Fast renders of previews is exactly what I need. Is the Max better at that?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
New M1 Pro with 16GB and 1TB. Do I NEED 32GB RAM?
- Thread starter ddavid
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Well - easier said than done I know, but at least by saving the cash on unneeded RAM you might have enough to pay a scalper.
Apple still sells laptops with 8GB RAM. We're a long way off from 32GB being the norm. But look - if you have the RAM and don't need the RAM, it's better than needing it and not having it right?
I don't think so. I'm not the expert here, but I think that is more CPU and SSD based. From what I am reading the CPU benchmarks for M1 Pro and M1 Max are very similar (they both have identical 10-core CPUs), which basically means they are going to like for like on non-GPU tasks. The higher memory bandwidth of the M1 Max doesn't really affect the CPU only stuff either.
Where M1 Max shines is with anything that can utilize the GPU cores or the ProRes hardware - and if it can, then the Max absolutely smokes the Pro.
I would presume so given that it has twice the GPU power of the M1 Pro or my i7 Vega20, but I don't know how much better.
I have slight stuttering with my Vega20 in Capture One Pro so I'm hoping that going up to a M1 Max will make it as close to instant as possible. That said, I don't think it's the GPU that's responsible for the stuttering. I tested an 8GB M1 and it ran Capture One Pro as well as my i7 Vega20 even though the GPU benchmarks of that M1 is half that of a Vega20.
I don't know if I'm really going to have much benefit by going up to a Max, but the cost isn't prohibitive to me and every millisecond I save with previews does multiply the real world benefits as it lets me work faster and easier so I'm willing to pay for that potential.
Keep in mind that everything I'm saying is in reference to Capture One Pro, not Lightroom. Capture One Pro is GPU accelerated. I'm assuming Lightroom is as well.
Last edited:
It will be very interesting to see. So many photographers have been so frustrated with Preview speed, which seems to rely mostly on CPU, even with the GPU option ticked.
Are you talking about Capture One Pro or Lightroom?
I have to admit that I'm a bit baffled as to what's going on under the hood with Capture One previews. They're supposed to be rendered from cached previews, but it sure doesn't act like it. There's no way that program could possibly need time at all to show me a cached jpeg so it must be re-rendering from RAW each time.
And if those cached previews aren't doing much good, it's frustrating they're generated at all because they eat up quite a bit of disk space.
I remember when 4GB of RAM was the standard. Man, have we been spoiled nowadays LOL. Anyways, 16GB is plenty enough for me even as a video editor and I don't see the "memory pressure" panicking when I monitor it.
Hi I had your same doubt, but I opted for 16GB.
I did a stress test on my MBP16 i7 16GB opening at the same time:
every apple default app (calendar, notes...)
MS word, excel..
my favorite text/code editor
Apple Music while playing a song
Logic pro running in loop 8 tracks with 4 plugins + 1 amp plugin each
PS rendering a photo to 1000dpi
VM ware running win10
Activity Monitor showed nearly 13-14GB over 16GB used. I was also connected to an external USB-c 2K monitor.
For me, but I guess for a lot of people this is a very uncommon scenario, so I'll go for the 16GB model.
I think M1 Pro (10c) will help me especially in Logic (the only one that with ALL this stuff running stopped for overload).
I hope that helps, bye!
I have the 14 inch with 64GB. Although I am an AI/ML research scientist, so I have very specific needs.
For what you listed, it seems that the collection of things you do would be fine with 16GB for most people with those workflows that I know. But I guess the key is whether this would be a long term solution or not.
I would probably just ask myself the question, whether you intend on upgrading within 2 years of this purchase or not. Software and dataset sizes can change considerably within that type of time horizon, and hitting a system RAM hard limit is a very difficult thing to overcome by altering your workflow. That would usually be a large hit on the type of work you can do and/or your productivity on the machine. So you might be forced to upgrade early, if you intended to keep this machine for a number of years.
You may find this helpful: 14/16" 16GB of RAM, show us your memory pressure with YOUR workflow!
What is your memory usage on your current machine? Do you know how to interpret the memory and disk activity information in Activity Monitor or command line utilities like iostat & top?
Activity Monitor's memory tab makes this easy with the memory pressure graphs. If you are often going into the orange, then this would indicate that you're running short of memory. Swap size is also important, but it's actually the amount of read/write from swap (on your SSD) to memory that matters. You can see this in the "top" command, e.g.
Look at the numbers for "swapins" and "swapouts" at the top of the screen to show how much swap is being used, compare the numbers when after a fresh boot with only one or two open, compared to your "maxed out" usage.
Look at the Disk Activity page as well to see if you are getting a lot of read/writes when you're not otherwise doing anything, which might indicate swap activity (data read/sec, data written/sec numbers).
In my experience with a 16GB M1 Mini, I noticed greatly increased disk writes when swap usage was >10GB, and started to see noticeable slowdowns at >15GB swap (e.g. switching between browser tabs or opening documents and apps) taking seconds to open when they would be very quick with less memory pressure. It seemed to run quite happily at <5GB swap and I couldn't really tell the difference between 4-5GB swap and zero in terms of system responsiveness.
HTH.
From my experience which is BRIEF, but I did watch activity monitor for 3 years and use the Cocktail.app quite a bit.
From what I can tell, the 32GB is REALLY great, obviously, but what it seems to do is CACHE a whole helluva lot.
But if you want to future proof for like so 5-7 years I would get the 32 GB. Especially if you came from FW days!
Cause I get to about 8 GB used and 8 GB cache, chillin' then when firing up apps and what not, things start to level off at:
15 GB Used
15 GB Cached
But for Xcode and programming DEFINITELY get 32 GB!! Memory Leaks happen and if you have room to spare you can catch them and clear things out...(depending on what you are working on)
Laters...
From what I can tell, the 32GB is REALLY great, obviously, but what it seems to do is CACHE a whole helluva lot.
But if you want to future proof for like so 5-7 years I would get the 32 GB. Especially if you came from FW days!
Cause I get to about 8 GB used and 8 GB cache, chillin' then when firing up apps and what not, things start to level off at:
15 GB Used
15 GB Cached
But for Xcode and programming DEFINITELY get 32 GB!! Memory Leaks happen and if you have room to spare you can catch them and clear things out...(depending on what you are working on)
Laters...
Last edited:
I’m a dev and infra specialist do I need 32GB? No.
16GB are just fine I do never swap if I run Rosetta programs then they will sometime eat memory but all of the m1 native apps are working fine.
So, don’t overbuy Seattle with what you need now and then don’t better to think about it just use your new wonderful machine.
16GB are just fine I do never swap if I run Rosetta programs then they will sometime eat memory but all of the m1 native apps are working fine.
So, don’t overbuy Seattle with what you need now and then don’t better to think about it just use your new wonderful machine.
Future proofing is so wrong for many people. Many people here are buying new laptops within 3 years.
Is it with 500 euro extra for 32GB? Hell no.
Agree. I put my money where my mouth is on this and I've purchased the 16GB M1Pro. It's plenty for my needs now and for the next 2-3 years.
We're just at the start of Apple Silicon and Apple has only flexed its hardware muscles. My guess is that M2 or M3 series MacBooks with 2-3X performance and FaceID will be very compelling and I will want to trade-up again.
I hadn't. I paid 1000 Euros more for the max model, the 32 gb pro model was not available and maybe i play a game (shadow of the tomb raider to test the hdr screen), and only 16 gpu cores sucking.
Because 16 gb ram have caused slow down when having too much browser tabs open. When the ram was reaching 12-13 gb i noticed massive delay for opening more browser tabs. That wasn't a real problem on the small macbook screen, because so many tabs fitting there not very well. It was a problem on my bigger 34" ultrawide 21:9 desktop screen.
forums.macrumors.com
And if this is leading already to slow down, i won't know whats going on the next few years.
Because 16 gb ram have caused slow down when having too much browser tabs open. When the ram was reaching 12-13 gb i noticed massive delay for opening more browser tabs. That wasn't a real problem on the small macbook screen, because so many tabs fitting there not very well. It was a problem on my bigger 34" ultrawide 21:9 desktop screen.
16gb MBP in 2021 isn’t enough for long-term
Now i have the macbook Pro with M1 Max 32 gb ram: https://abload.de/img/macbookpromaxvtjmb.jpg Its not slowing down when opening 20+ tabs. Glad i kicked the 16 gb versions. And far i have seen. No pixel failures or scratches. For me it was a real horror, paying so much money and having slow...
forums.macrumors.com
And if this is leading already to slow down, i won't know whats going on the next few years.
Last edited:
Raising RAM requirements of future versions of MacOS and Apple specific apps is a classic game play Apple has used time and again to push the requirement to buy new gear.
RAM in the past was soldered in specifically for this reason. Need more RAM? Buy a new Mac.
RAM in the past was soldered in specifically for this reason. Need more RAM? Buy a new Mac.
Yep. I saw it on the 16 gb model. If you are doing productivity i would buy 32 gb and maybe 2 tb because of the doubled tbw compared with 1 tb ssd. If there is a lot traffic on your ssd it will be shortly wear out. 400 - 600 tbw isn't much. And consider for the 16 gb model the swap will come on top. This macbook is a trap, as someone said on youtube. The price for a reasonable macbook pro is extremly high. I wouldn't have bought it, but i sell maybe my around 2000 Euro worth, rarely used Windows Laptop which was a gift. It's ok. 1850 Euro for the Macbook Pro Max is a good price. In my opionion not worth more. Because all soldered and after 2 years in case of defect something for the trash . I have heared after 1000 recharges you have to swap the accus. Accordingly to ifixit its no joy.
. I have heared after 1000 recharges you have to swap the accus. Accordingly to ifixit its no joy.
Last edited:
Just buy AppleCare and sleep soundly.Yep. I saw it on the 16 gb model. If you are doing productivity i would buy 32 gb and maybe 2 tb because of the doubled tbw compared with 1 tb ssd. If there is a lot traffic on your ssd it will be shortly wear out. 400 - 600 tbw isn't much. And consider for the 16 gb model the swap will come on top. This macbook is a trap, as someone said on youtube. The price for a reasonable macbook pro is extremly high. I wouldn't have bought it, but i sell maybe my around 2000 Euro worth, rarely used Windows Laptop which was a gift. It's ok. 1850 Euro for the Macbook Pro Max is a good price. In my opionion not worth more. Because all soldered and after 2 years in case of defect something for the trash
Based on all the reviews of people editing 4K and 8K video, even on base spec, 16GB can easily handle what you’re doing. EDIT: Check out the video above. 16GB is more than OK under unrealistic situations.
I don’t edit video, but I edit photos in ON1 Photo RAW 2022 without cataloguing turned on (i.e. much slower, relatively speaking), and it still flips between RAWs and JPGs nearly instantly. It’s actually impressive, even if it doesn’t sound like it.
Last edited:
Worst part is we know what future brigs. Apps and websites which use more memory
So, I'd estimate 32GB to be realistic minimum for the machine which is going to be in use for more than a year.
Personally, I got 64GB, but I do use memory for other things, and for me 32GB is a limit of today, which I barely can fit now.