MB 16" Buying Help - What RAM to choose

[fabiosilva]

Hi!

In January I will buy my first macbook. Will be the new 16 ", 8-core, 8GB AMD Radeon Pro 5500M.

My big question: Should I make a financial effort and choose 32gb RAM?

My work is mainly Illustrator intensive, Photoshop and Final Cut X (I currently use premiere).

On video editing, I'm consider in short future editing 4k video, for example, corporate videos rarely more than 1 hour.

At the music level, I hope to occasionally use some programs like MainStage.

Thank you for your help. I will be grateful to share your experiences

 

[danwells]

I'd definitely go for 32 GB if your graphics files are big or your videos are long. It's hard to get an Illustrator file big enough to generate RAM pressure, but Photoshop certainly can, especially with larger image files - and a 1 hour 4K video will KILL a 16 GB machine. I'd even consider 64 GB (ask someone who really knows video what a full hour in 4K is going to do - I'm not sure if that wants 32 or 64 GB).

I just ordered one with 64 GB, because I deal with 50 MP image files (and large catalogs of them) all the time.

 

[Eee1111]

32

 

[Macbookprodude]

Better get 32, but forget 64 if you get 32 because it’s not upgradable once you get it.

 

[Tomcaster]

Initially I bought an i9 2.3 GHz with 16GB RAM. After a week I had a certain stomach feel that I needed more and I exchanged it against the i9 2.4GHz with 32 GB RAM. The reason is an experience with my dearly loved 2012 15.4" retina MB Pro. I suffocated on RAM about 3-4 years after I bought the machine. I made an interesting experience in 2017, I think. I upgraded my girlfriends 2011 iMac from 8GB RAM to 20GB RAM , bumped the CPU to the strongest possible with that motherboard and added a SSD. That thing went from crappy to snappy. Ofc it got stuck at High Sierra and the non-Retina display is a bummer, but other than that it is fine.

I also told myself that a couple of hundreds is not much money compared to being upset in 3y that your Mac starts to have that severe RAM bottleneck. I also took a 2TB drive just to be relaxed with it. It's like a Porsche. if you buy one, you don't take the entry model. You can just buy a Ford if you want best price performance. But that's not why you buy a Mac, right?

 

[fabiosilva]

Thank you all for your suggestions.

I am considering 32gb. Hope not to be an overkill specification.

 

[junkw]

betta be overkill than underkill