MBP buying advice needed

[Albini11]

My partner needs to upgrade her ancient MacBook Pro. She's looking at the latest refurbished options on the Apple Canada website. She mainly needs to run SketchUp, Illustrator, and Photoshop for her work. She's narrowed things down to the following options. All of them are May 2020 13.3" MacBook Pros with 1.4 GHz quad-core i5.

1) 8 GB RAM and 256 GB SSD ($1439)
2) 8 GB RAM and 512 GB SSD ($1659)
3) 16 GB RAM and 256 GB SSD ($1659)

Is option #1 good enough? If not, is it better to go for more RAM or more SSD capacity? Or are none of these options suitable? I think conventional wisdom is go for more RAM, but I've seen some references to the fast SSD and seamless memory paging basically doubling your RAM with virtual memory (or something like that--some of this stuff goes over my head).

Anyway, any input or advice would be much appreciated.
Cheers!

 

[0128672]

Although Photoshop's recommended RAM minimum is 8GB, Illustrator's recommended is 16GB, so the third option seems best. But to store the files, will she also be using a large external drive? 256 seems a bit skimpy for both PS and Illustrator. If the budget can be stretched, there's an i5/16/512 for $1869 CAD or the same with 1TB for $2079.

Illustrator system requirements

Your computer must meet the minimum technical specifications outlined below to run and use Illustrator.

helpx.adobe.com

 

[ccollinsradio]

Certainly 16 Gig. I'd really try to get the storage to 512, though.

May be cheaper to go with base 10th Gen 13 or if she can handle the 16, grab an i7 model from the refurb store.

 

[Albini11]

Thanks for the guidance. I’ll let her know that she needs to up her budget a bit. Much appreciated!

 

[hobowankenobi]

In a pinch, one can add external SSD storage. Can't change RAM, so RAM wins.

 

[pldelisle]

16 GB RAM all the way!!!