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New M3 Air - 16/512 A stock option w/o CTO - Finally!

Macbookey

Macbookey

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 15, 2023
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Apple finally has a stock tier of the Air with 16GB RAM and 512SSD. This means sales on Airs from 3rd party retailers without having to CTO directly from Apple. So thrilled to see this is as a Canadian Mac user, that only had CTO options directly from Apple to get the specs I want. Up here the sales at Best Buy and Amazon were only ever on the non CTO options. Being able to get a 16GB RAM version on sale is awesome. Really happy to see this.
 
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geta said:
Hopefully, but i doubt a base model that cost less then $1000 (or euro) will have more then 8GB RAM and 256GB storage any time soon.
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The entry model definitely will still have 8GB. The entry model at the moment is the 13” M2 at £999.

I’m not saying we’ll get M4 but it could be that next year the entry M3 13” will have 8GB but the “M4” line up will have 16GB as standard.
 
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Looking at trading in my Macbook Air (2020), i5,16GB RAM, 512GB for this particular model. Trade in value is $375. Not sure what it would be worth selling elsewhere. Still works great, but thinking about the future.
 
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cawgijoe said:
Looking at trading in my Macbook Air (2020), i5,16GB RAM, 512GB for this particular model. Trade in value is $375. Not sure what it would be worth selling elsewhere. Still works great, but thinking about the future.
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You wont get much more then that…
 
Its weird that its not listing as "in store availability 3.8" for the 16GB/512 models. Apple usually has all models in stock. Curious to see what happens on Friday.
 
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FrankySavvy said:
Its weird that its not listing as "in store availability 3.8" for the 16GB/512 models. Apple usually has all models in stock. Curious to see what happens on Friday.
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Yeah, I'll be stopping by the store on Friday for the same reason. I'm sure they'll have these available day of.
 
krspkbl said:
The entry model definitely will still have 8GB. The entry model at the moment is the 13” M2 at £999.

I’m not saying we’ll get M4 but it could be that next year the entry M3 13” will have 8GB but the “M4” line up will have 16GB as standard.
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Won’t happen. The M2 and M3 models only differ by $100.

If the line-up starts at 16 GB with a price drop, the M3 Air will be useless in the line up as the M4 Air will be cheaper.

If the line-up starts at 16 GB with the current pricing, Apple is foregoing a large chunk of the market which only require 8 GB.

If anything, it will start at 12 GB with the reversal of the free M chip upgrade.
 
Macbookey said:
Apple finally has a stock tier of the Air with 16GB RAM and 512SSD. This means sales on Airs from 3rd party retailers without having to CTO directly from Apple. So thrilled to see this is as a Canadian Mac user, that only had CTO options directly from Apple to get the specs I want. Up here the sales at Best Buy and Amazon were only ever on the non CTO options. Being able to get a 16GB RAM version on sale is awesome. Really happy to see this.
Click to expand...
Here's to hoping they have some of the 16gb models available in store tomorrow like they had for the M2! I'm trading a macbook pro in so I wanted to wait until tomorrow to be in person.
 
Apple rarely ever stocks BTO models because they don't sell nearly as well as base models do, and Apple doesn't like Macs to ship without the latest OS version.

Apple stocking this config means it has been popular enough with M2 models to be worth stocking. One day it may be the base config, but I don't see that happening unless something changes. Apple doesn't just increase memory and storage for the heck of it. There needs to be something new that is demanding more memory and storage.
 
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geta said:
Hopefully they’ll also listening to their customers and upgrade the base model to 12GB RAM, but it’s possible we’ll have to wait till the M5 version for this to happen… 😂
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As long as 8 GB is sufficient for the majority of customers and base model buyers, there is no reason to move it to 12 GB. The only thing that will move that needle is some new features of macOS that demand more memory, or new hardware features on new Macs. The same reason/pace in which iPhone gets more memory and storage...as new features are added that work better with more.
 
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Alicia1 said:
Unfortunately none available in Australia of either the 13" or 15" :(
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Hopefully we have better luck in the states. If I didn’t have the trade, I should have just ordered it for delivery on Friday/
 
AlastorKatriona said:
There needs to be something new that is demanding more memory and storage.
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Like AI?

I assume if iOS 18 is going to stuffed with AI features then so will the next MacOS.

If Apple wants to store models locally then they need to offer larger SSDs. On the smaller side LLMs are 30-40GB but can be much larger (100-400GB)

Also AI is very memory intensive. On my PC I have 64GB RAM and 16GB VRAM. Quite a bit of RAM is used but VRAM is crucial and AI will use as much as possible. I wish I had bought a 4090 with 24GB for AI work. Even if I did I have no doubt that I’d see ~23GB usage. Since Apple uses unified memory there is really no difference.

When you think of a MacBook Air today with 8GB RAM you realise it’s not going be anywhere near enough if Apple are going to start pushing AI heavily. They could do all the processing in the cloud but Apple like to run things locally. Maybe to start off with they will do cloud processing but I suspect the next MacBook Air release will see a big upgrade in base RAM and storage so they can start to shift to local processing.

I think 16/512 will be base specs from next year. 8GB VRAM is about minimum for AI and of course you’d have 8GB for everything else running on the system.
 
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krspkbl said:
Like AI?

I assume if iOS 18 is going to stuffed with AI features then so will the next MacOS.

If Apple wants to store models locally then they need to offer larger SSDs. On the smaller side LLMs are 30-40GB but can be much larger (100-400GB)

Also AI is very memory intensive. On my PC I have 64GB RAM and 16GB VRAM. Quite a bit of RAM is used but VRAM is crucial and AI will use as much as possible. I wish I had bought a 4090 with 24GB for AI work. Even if I did I have no doubt that I’d see ~23GB usage. Since Apple uses unified memory there is really no difference.

When you think of a MacBook Air today with 8GB RAM you realise it’s not going be anywhere near enough if Apple are going to start pushing AI heavily. They could do all the processing in the cloud but Apple like to run things locally. Maybe to start off with they will do cloud processing but I suspect the next MacBook Air release will see a big upgrade in base RAM and storage so they can start to shift to local processing.

I think 16/512 will be base specs from next year. 8GB VRAM is about minimum for AI and of course you’d have 8GB for everything else running on the system.
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Seems logical, but who knows for sure? Apple (in their infinite wisdom and quest for the Almighty dollar) Could end up treating AI a lot like gaming.

Where a baseline machine really doesn’t allow you to play. If you want to play [with AI or gaming] one need to buy a premium “AI computer”, in a similar vein of buying a premium “Gaming PC”.

Just putting forth a glass half empty point of view.
 
krspkbl said:
Like AI?

I assume if iOS 18 is going to stuffed with AI features then so will the next MacOS.

If Apple wants to store models locally then they need to offer larger SSDs. On the smaller side LLMs are 30-40GB but can be much larger (100-400GB)

Also AI is very memory intensive. On my PC I have 64GB RAM and 16GB VRAM. Quite a bit of RAM is used but VRAM is crucial and AI will use as much as possible. I wish I had bought a 4090 with 24GB for AI work. Even if I did I have no doubt that I’d see ~23GB usage. Since Apple uses unified memory there is really no difference.

When you think of a MacBook Air today with 8GB RAM you realise it’s not going be anywhere near enough if Apple are going to start pushing AI heavily. They could do all the processing in the cloud but Apple like to run things locally. Maybe to start off with they will do cloud processing but I suspect the next MacBook Air release will see a big upgrade in base RAM and storage so they can start to shift to local processing.

I think 16/512 will be base specs from next year. 8GB VRAM is about minimum for AI and of course you’d have 8GB for everything else running on the system.
Click to expand...
Absolutely, just don't be surprised that Apple raises the price of the base models in line with these AI system requirements. But yeah even more of a reason to get a MBA M3 now with 16/512 (ideally with slight discount on third party retailers).
 
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