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I can't believe people must spend almost $3000 for a computer to get 32GB RAM; I can't believe people spend $2000 on a 13" MacBook Pro with only 8GB RAM. Especially when any RAM is soldered-in and non-user-upgradeable. No sale for me.

Welcome to the world of Apple. There are several mobile workstations out there where you can buy them with 16 GB of RAM on the cheap and then upgrade to up to 128 GB of RAM down the road. Apple's not there. And yes, they obviously have quad-channel RAM. I have triple-channel RAM on my 2008 Dell XPS Studio desktops. These cost me $585 back then.

I do like this new Apple model but expansion has been a sore point for the last several years.
 
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If not because the lack of RAM, I would have happily stuck with my 15". I love the 15" size because I find the 16" wider and slightly thicker. P.S I have the 16GB RAM. Learned my lesson, will be upgrading to 64GB RAM for the 16". Learned my painful lesson when RAM is not enough
 
I have ordered a 16GB model. I do programming and data analysis and I don't see a point for me to have more than 16GB right now. I will upgrade to 32GB at some point when CPUs will come with quad-memory channels by default. As to the 64GB option: frankly I think Apple only put that in to make some money of spec-obsessed people.


I do programming and data analysis as well but I plan to go for 32GB.

My current one is Macbook Air 2013.

I don't think I will buy a Macbook often so I need make sure I will be able to use it for many years.



I would say 32GB is minimum for a computer with a use of more than 5 years.

This is what I am up to.
 
Max your RAM And storage. It’s not like you can upgrade it later.

Always buy as much as you are able when it comes to RAM+storage. They are soldered in with everything else in these newer Macs.
 
I am using a 15" 2014 MacBook Pro with 16GB of ram and have never once had my memory pressure go out of the green range. I use it for print production so Photoshop, Indesign, Acrobat, Illustrator all going at once usually with a Windows 10 VM running in the background.
 
Mainly light gaming and some web dev work (and light Win 10 Parallels usage) - do you think 32gb is required for usage of 3-5 years? I'm likely going for the upgraded GPU; just can't seem to make the decision on the RAM. The price jump is... big.

I've always managed to game on lower end rigs. I don't usually play the latest and greatest, but I fear within the next few years that the standard will be pushed from 16Gb of RAM to 32Gb.
 
Hello,

I have been on the sidelines for a very long time using my 13" Unibody Macbook (16GB, 256Gb SSD, Dual Core) and now finally planning to upgrade to the new 16" Macbook Pro!

As you can see i keep my computers for a very very long time. I am in IT management....and do most work on Office, VISIO, Visual Studio, Terminal, VPN, SQL clients, AWS Console, etc, so light to medium duty at most. Occasionalyl I would want to be able do some video editing. I plan on keeping the computer at least another 10yrs or if something evolutionary comes out.

Would you do 16Gb with AppleCare+ OR 32GB ???

Either case I know the laptop would be amazing.
 
Are you running Fusion or Parallels for Visual Studio? VS is a 32-bit app so you should be OK with a 6 GB VM and a 16 GB machine if that is your use case. My workload is kind of similar and I have been running OK in 16 GB on my 2016 machine.

However I have found that Visual Studio with Resharper has very "bursty" CPU demand. It seems to fully load all cores briefly on every key press, so I would go for the best possible CPU if I were you.
 
Some programming environments do work better with more RAM. If you're working with source code bases of 10-30 million lines of code, then building your project may benefit quite a bit with more RAM.
So true, download and debug Chromium browser and you'll see lldb take like 10GB of RAM and your mac swap like hell.
 
So true, download and debug Chromium browser and you'll see lldb take like 10GB of RAM and your mac swap like hell.

I did a lot of development work on Firefox and Thunderbird in the past and, generally speaking, more resources were better than fewer. I do want to do some more work there but have been busy with other stuff. I'd like to play around with Brave too. I really like Brave but there is a UI bug that drives me crazy and it would be nice to fix it, even if it's only for my personal use.
 
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I can't believe people must spend almost $3000 for a computer to get 32GB RAM; I can't believe people spend almost $2000 on a 13" MacBook Pro with only 8GB RAM. Especially when any RAM is soldered-in and non-user-upgradeable. No sale for me.
what is the best equivalent to macbook at half the price?
 
I'm still using a late 2013 with 8GB of RAM and it suits me well for most purposes. I only really ran into problems with VMs so far. But because VMs get more memory hungry together with regular apps, I would now definitely go for 32GB. If you edit video, go for 64. 4K is becoming widely used now and if you want to use your machine for 3-5 years, you'll be bumping into 8K. At those resolutions, just add a few layers in AE and you'll quickly wish you had a Mac Pro with 1TB RAM :D
 
what is the best equivalent to macbook at half the price?

The systems that I looked at to replace the MacBook Pro - you don't really save money unless you use inferior components. They gave you a choice of components and the better stuff cost more money. The alternatives give you more options - they don't really save you money. Of course it gives you the ability to spend less up-front and then add components later on as you need them.
 
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If your currently using a MacBook in your use case setup just open Activity Monitor and keep an eye on the memory pressure while you go about your daily business. If you never go out of the green you dont need more memory. How close you come to going out of the green will help you determine if, 5 years down the road, as apps and data get more memory hungry if you need to consider more.

Ive been testing this for the past month now and on my work computer I have not once got above 50% pressure and thats with the entire Adobe suite running and a VM chugging along in the background.

The jump in price from 16 to 32 is pretty substantial for me at least
 
anyone know how long does it takes for refurb to appear after launch?
So people can get a 32GB at the price of a 16GB

I think it’s typically 5-6 months. That’s a pretty loose estimate though.


EDIT: only three months last cycle.
 
The systems that I looked at to replace the MacBook Pro - you don't really save money unless you use inferior components. They gave you a choice of components and the better stuff cost more money. The alternatives give you more options - they don't really save you money. Of course it gives you the ability to spend less up-front and then add components later on as you need them.
Exactly. I always look to Lenovo's offerings, as they seem to be the Apple of the PC world for quality - and a lot of their stuff is upgradeable to users.
 
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Mainly light gaming and some web dev work (and light Win 10 Parallels usage) - do you think 32gb is required for usage of 3-5 years? I'm likely going for the upgraded GPU; just can't seem to make the decision on the RAM. The price jump is... big.

I've always managed to game on lower end rigs. I don't usually play the latest and greatest, but I fear within the next few years that the standard will be pushed from 16Gb of RAM to 32Gb.
I have a 13” Pro, so 16GB is currently the max. I run Windows 10 in Parallels to run Quicken and it works well. Usually I have Excel for Mac and Outlook open at the same time, along with Safari.
 
As much as I'd like this, I feel the Dell XPS is a MUCH better value. Ya, sure there's MacOS, but for the applications I use, Windows 10 provides a great environment to work in.
 
I can't believe people must spend almost $3000 for a computer to get 32GB RAM; I can't believe people spend almost $2000 on a 13" MacBook Pro with only 8GB RAM. Especially when any RAM is soldered-in and non-user-upgradeable. No sale for me.
PCs price like this too. Razer you have to pay over $3k for 32gb of Ram on their 17" models. Now the Ram isn't always soldered on PCs, but I've been seeing that price point with Windows OEMs.

Before this MBP was announced, I would certainly agree with you. For me, the 16" 32gb is competitively priced though.
 
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