Now that Macs come with 16gb RAM should I consider more?

[wayne905]

Now that 16GB is standard across all Macs, should we now be considering RAM upgrades even for somewhat light/basic users? Or is 16GB sufficient for future proofing?

 

[coffeemilktea]

16 GB of RAM is sufficient... for 2024. The question is, for how many more years will it remain "sufficient?" I remember a time when 4 GB of RAM on a Mac was a huge amount; clearly that time is long gone. Eventually, even 16 GB will seem tiny.

But for the foreseeable future, I really do think 16 GB will be enough for light users, especially since a lot of people just use their Mac just to browse the Internet and edit documents. As much as people joke about Chrome being a memory hog, I think 16 GB will be enough for the "light usage" crowd for a long time.

 

[throAU]

Now that 16GB is standard across all Macs, should we now be considering RAM upgrades even for somewhat light/basic users? Or is 16GB sufficient for future proofing?

Not until you need it.

RAM is almost always cheaper in the future - so buy it when you need it.

If you aren't seeing orange (at least!) or red on memory pressure graph on a regular basis, and on an M series, you're good.

My M1 Pro regularly sees orange with 16 GB because of my workload and it is still responsive.

If you're still in the green on memory pressure for your day to day workload, more RAM will do basically nothing for you.



If you are planning to buy a new machine and don't know if you need more than 16 GB for basic stuff (and coming from a machine with 8 GB or less) - you're good. 16 GB is still a very capable amount of RAM and unless you know you have large projects that need more you are likely wasting your money.

To give you an example of things I do every day with 16 GB

• Safari / Arc / Firefox all with multiple tabs at the same time
• calendar, messages, mail, teams all open
• 1 Windows 11 virtual machine with 6 GB ram allocated
• bbedit
• 1password
• network toolbox, network radar, network view
• a bunch of other small misc apps

attached is current memory pressure. machine is still perfectly responsive under these conditions.

 

[EugW]

For my business application usage, with Photos and a few other apps thrown on top:

2014 i5 Mac mini with 8 GB RAM usually results in a few GB of swap file and several GB of compressed memory.
2020 M1 Mac mini with 16 GB RAM usually results in no swap file but about 3-4 GB of compressed memory.
2024 M4 Mac mini with 24 GB RAM usually results in no swap file but about 0-1 GB of compressed memory.

The 8 GB 2014 Mac mini was quite usable, but did lag from time to time, I suspect from the swap file in conjunction with a slower DRAM-less NVMe SSD, and of course from the slow CPU. (I used this until 2022, with Monterey.)

The 16 GB M1 Mac mini flies on Sequoia. It's very fast. I'd be happy using this for the next several years.

The 24 GB M4 Mac mini is even faster, but I suspect it has nothing to do with the memory. It's most likely because the CPU is nearly twice as fast as M1.

I'd say this Mac sees a light to moderate non-media workload, and a light media workload. So for basic users I'm sure 16 GB will be enough for several years. Remember, if you're not actively using the AI features, it's not occupying much memory, and from my understanding, it utilizes a few GB of memory when in use, not 8 GB memory.

 

[Fishrrman]

Just as once
16 is "the new 8"...

We are reaching the point where
32 is "the new 16".

 

[EugW]

Just as once
16 is "the new 8"...

We are reaching the point where
32 is "the new 16".

More like 12 and 20 GB now, so effectively 16 and 24 GB.

 

[niteflyr]

I think the jury is still out on this until we see more of the Apple Intelligence usages. By upgrading all Macs to 16GB min, Apple is telling us that AI is going to use more memory. Just as Apple told us before that 8GB was plenty, now they are saying 16GB is plenty. I might take that with a grain of salt. YMMV

 

[EugW]

I think the jury is still out on this until we see more of the Apple Intelligence usages. By upgrading all Macs to 16GB min, Apple is telling us that AI is going to use more memory. Just as Apple told us before that 8GB was plenty, now they are saying 16GB is plenty. I might take that with a grain of salt. YMMV

16 GB is plenty and will be for years, for the basic user.

 

[throAU]

Just as once
16 is "the new 8"...

We are reaching the point where
32 is "the new 16".

Whilst I agree for power users, for the typical non-professional user, 16 will be enough for some time unless there's some new paradigm shift at which point the rest of the machine will need replacement anyway due to cpu/gpu inadequacies.