My main reason.Don't forget that if you're planning to keep your laptop for a long time, you may not need 32GB right now, but in the coming years.
Don't forget that if you're planning to keep your laptop for a long time, you may not need 32GB right now, but in the coming years.
It depends how long in the future you may need it. There's no point paying over the odds for something today that you might not need for another 5 years. It's much more economically viable to get what you need today, then get what you need in 5 years. It'll cost roughly the same, and you'll get a host of other benefits to go with it.
Basically, you can't future-proof things, if you don't need something today then don't waste the money.
It's much cheaper to keep a $5k laptop for 8 years than it is to buy a $3k laptop every 2.
Is anyone here personally using that extra RAM today? What is your workload and is it something you previously could not do with 16 GB?
Why are you buying a new computer every 2 years?
Pay 3k today, and you could keep it for 8 years or whatever. Unless your work is drastically about to change in the next couple of years, it's a fallacy to spend so much on a device when you are unsure if you'll ever use half of the power. Also in 5 years time the computer would be showing its age regardless if you payed 3k, 5k, or 10k, it'll slow down. So you'd suffer 3 years of a slow and tired computer once you do actually theoretically need the power - but the power by then will be so minimal, it'll be the same as a base model. That's my point. $5k laptop today, when you need 50% of it, is $2500 wasted. $5k laptop in 5 years time is say worth $1500, so you've got $3500 on a device where you aren't using it. If you do require something after those 5 years, then getting a brand new machine for the difference will provide a better CPU, faster RAM or possibly even more, faster SSD etc. All for the price of just getting what you need today.
I'm planning on keeping my Mac for a very long time, but see zero need for 32GB. I think for the majority of people its over-kill now and in the future. Its not like we'll be seeing macOS changing or apps changing so dramatically down the road that ram requirements go through the roof. Both apps and OS are mature products that won't have much changing in them - just my $.02Don't forget that if you're planning to keep your laptop for a long time,
Unless OP plans on doing heavy 4k video rendering or VM usage, 32 GB would be serious overkill, even in the foreseeable future. In fact I'd argue that unless you are doing the above two things, then 16 GB of RAM is more than "future-proof" enough. There are specific users who need that much RAM, or may need it in the future, but they know who they are.Don't forget that if you're planning to keep your laptop for a long time, you may not need 32GB right now, but in the coming years.
I can't say that I can. I do photoshop and plenty of multi tasking (iTunes, Safari, Photoshop, and other applications), and even with only 8GB of RAM I never experience a slow down on my 2017 MBP with all that open. I rarely exceed 50% memory pressure.Is anyone here personally using that extra RAM today? What is your workload and is it something you previously could not do with 16 GB?
Simple - the 2012 MBP.
Started life as an HDD machine with 4GB of RAM, now wields 16GB or RAM
I did for my work.Has anyone purchased a new 2018 MacBook Pro with 32 GB RAM? What do you use the extra RAM for?
Ditto for me. Plus I usually have 5-8 Apps open to switch back and forth.Main use for me on extra RAM is running VMs.
I wouldn't worry too much about that... even if memory gets tight, don't forget the OS can do memory compression for background apps, so 8GB will actually go farther than 8GB in many circumstances. Plus, the SSDs are so freakin' fast now, swapping is much less noticeable than it used to be.Having said that I wish I had gotten 16GB because in the long run (5-6 years) I'd anticipate that my 8GB might not be enough.
I have 32GB of RAM in mine. I run VMs, lots of VMs. I use it today. The thing that kept me from upgrading for quite awhile was the lack of a 32GB option. Since the workflow I had was RAM constrained, and not CPU or storage, I waited for the option to get 32GB of RAM to upgrade.
The VMs I run in particular are for simulating entire networks on my machine for various reasons. Having the extra RAM allows those networks to contain more hosts.
More ram is clearly the future and that is where the future is headed. In 2013, I spec'd out my PC w/ 32GB of ram and many people laughed at me for having 32GB of ram and gave me looks like, "Why would you do that? You will never need that much." but 5 years later, look where we are now. Many people run 64GB and I bet we have people in this forum w/ 128GB of rams or more on their machines. Remember when 8MB of ram was considered uber in 1990s?
RAM is increasing at a faster pace than our ability to make use of it. 16GB should be standard due to RAM costs, but average use won't outstrip 16GB of RAM for many years. The explosion in application development is mobile. We see more and more average Desktop/Laptop development moving to the web and Web development is focused also on mobile optimization.
There are specific use cases for 64GB, but if you aren't there today you'll absolutely be best served stopping at 16GB for all the reasons already stated by others.
No it isn't. The pace of new features and apps for most users has not changed in a long time. The life cycle of desktop computing has matured to a great degree that most people will not need 32GB for the foreseeable future.More ram is clearly the future and that is where the future is headed