RAM is non-volatile, it requires constant power to function. There isn't any difference in power usage when you utilise 2% compared to 100% of the RAM. But you will notice higher power usage when you hit 100% as a result of the system needing to engage swapping / page filing so it engages the hard drive / SSD as well.
This is all true, but the RAM power usage sentence is somewhat misleading. Yes, power usage is the same while the RAM is –idle–, but there will be a considerable difference between usage of 4GB of RAM and 16GB of RAM as the RAM is read and written to. Pedantic, but true.
I don't think there has been a 100% accurate, full-picture post about RAM and power usage in this thread yet. Even the above statement misses a big consumer of power: packaging. You can't simply look at LPDDR3 or DDR4 or 4GB or 16GB or 32GB, you have to look at the whole picture. And that's why Schiller's comment was so especially ass-chapping to somebody (me) with a background in electrical engineering. It was incomplete to the point of stupidity (as is Phil's wont), and on-the-face- wrong to the point of absurdity. A few more examples: "water is wet", "the sun is hot", "blue is the best color". But Phil is a marketing guy, he is SUPPOSED to say dumb sh*t.
First off, to those folks calling for and comparing LPDDR4: neither Skylake nor Kaby Lake supports LPDDR4. So stop talking about it. Why? I think (and this is just my "expert" guess, FWIW) that given the TDP of the CPUs the RAM is working with, DDR4 and LPDDR3 are close enough in power performance and the CURRENT-gen CPU architecture is eating the bulk of the power, moving to LPDDR4 now just wouldn't be worth the effort. In other words: if the CPU is at 30, and the RAM is at 12, going to 8 just isn't enough to make that great of a difference so why bother.
The bigger question is density/packaging. If you are putting in 8 chips to get 16GB of RAM, and current density means 32 would requisitely need 16 chips, yeah, that's probably not a smart power move. Are there chips available to do 32GB in 8 chips? I dunno, I don't follow this stuff closely enough; but given that Dell, et al, are offering 32, and even 64, I'm betting there are. But I'm also betting they are more than 2x the price. At Apple's price points, that shouldn't be an issue; at Apple's MARGINs, however, different story. (Greed is an odd thing.) Packaging is a significant power consumer by way of inefficiency. However that's also why a 1Gb (notice G little b) RAM chip and 4Gb RAM chip can actually consume the same amount of power (and why Apple's bs about power consumption on the iPhone RAM was utter nonsense, obviously dispelled by the iPhone 6s and iPhone 7 Plus). But Apple's design choices are Apple's design choices, and they should be held accountable for them . Phil can't be allowed to have it both ways.
And that leads to the third thing to account for: battery. Apple made the new MBPs thinner and lighter, which I'd argue few buyers were ASKING for. In doing so, they reduced the battery size. Also, something I'd argue few buyers would have asked for. (Interestingly, see the iPhone discussions on this point. There is a trend, I notice…) With a smaller battery, and Apple trying to do more with less with lower TDP CPUs (mostly), the impact of RAM -might- actually be considerable enough of an issue to be noticeable. So… you get Phil's answer. Me? I'd not have chosen those design constraints, I'd have said increase the battery to accommodate at least 32GB and redesign the chassis thickness accordingly. But I'm here and Phil is there, go figure.
Perhaps the biggest point I'd like to leave folks with is this: Apple waited nearly 12 months to ship these MacBook Pros beyond when the CPUs they are running were available. Dell, HP, Lenovo… they were all shipping these same Sky Lake chips nearly a year. To me, there is nothing in these MBPs that couldn't have shipped months ago. Certainly, Apple could have shipped the $1499 model and made the Touch Bar a "this year" improvement. But they didn't. They strung along their "Pro" users for a year, never dropping the prices. And, even now, the $1299 entry-level MBP is LAST year's model! AT THE SAME PRICE! And it only gets worse when you start to look at the pricing point choices Apple made:
- $1299 last year model with 2 year old CPU, 128GB of SSD
- Want 256GB? +$200 (which is WAY above Market Price, by 100% or more) which puts the price at $1499 -->
- $1499 this year model with a year old CPU, 256GB of SSD, performance pretty close to last year's $1499 model… So what did we really get NEW?? Nothing. A half pound, and smaller battery, and functionality that the competition has been shipping for nearly a year.
- Want a CPU update? +$300, only choice --> $1799
- $1799 for the REAL "updated" this year model, 8GB of RAM, 256GB SSD, year old CPUs and GPUs that the competition has been shipping for nearly a year.
- That's a $500 price jump to get a "new" machine compared to years past! And when compared to Apple's circa-2010 marketshare resurgence, it is just astonishing. The reason that Macs started taking off was because users could buy a $1300 MacBook and GET a GREAT VALUE. Drive was upgradeable, RAM was upgradeable. Was that good for Apple's cash pile? Well, apparently it was, because Macs took off like wildfire. But since the rMBP, value has declined year after year, and Apple has been slower and slower to release rather than out in front.
I'm sorry… this just doesn't make sense! It doesn't jive with what I'm hearing from Apple wrt their marketing of the BEST products (a year late) from the best engineers and designers (a year late and nothing much better than Dell). The MacBook Pro line has become a progression of "f' you" models, an "up-sell" used car dealer's wet dream! "You can't afford a $2000 laptop, OK haha, well how 'bout a 2 year old one with 128GB of storage. Hahahahaha." "Oh, you do have a bit extra on your credit card limit? Well, then you get to move up to the next pile of crap." "What? You want performance that's more baseline for a '2017' product? $1800." "Annnnnd, if you want to plug anything into it, that'll be $25 for a Lightning cable, and $40 for a DisplayPort adapter, and… See… told you we'd get your $2000." Again, Apple can't have it both ways. They can't continue to say this stuff and we just accept it. There is a line in Apple's 1984 commercial that just sticks with me… right as the Apple hammer-thrower releases her hammer at the Big Face on the Big Screen, the man is saying "…our enemies shall talk themselves to death…". Apple is doing an awful lot of talking.
