96GB is good but might be an overkill for a laptop (for many users). But because Apple uses the same chips for both laptops and desktops they do not have a choice but to come up with these weird configurations.
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New MacBook Pro Models Max Out With 96GB of RAM, Up From 64GB
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Scientific computing applications can use enormous amounts of memory, like n-body simulations of particle swarms, satellite modeling, galactic evolution, crystal physics, and so on… the vast majority of the time, these programs run on an HPC but it is very helpful to run/debug on your own machine.
The announcement of 96 GB of memory support actually give me hope that I could use something like this professionally, instead of a power hungry Intel machine. That said, I have yet to learn if these CPUs are as fast as intel when AVX instructions are used.
It seems lot of people forget that ram in AS Macs is unified memory, so you can effectively have up to 96GB of vram in a laptop, which is insane.
Reminds me of the time I managed to slim down my Windows 3.1 (or was it 3.0?) down to 3 MB, and ran it off a ramdisk on my 4 megs of RAM… Wasn’t very useful, but Solitaire opened REAL fast 😄
I even manually deleted all the help files, so if you tried to open help, it crashed 😁
Makes me wonder how it worked to develop at all just a few years ago when 32 GB RAM was the maximum on the 15-inch Intel MacBook Pro. Maybe it worked but was so much more limited? Or what is it that makes even twice the amount of that RAM not be enough – new ways of more demanding developing?
On point. People tend to adjust their tasks to fit the tool, because what else are you going to do? Stop working? We can all easily use 16 TB of ram, just like we all used to do our work just fine with 16 megs. Just come back in 25 years and check. There is no such thing as “enough”.
Waiting on posters here to tell you 96Gb is required for web browsing 
Technologies change. Many developers are using Microsoft’s VSCode IDE which is an Electron app and uses a significant amount of RAM. Many dev environments utilize multiple Docker containers which can get quite RAM intensive. If you develop for iOS, the various device simulators can take up gigabytes. All of these are relatively new.
Of course you could just develop using vi in a terminal with a make file and go old school.
It was more limited, but mobility was more important for me. Virtual memory/swap [1] covers up a lot of limited RAM issues, but going to swap is orders of magnitude slower than keeping everything in RAM. In an ideal situation, the computer never needs to use swap space.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_memory
I'm fully aware that technology move on and change, I'm just surprised that what was is considered ”good enough RAM” seems to have gone up som much in just about five years when before that it for about a decade was considered ”good” with 16 GB and 32 was ”much”. So it seems there's a big leap in RAM demand the last five years if even 64 GB isn't enough in many scenarios.
This is what made me a bit surprised – that it seems relatively suddenly. But thanks for enlightening me about the situation.
Good enough is different from optimal. We're finally closing in for optimal for many people's typical usage. My first computer had 8MB of ram (yep MB), and it was good enough at the time, but far from optimal. Until every program I typically run can sit in RAM without swapping, it's not optimal.I'm fully aware that technology move on and change, I'm just surprised that what was is considered ”good enough RAM” seems to have gone up som much in just about five years when before that it for about a decade was considered ”good” with 16 GB and 32 was ”much”. So it seems there's a big leap in RAM demand the last five years if even 64 GB isn't enough in many scenarios.
This is what made me a bit surprised – that it seems relatively suddenly. But thanks for enlightening me about the situation.
My first computer was maxed out at 48kb RAM and ever since then I've always said you can never have too much RAM or too many pixels.
I guess it depends on what you in those applications, but a motion designer I know seems to think even 64 GB RAM can be a limit when dealing with After Effects. 🤷♂️
ok, i ordered the 96 ram so it was maybe not a bad decision. i guess you can't really know how much ram you'll need untill you use your computer...so my thought was to get the max of it, to be safe
I'm fully aware that technology move on and change, I'm just surprised that what was is considered ”good enough RAM” seems to have gone up som much in just about five years when before that it for about a decade was considered ”good” with 16 GB and 32 was ”much”. So it seems there's a big leap in RAM demand the last five years if even 64 GB isn't enough in many scenarios.
This is what made me a bit surprised – that it seems relatively suddenly. But thanks for enlightening me about the situation.
It depends on what you do. My 2013 MBP had 16; at the time, that was the maximum you could get. For consumers, it would've been more than needed. For high-end users, OTOH, more would've been nice. The 27-inch iMac at the time was already available with up to 32, and the Mac Pro with up to 128 (though Apple only officially supported up to 64).
Now, my 2021 one has 32. I could've gotten 64, but only by also upgrading to the M1 Max, which I don't otherwise need, so I would've spent an extra $600 to double the RAM. For consumers, I would argue 32 is more than needed, but 16 is reaching the point where, frankly, Macs should start at that amount. For high-end users, 32 is a bit limited. There's no high-end iMac this time, but there is a Mac Studio, which goes up to 128, and a Mac Pro, which goes up to 1,536.
As you can see, there's a broad range of needs. Doing web browsing, occasional photo editing, spreadsheets, etc.? 16 is plenty. "Pro" work, whatever that means (software development, video editing, etc.)? You probably want 32, maybe more. And then there's the high-end things like machine learning, etc. that gobble up a lot, lot more.
Everyone's needs and requirements are different. I appreciate all who posted on this forum about the nand SSD speed issue. I have learned so much, and can now make a better informed choice when buying new Macs going forward. Thanks to everyone who commented, especially those who suggested we look at all SSD speeds stats, such an Random Access speeds, in addition to the Sequential SSD speeds.
While I understand more now why Apple chose to go with single or double 256GB SSD nand chips in all their M2, M2 Pro, and M2 Max Macs, now we as consumers can better choose the SSD nand speed maximum that we want for current and future use of the particular Mac that we buy.
We can choose a $499 educational priced Mac Mini ($599 non-education) if we are on a very tight budget, and settle for an M2 with 8GB of Unified Memory, 256GB SSD drive with maximum 1,500 MB/s read/write Sequential speeds, or for an extra $200 each bump up either the RAM to 16GB, or increase the SSD to 512GB, with maximum 3,000 MB/s read/write Sequential speeds, or do both. Above 512GB on the Mac Mini M2 (Non Pro version) if you increase the SSD to 1TB or 2TB you still get 3000 MB/s maximum read/write Sequential speeds.
If we instead choose the $1,199 education priced Mac Mini Pro base model ($1,299 non-education), then we get a M2 Pro chip with 16GB Unified Memory and a 512GB SSD drive, with maximum 3,000 MB/s read/write Sequential speeds, or we can spend $200 more to get 1TB SSD storage, with maximum 6,000 MB/s read/write Sequential speeds. The 2TB, 4TB, and 8TB model of the Mac Mini M2 Pro will also benefit from the higher SSD speeds. Of course, we can upgrade the CPU to 12 cores for $300, upgrade the RAM to 32GB for $400 more, upgrade the Gigabit Ethernet port to 10Gbps for $100 more, etc. I recommend if we want to get a maxed out Mac Mini M2 Pro model, that we either get a Mac Studio M1 Max model which is now on clearance, or as a refurb, or wait and get a new Mac Studio M2 Max when they are released, as they will see significant GPU benefits, as we have now seen on the MacBook Pro M2 Max models.
We can also choose a MacBook Pro 14" or 16" M2 Pro or M2 Max model now, with a 512GB SSD drive having maximum 3,000 MB/s read/write Sequential speeds, or upgrade to a 1TB or larger SSD model, with maximum 6,000 MB/s read/write Sequential speeds, or we can get a clearance, refurb, or used MacBook Pro M1 Pro or M1 Max model with all models having faster SSD drives in them, without the 3,000 MB/s limitation.
I hope this helps everyone with a summary of where we are, to help us make the best buying decision for our needs.
While I understand more now why Apple chose to go with single or double 256GB SSD nand chips in all their M2, M2 Pro, and M2 Max Macs, now we as consumers can better choose the SSD nand speed maximum that we want for current and future use of the particular Mac that we buy.
We can choose a $499 educational priced Mac Mini ($599 non-education) if we are on a very tight budget, and settle for an M2 with 8GB of Unified Memory, 256GB SSD drive with maximum 1,500 MB/s read/write Sequential speeds, or for an extra $200 each bump up either the RAM to 16GB, or increase the SSD to 512GB, with maximum 3,000 MB/s read/write Sequential speeds, or do both. Above 512GB on the Mac Mini M2 (Non Pro version) if you increase the SSD to 1TB or 2TB you still get 3000 MB/s maximum read/write Sequential speeds.
If we instead choose the $1,199 education priced Mac Mini Pro base model ($1,299 non-education), then we get a M2 Pro chip with 16GB Unified Memory and a 512GB SSD drive, with maximum 3,000 MB/s read/write Sequential speeds, or we can spend $200 more to get 1TB SSD storage, with maximum 6,000 MB/s read/write Sequential speeds. The 2TB, 4TB, and 8TB model of the Mac Mini M2 Pro will also benefit from the higher SSD speeds. Of course, we can upgrade the CPU to 12 cores for $300, upgrade the RAM to 32GB for $400 more, upgrade the Gigabit Ethernet port to 10Gbps for $100 more, etc. I recommend if we want to get a maxed out Mac Mini M2 Pro model, that we either get a Mac Studio M1 Max model which is now on clearance, or as a refurb, or wait and get a new Mac Studio M2 Max when they are released, as they will see significant GPU benefits, as we have now seen on the MacBook Pro M2 Max models.
We can also choose a MacBook Pro 14" or 16" M2 Pro or M2 Max model now, with a 512GB SSD drive having maximum 3,000 MB/s read/write Sequential speeds, or upgrade to a 1TB or larger SSD model, with maximum 6,000 MB/s read/write Sequential speeds, or we can get a clearance, refurb, or used MacBook Pro M1 Pro or M1 Max model with all models having faster SSD drives in them, without the 3,000 MB/s limitation.
I hope this helps everyone with a summary of where we are, to help us make the best buying decision for our needs.