you, from personal experience with 8GB of RAM on multiple M1 Macs, it does not. RAM is still RAM and macOS can only compress RAM so much before it hollers at you that you're out of memory, which I, with those apps and tabs open, frequently encounter.

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.

Swapping to disk, even Apple's super fast SSDs that are in the M1 and M2 Macs out there, reduces performance.

Also, I DEFINITELY notice it. So, telling me that I won't notice it when I notice it regularly is the kind of gaslighting that I find needless. All browsers run each tab as a separate instance, making all browsers RAM hogs at a certain point.

BTW, using swap is a good thing.

The fact that swap is out there and can be used is a fantastic thing. HAVING to use it enough because you regularly run out of RAM IS bad for your drive. Telling people otherwise is dangerously irresponsible and I hope you have not spread such falsehoods to those needing consulting help.

Were these drives as easy and cheap to swap out as they were in the 2008-2012 Unibody era MacBook Pros, I wouldn't sweat. Being soldered to a logic board that will cost me $400-700 to replace makes it a different story. Incidentally, every 8GB RAM equipped M1 Mac I own exists in my arsenal for a specific purpose and at some point down the road, they'll all be sold in favor of something to replace them. Which is to say that I'm not worried. But I'd never recommend anyone buy 8GB in one unless I could confirm that their browsing needs were basic, that they know how to actually quit programs in macOS (and not just simply assuming that the red "x" quits the program like it does in Windows), and that they won't be running that much at a time. Otherwise, it's just better to buy more RAM.

 

[JamesMay82]

I think you’ve nailed it. I’ve gone from always getting more RAM (for thirty years) but I made an exception on two of three silicon macs and have to say, 98% of the time I see no difference from the one with more RAM.

I’m not a heavy-duty user (but do some basic video editing and run Affinity apps) and just think the 8GB works like a charm. I did get the 512 SSD on my M2 13 Air, but mostly because it’s going to be my only machine soon and I like having all my photos there.

I had an Apple IIc in 1983, a Mac in 1988, then starting in 1993 I have had so many Macs I can’t even count. I’ve always chased and yearned for more storage, more RAM, faster chip, faster modem to handle faster dialup, etc. But now, I feel like we’re into splitting hairs and freaking out that a video render task will take 12% longer with 8GB RAM (even though you only do renders once a month so you lose 38 seconds because it’s slower).

If you are a user doing pro-level stuff ALL the time, it’s a different story where “time is money” but I can’t help but think most people are not in that situation.

It’s amazing to use the M2 MBA with “only” 8GB of RAM.

My thinking now I've become a sensible older person! is that these Macs are very reliable and can last a long time. My current iMac from 2014 has 8 Gig so I cant see 8 gig being the norm for another 10 years for a Mac bought today so I would go 16 gig as a minimum based on me having the machine for 10 years.

 

[Yebubbleman]

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.

That's absolutely not how that works. In fact, the only difference between how RAM works on an Apple Silicon Mac versus on an Intel Mac or PC is that the data has to make several trips to various components whereas all of those components have simultaneous access to the data in that RAM. That's it. Yes, the data goes to different components faster than in would on said x86 computer. And yes, Apple has had some pretty stellar memory compression technology built into macOS. But RAM is still RAM and when you run out of RAM, your machine will use the swap located on your SSD. And if you do that enough, you'll wear out your SSD. This is fact.

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.

This is also absolutely not how computing works, with or without the Apple Silicon system architecture. Yes, RAM is faster than disk and having more data is faster. But that has nothing to do with data access speed especially since data access is RAM getting data from disk. And yes, your SSD is faster than a traditional hard disk. But it's still slower than even the fastest SSD by a long shot. The assertion that swap behaves any differently on an Apple Silicon Mac compared to an Intel Mac or any PC is (a) absurd and (b) factually incorrect.

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.

Again, the only thing setting an Apple Silicon Mac apart from an Intel Mac is that the data stored in memory does not have to make multiple trips between components and can be accessed from all components simultaneously without requiring any additional trips to be made. Yes, that results in performance improvements. No, that does not compensate for having 8GB of RAM in a situation where an x86 computer (be it PC or Mac) would otherwise need 16GB. Not by a long shot. RAM is still RAM.

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

Because SSDs only have a limited number of writes before they start to fail. The SSD in any Mac laptop made after July 2019 (and most sold between 2016 until then) is soldered to the main logic board and replacing those out of warranty is a significant percentage of the cost of a replacement machine. Unless you've got tons of money and sending your Mac into repair is your thing (in which case, no judgement here).

Your Mac is also significantly slower while swapping than when simply using its RAM.

 

[Yebubbleman]

Well said.

No, not at all. Because that's not how a computer with or without Apple Silicon works!

 

[Beancamel]

tough question only the OP can answer, is it enough depends on your needs.... 16gb will at least give you peace of mind that its ENOUGH for some time to come. As many other on these forums have stated Apple should make these 16/512 at bare minimum but Apple does what Apple does. IMHO its so upsell and make profit but it may also be to make it "affordable" and get people into the Apple ecosystem and gain more loyal customers that will buy higher end products in the future.

 

[Isamilis]

tough question only the OP can answer, is it enough depends on your needs.... 16gb will at least give you peace of mind that its ENOUGH for some time to come. As many other on these forums have stated Apple should make these 16/512 at bare minimum but Apple does what Apple does. IMHO its so upsell and make profit but it may also be to make it "affordable" and get people into the Apple ecosystem and gain more loyal customers that will buy higher end products in the future.

This is applicable when OP doesn’t have to choose between 512gb storage or 16gb RAM as additional storage will be more beneficial for typical users.

 

[SRLMJ23]

I don't know about those recommending 8GB RAM. I really guess it depends on how long you are going to keep your Mac? If you plan on keeping your Mac for the traditional six years (for the most part) that your Mac will get new macOS updates from Apple, I would go with at least 16GB of RAM to really make sure the machine can handle what Apple puts out in the future. We all know new macOS releases add new features and eventually will get to the point where 8GB might get you the new macOS release, however, your experience might get crippled a bit.

That is just my mindset when I buy a Mac but to each their own. I also get that budgets play a part in what machine you buy, however, if you can afford it, I just highly recommend upping your RAM.

 

[rmcat]

I bought a base model M2 air last week thinking 8gb RAM would be enough because I also have a M1 mini with 16gb as my main computer, however I returned it after using it for a few days to upgrade to a 16gb one because I noticed the memory pressure would become yellow quite easily with my regular workflow(no video/photo editing) which has never happened on my mini. It was still very smooth and fast and I'm sure it will be fine at least for the next two years or so, however I tend to keep my mac for over 5 yrs, and I don't wanna have to get a new one just because of the RAM limitation especially considering the slower SSD on the base model which may affect memory swapping. I'll say get a base model to see how the memory pressure is with your regular workflow if you're not sure whether 8gb is enough, if it's often yellow or even red, then you know you're probably better off w/ 16gb or more.

 

[Acronyc]

The M series Macs are very capable for basic use with only 8GB of RAM. But I also think there is a lot of wrong information going around, like how 8GB on an M chip is like having 16GB on an Intel chip.

That's absolutely not how that works. In fact, the only difference between how RAM works on an Apple Silicon Mac versus on an Intel Mac or PC is that the data has to make several trips to various components whereas all of those components have simultaneous access to the data in that RAM. That's it. Yes, the data goes to different components faster than in would on said x86 computer. And yes, Apple has had some pretty stellar memory compression technology built into macOS. But RAM is still RAM and when you run out of RAM, your machine will use the swap located on your SSD. And if you do that enough, you'll wear out your SSD. This is fact.

The above is well said, I think. Apple Silicon has fast access to RAM, but RAM is still RAM. If you need more or anticipate needing more, get more. Personally, I prioritize RAM over storage.

Earlier this year I bought a base M1 on sale. I got it as a travel computer to complement my M1 Max 14-inch MBP that is docked most of the time. For regular stuff like email, word processing, and light photo editing, it worked great. I hardly noticed a difference between it and my M1 Max.

But when I'm traveling for work I also need to run VMs and do some light video editing, and this is where I noticed things not going as fast as I would like.

So I sold my base M1 and found a 16GB/256GB config on the Apple refurb store where I live. For me, this is the perfect config for a secondary travel computer and it's been very nice for me to have the extra headroom in terms of RAM. I spent a bit more than the base model on sale, but still saved some money due to getting it on the Apple refurb store and don't regret it at all.

 

[Yebubbleman]

I bought a base model M2 air last week thinking 8gb RAM would be enough because I also have a M1 mini with 16gb as my main computer, however I returned it after using it for a few days to upgrade to a 16gb one because I noticed the memory pressure would become yellow quite easily with my regular workflow(no video/photo editing) which has never happened on my mini. It was still very smooth and fast and I'm sure it will be fine at least for the next two years or so, however I tend to keep my mac for over 5 yrs, and I don't wanna have to get a new one just because of the RAM limitation especially considering the slower SSD on the base model which may affect memory swapping. I'll say get a base model to see how the memory pressure is with your regular workflow if you're not sure whether 8gb is enough, if it's often yellow or even red, then you know you're probably better off w/ 16gb or more.

I can totally relate. I have this (what I've highlighted in bold) happen on my 8GB RAM M1 machines regularly. To be fair, this happens when I use them recreationally (which I really ought not to do because I have my 16GB RAM M1 machines expressly for that purpose).

 

[ctjack]

So here's what happened. My M2 base Mini is twice as fast as the i5 Mini with 4x the RAM. It boots 50% faster and it launches apps 50% faster on average.

It is really good to know the limitations of your hardware to pinpoint the issue and following remedy.
RAM is not an issue here.

5 yo mini with i5 has very low single core score - slower startup + slower app opening.
5 yo mini has much slower SSD - slower startup.

My 8GB Air launches from power off and apps equally fast as 16GB MBP14 or 16GB Lenovo gaming laptop.
==========================

I think 8GB is pretty decent in itself - my concerns go out to other factors that will hinder the lag free experience:

1) MacOS. These people keep getting lazy so it is not uncommon to have fully fast 8GB Mac and update to next MacOS to see yellow/red memory pressure and lags due to memory leaks.
My 8GB Air was faster than base M1 Pro 14 until i found stable MacOS for the latter.

2) SSD capacity. If your SSD(256GB) is full by 80%-100%, your computer is going to lag heavily and it is not RAM related.

3) 3rd party software. Old versions might work fine until you update that the code is lackluster and you have memory leak or unoptimized code. 16GB RAM in this case just helps to eat through using the raw capacity. Just like potholes kill the sedan suspension faster than if you had SUV with big wheels and massive steel parts.
On flat surfaces with no holes, both should last equally long and provide same level of comfort.

 

[ctjack]

For all people wondering, I think the following analogy would help to understand components.

1) CPU: Apple M1/M2. CPU is a brain of the computer - faster processors can calculate more data in 1 second versus other CPUs.
It has single core performance and multicore.
Single core - almost 90% of your day to day is only done on a single core. So naturally the CPU with the highest singe core score(calculations per second) will be faster.
For example app opening is a single core, exporting video/photo is a multi-core.

Limitations: CPU solves calculations that you provide to it. It gets them from the storage room (RAM).
Lets say CPU is a mover and RAM is a truck. You are at unloading deck - you need to understand where is your downtime is coming from: is it either your truck is small and you have to drive 3 times back and forth or is it your movers are slow because physically unfit/lacking in quantity or lack accessories to increase speed.

2) RAM: acts like a storage room.
Limitations: You can have 16 wheeler parked at your dock but only 1 man offloading it - think about 64GB of RAM and old intel CPU from 5-10 years ago. For given purpose, regular van and 2 people could be faster for your case even with multiple trips - less RAM(8gb) but better CPU(think old intel vs new M chips) with multiple compression/swap sessions.

3) SSD: is the size of your dock.
Limitations: You can have fast men, fast and big trucks - bit it all fails if your dock's offloading door is 6 feet wide.
SSD speeds decrease when full by 80-100% as well as their life expectancy. Swap would not kill your SSD, but having only 10GB free and rewriting it constantly would kill it eventually - your full ssd keeps the data and your swap will be writing at the same 10gb of cells again and again.

In conclusion, all components should match in the power/ability to each other. At one point some of the three will give up on you performance wise and will bottleneck you: your job is to understand who is slacking and update that module.

My history:
1) Dell XPS 15z: dual core+fancy GPU, 4GB of RAM, 5400 rpm HDD for 500GB.
HDD: the whole system was beefed up, but the bottleneck was 5400rpm slim hdd - it gave 45-75MB read/write speeds, while clearly my RAM and CPU were hindered and stopped by slow HDD.
Resolution: 6 month into owning, shell out $240 for an SSD with 500MB read and write speeds and 128GB capacity. 10 times faster SSD - ok, so now startup time went down from 60 seconds to 10 seconds on empty machine, from 2 minutes to 15-30 seconds on full of software machine. Clearly bottleneck is recognized and improved experience.
RAM: 2 years into owning, they present new windows update and suddenly my system ran out of RAM and everything felt slow, minimizing software would take forever. When previously fine, i was using 3.4-3.7GB out of 4GB, while after heavy updates it was 4.5GB-5.1GB out of 4GB, so clearly 500-1000MB into swap.
Resolution: ordered 8GB sticks. Nothing changed much, but the computer stopped lagging and my usage was below 7.2 GB out of 8GB, so RAM was not bottlenecking my system anymore.
CPU: all else equal, computer started lagging. I have new RAM and SSD as described above, so tinker my CPU stats - it is overheating at 103C degrees. Replaced thermal paste + extracted ton of trash from vents and radiators under the hood - yeah i loved using it on a bed. Temps went to 65C and computer stopped lagging.

2) rMBP 2012 - dual core, bad intel GPU, 8GB of RAM, 128GB SSD.
CPU: right out of the box the whole system flies and I could not be happier that i do not have to tinker with buying parts like on windows machine. No issues here.
RAM: never had issues with 8GB of RAM, tapping under 3GB into swap the laptop felt responsive, when using 3GB+ of swap it lagged - but it was rare occurrence to really use 3GB+ of constant swap, so RAM was not an issue.
SSD: albeit very fast, it was only 128GB. The last couple years it was using 119GB out of 123GB available. Sometimes system crashed because i had 0 MB free memory on SSD. No real solution, just tried to tought it our and run lean until next computer.

3) 2020 17 inch gaming Lenovo laptop - 6 core CPU, fancy GPU, 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD.
CPU: Very fast and has a lot of headroom. For example my old Mac was opening Adobe products 30-60 seconds, this thing opened them in 8s-15s. Impressive.
SSD: Regular fast SSD - 15 second boot up time no offense here.
RAM: when heavy pushed, constant use of 12-13GB out of 16GB, while not pushing it was around 8GB. Most of the time I would see 8-9GB of RAM usage.

4) M1 Air 8gb/512gb - impressed that this thing worked 16hrs(lenovo dies in 4hr) and provided the same speeds across the board.
CPU: opens adobe in the same 8s-15s as my monster gaming lenovo laptop. Big props to apple here.
SSD: is pushing around 3000MB read/write speeds, so I never had issues with any SSD that gives more than 700MB speeds.
RAM: works fine 100% of the time with no Lags - i saw beachball maybe 2-3 times in 3 years into ownership. Windows with 16GB is noticeably faster if minimizing apps - for example in Windows i could easily play a heavy game, minimize it to do my work, open the game back. This is not going to work with 8GB Air without noticeable lags, but it is not needed for me that is why i went with Apple and returned Lenovo.
Opening regular apps and minimizing works perfectly fast on 8GB Air - it is milliseconds slower than 16GB Win laptop, but it is really splitting hairs here.
MacOS: Early release of Monterey made my laptop lag and freeze 80% of the time with yellow/red RAM pressure.
Resolution: identified faulty MacOS rather than RAM issues so rolled back to BigSur - solved my RAM issues, which further proves that it was not a ram issue as suggested by initial investigation.

5) M1 Pro MBP 14 - 16/512gb.
CPU: as fast as M1 Air.
SSD: probably pushes about 6700MB which is 2 times faster than Air but absolutely not noticeable.
For reference, your regular tasks only need speeds of 500-700MB per second to operate at requested power -browsing and opening files, so 10 times faster SSD would not help anything here.
Lets say opening an app requires reading 10GB of data, but your CPU can only process 1500MB per second. This equals 10gb/1.5gb per second = 6.7 second is the fastest your CPU can open the app if not hindered by SSD/RAM. In this case, SSD provides 6GB of read speed, so it could have been 10gb/6gb = 1.7 seconds to open the App, but it is not happening cause we are capped here by CPU speeds.
RAM: It eats the same amount as 8GB Air, regular load - under 8GB usage, medium load - 8-9GB, heavy load - 12-13 GB.
MacOS: despite 16GB versus 8GB air, it was lagging with basic outlook web app when sending emails using browser. It would also constantly lag while scrolling forums.
Resolution: Updated to latest Monterey from earliest, now it never lags. Issue was not RAM, CPU or SSD - it was a raw MacOS as usual.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

It is really good to know the limitations of your hardware to pinpoint the issue and following remedy.
RAM is not an issue here.

5 yo mini with i5 has very low single core score - slower startup + slower app opening.
5 yo mini has much slower SSD - slower startup.

My 8GB Air launches from power off and apps equally fast as 16GB MBP14 or 16GB Lenovo gaming laptop.
==========================

I think 8GB is pretty decent in itself - my concerns go out to other factors that will hinder the lag free experience:

1) MacOS. These people keep getting lazy so it is not uncommon to have fully fast 8GB Mac and update to next MacOS to see yellow/red memory pressure and lags due to memory leaks.
My 8GB Air was faster than base M1 Pro 14 until i found stable MacOS for the latter.

2) SSD capacity. If your SSD(256GB) is full by 80%-100%, your computer is going to lag heavily and it is not RAM related.

3) 3rd party software. Old versions might work fine until you update that the code is lackluster and you have memory leak or unoptimized code. 16GB RAM in this case just helps to eat through using the raw capacity. Just like potholes kill the sedan suspension faster than if you had SUV with big wheels and massive steel parts.
On flat surfaces with no holes, both should last equally long and provide same level of comfort.

But my usage is light so 8GB and a 256 SSD are an overkill.

 

[hans1972]

the memory pressure would become yellow quite easily with my regular workflow(no video/photo editing) which has never happened on my mini. It was still very smooth and fast

Which is why I say 8Gb is enough for a lot of people.

 

[hans1972]

But RAM is still RAM and when you run out of RAM, your machine will use the swap located on your SSD. And if you do that enough, you'll wear out your SSD. This is fact.

It's not a problem if the Mac is using swap. The longevity of SSDs are so high that some increased writing from swap won't affect the lifetime of the Mac.

Also the memory algorithms under macOS on M CPUs seems much more aggressive and better at handling low memory situation when you have applications which don't need a lot of memory at once.

The new Macs seems much better to handle memory requests 2+2+2+1+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5 than Intel Macs. This is also how the usage is for most non-heavy users.

If your memory need is like 7+2.5 the the Apple silicon Macs will also suffer.

 

[hans1972]

Swapping to disk, even Apple's super fast SSDs that are in the M1 and M2 Macs out there, reduces performance.

Also, I DEFINITELY notice it. So, telling me that I won't notice it when I notice it regularly is the kind of gaslighting that I find needless. All browsers run each tab as a separate instance, making all browsers RAM hogs at a certain point.

The reason most people doesn't notice it is that the swap happens before the memory is needed. Thus the swapping happens in background while I'm doing something else.

Let's say you open 8 tabs in a browser and all of those fit with the memory and it has room for one more tab.
You open tab 9 and macOS will now swap tab 1 and 2 but you don't notice because you're reading tab 9.
You open tab 10 and macOS don't have enough free memory. No swapping needs to occur because tab 1 and tab 2 has already been released. It can just release the memory for tab 1 and tab 2 and use that memory for tab 10.
You don't notice any performance degradation because the swap occurred in the past.

If you notice it, then you can't use Macs with 8gb of RAM. I don't notice it and I even run a Windows virtual machine.
You probably run memory heavy web sites or applications. I don't. I also use Safari which is even better at memory management than Chrome.

 

[Yebubbleman]

It's not a problem if the Mac is using swap.

Excess swapping is never a good thing. Period. You can't tell me that a computer that is constantly swapping has enough RAM. That's just not how these things work, especially not with a drive that is soldered to the main logic board and controlled by the SoC.

The longevity of SSDs are so high that some increased writing from swap won't affect the lifetime of the Mac.

I'm not saying that the longevity isn't high enough for the user that was only going to keep their MacBook Air for 3 years before replacing it. But many people buying a MacBook Air want to keep using it for 7-10 years and if they only bought 256GB of SSD and 8GB of RAM and they're not only running one or two applications at once and running only a small handful of tabs, they will swap and it will degrade the drive. That's fact. That's how computers (whether with Apple's SoCs or not) work!

Also the memory algorithms under macOS on M CPUs seems much more aggressive and better at handling low memory situation when you have applications which don't need a lot of memory at once.

The new Macs seems much better to handle memory requests 2+2+2+1+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5 than Intel Macs. This is also how the usage is for most non-heavy users.

If your memory need is like 7+2.5 the the Apple silicon Macs will also suffer.

Nothing you say here speaks to the actual experience I have actually using and constantly running into low memory alerts and high memory pressure on 8GB of RAM on an M1. I have no more than 6 apps running at once (four of them are Apple apps built into the operating system, one of them is a third party universal binary, and one of them is an Intel app running on Rosetta and I have between 20 and 30 browser tabs open. I get the beach ball, I get yellow to red memory pressure, I get "your Mac has run out of memory" messages.

The reason most people doesn't notice it is that the swap happens before the memory is needed. Thus the swapping happens in background while I'm doing something else.

Provide me with documentation stating that's how it works, because, last I checked, that's not how it works on any computer. You use up RAM; macOS will do its best to compress that, but eventually, you have to start swapping and things slow down when you do. It won't ever swap to an excess before you need it. There's no practical benefit to use the slower memory medium when you still have a sufficient quantity of the faster memory medium.

Let's say you open 8 tabs in a browser and all of those fit with the memory and it has room for one more tab.
You open tab 9 and macOS will now swap tab 1 and 2 but you don't notice because you're reading tab 9.
You open tab 10 and macOS don't have enough free memory. No swapping needs to occur because tab 1 and tab 2 has already been released. It can just release the memory for tab 1 and tab 2 and use that memory for tab 10.
You don't notice any performance degradation because the swap occurred in the past.

(a) That's not how it works. (b) I DO notice performance degradation (further attestation to the fact that this is not how it works).

If you notice it, then you can't use Macs with 8gb of RAM. I don't notice it and I even run a Windows virtual machine.

I totally notice it and I totally CAN use Macs with 8GB of RAM; just not for the "everything" that those of you blind to the kinds of experience I have claim I can use it for.

The purposes I have my 8GB M1 machines for is still served fine and that's still IT testing (testing installers, MDM, and beta releases of OSes) all of which are fine on 8GB of RAM. But using it recreationally on an every-day Mac? That I cannot recommend it for because when I use these Macs and not for the aforementioned testing purposes, I'm an every day user and not a power user. I cannot, in good faith, have these experiences, and then recommend folks spend $1000-1300 on a Mac limited in this fashion.

You probably run memory heavy web sites or applications. I don't.

Nope, I also don't.

I also use Safari which is even better at memory management than Chrome.

I also use Safari. Same issues.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

But using it recreationally on an every-day Mac? That I cannot recommend it for because when I use these Macs and not for the aforementioned testing purposes, I'm an every day user and not a power user.

Hmm, I qualify as a recreation user and my base M2 Mini is an overkill. I get by just fine with 8GB. In fact my M2 Mini is twice as fast as my i5 Mini with 32GB of ram. Perhaps you are not a recreation user but a power user instead.