[Poll] 13 inch: 8GB or 16GB?

[recoil80]

When I bought my MBA in 2012 I went for 8GB and it was a wise decision, because I still have a good machine after more than 5 years. I'd say 8GB are good today, and how much ram you need depends on how you use your Mac.

New_Mac_Smell wrote a good post before me, he's right about the OS managing the RAM better than in the past. And the difference between 8 and 16GB is not comparable to the jump from 4 to 8GB that we made a while ago.
8GB is a good amount of memory nowadays, unless you really need a lot of apps running at the same time or you have stuff like virtual machines that require a huge amount of memory to run.
I upgraded my iMac from 8 to 16GB a few months ago and I can tell you there isn't a big difference, like the one I noticed when I put an SSD alongside the old drive. I'm an iOS developer and I always have some instances of the simulator running, they need memory. But when I work with my MBA from home I don't feel constrained by the 8GB of memory, maybe is because I don't have many instances of the simulator or because I don't keep a tons of tabs in my browser, but I'm still satisfied by the performances of my laptop. The only reason for me to upgrade is having a bigger, retina display. I may buy a refurbished 15'' and I'd get 16GB of RAM but the main reason to chose that model would be the bigger display, if I'll get a refurbished 13'' I'll be fine with 8GB or RAM

 

[ascender]

It would be interested to see what the percentage of 8GB v 16GB machines sold are - I suspect the vast majority are 8GB. 8GB on a recent MBP is an incredibly capable and powerful machine and the SSDs are lightening fast which has made a big difference.

As someone said, you need to remember how RAM works, the machine will use as much of it as you have. I guess if you're looking to do a lot of work with big video files or have VMs running, the argument for having 16GB of physical RAM available becomes much stronger.

8GB will be just fine. If you can afford more then there's no harm in going for it, but its not necessary as such. And obviously these machines are very expensive, so finding just another £180 or so is a big decision for a lot of people.

 

[djnigelchung]

"Power" user here.. went from 8gb to 16gb and noticed a HUGE difference, can't go back now!

(also planning on keeping my 2016 15" mbp for 4-5 years)

 

[EugW]

"Power" user here.. went from 8gb to 16gb and noticed a HUGE difference, can't go back now!

(also planning on keeping my 2016 15" mbp for 4-5 years)

What do you do with your machine?

 

[ZapNZs]

I was quite puzzled about this too. I had the following open if I'm not wrong:

• About 8-9 tabs in safari
• 2 documents in Word
• 3 PDFs, 1 which was extra large
• One VLC player on another desktop, paused
• PyCharm with a small code, no active processing

I was actively switching between the programs when I noticed that it went into the orange region for a short time (about the same length as your screenshot). Didn't suffer a performance hit or anything but it did confuse me a little as well.

That brought out the paranoia in me, wondering if 8GB will not be enough few years down the road. Especially since 8GB has been the norm for such a long time and most laptops are starting at 8GB. Now I'm even more confused because both the arguments for 8GB and 16GB seem to make sense.

So I tried to replicate this scenario as best I could. Since the previous screenshot, I did NOT restart the system-rather, I just quit the Apps that were previously running.

So actively running are:
Chrome - 2 tabs
Safari - 10 tabs
2 Word documents
3 medium-sized PDFs in PDF Pro
VLC playing audio
TextWrangler with an open .plist
(and Little Snitch, DriveDX, Bartender 2)

Memory pressure was low. Obviously, this is a terrible approximation given how many variables are involved I can't account for, but it's the best I've got.


Could some element in something that was open happened to be a culprit?
Were you by chance performing OCR? - this I have noticed occupies massive amounts of RAM and will even jack up the pressure on a 16 GB machine if we are talking about massive PDFs...

(also, not sure if this affects it or not but I'm on the last stable of Sierra.)

 

[djnigelchung]

What do you do with your machine?

Everything under the sun. My MBP is my most used/best device. Here are a few things off the top of my head:
- Power a 4K TV as my monitor at 60hz
- Run a plex server, encode movies
- Run a small buying/selling business, using notes/mail along with many chrome tabs, and maps, open at once, swiping through using virtual desktops
- Final cut pro video editing in 1080 and 4K
- Learning Photoshop/illustrator for a potential business idea.
- DJ software to mix music
- Logic Pro and Fruity loops to create music with my midi keyboard, and MPK.
- Basic word/excel, nothing ram intensive here

Bootcamp:
- Play AAA games on low/medium, and non AAA games on high lol
- Run day trading software, dealing with stocks/options, forex, and crypto, discord, and many internet tabs open at once.
- Run 3D designing software, autocad, solidworks


Usually have music playing on spotify or iTunes at all times.

 

[sahnjuro]

I thought the only differences are the CPU, touch bar and the number of fans. Mind elaborating on the difference in the memory (both are 2133MHz LPDDR3 RAM?) and SSD?
[doublepost=1509360660][/doublepost]

Do you think it's worth the US$360 difference though, since I'm not always in the orange region? Or do you think I may be better off just saving this money for the next MacBook Pro upgrade few years down the road?

LMAO what is this nonsense? Do you have any sources for these "inferior, slower, cheaper" components? Theres a different CPU in each MacBook, with a different cooling system. The MBP w/ TB has a CPU that is better for a more demanding workload, and to compensate, it requires better cooling.

Better memory and SSD components? Cheaper and inferior parts in nTB? Please stop speaking out of your ass if you don't know any better. Its the same components.

If you think that Apple will use the same components for a $1.25K MBP and a $3K MBP, that isn't true. If you google enough times you will find that different models of MBP from 2016 and 2017 comes with different components, the determining factor being the price.

For WIFI performance, you can look here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2017-13-ntb-vs-2017-13-tb-wifi-chips.2051548/
nTB MBP's use a slower and cheaper WIFI chip. Same holds true for MBA compared to pre-2015 MBPs.

If you go to a Apple Store and do a system report, you can see what brand DRAM and SSD flash drive are installed.

Many 2016/2017 comes with Micron or may be Elpida DRAM in 13" MBP. 15" and others come with Samsung DRAM. Like wise for SSD. If it says SM0XXX, then it's Samsung which was found in 15" MBP.
If it denotes AP0XXX where XXX is the size, the SSD is SanDisk. These were found in 13" nTB or TB with 128GB. Apple clearly figures that low paying customers don't deserve Samsung components.

You can look at what ifixit teardown found:
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Function+Keys+Late+2016+Teardown/72415?
utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MacBook%202016%20Escape%20Edition%20PR&utm_content=MacBook%202016%20Escape%20Edition%20PR+CID_7d3a0bbad787c3ee13cc57e48cf3ca78&utm_source=CampaignMonitor&utm_term=Late%202016%20MacBook%20Pro%20Teardown

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Touch+Bar+Teardown/73395

Or you can go to Apple Store like I did and looked at the SSD drives. All the 13" and 15" TB models came with Samsung SSD. All the nTB MBP and rMB came with SanDisk SSD.

Personally I'd prefer a Samsung DRAM and Samsung SSD for my MBP and not other brands.