Ram: 8gb vs 16gb

[New_Mac_Smell]

What you need and what is nice to have are different things. 8GB is what you need, 16GB is nice to have. If you're a professional as I said, the extra cost and benefit of 16GB is minimal compared to waiting more time for renders/transitions/imports etc. However if it's just for personal/amateur use then the extra cost is not always worth it.

 

[cookies!]

If you can wait for the 2018 updates, you can get a quad core 13".

Can't stress enough how big of a leap in performance the 2018 13" laptops will bring for anyone who does processor-intensive work.

 

[T909]

Looking at the 13” tb MBP. What circumstances would you guys look to custom order 16gb ram?

Just looking at future proofing vs overkill.

What will you do on your Mac?

 

[raqball]

If you can wait for the 2018 updates, you can get a quad core 13".

Can't stress enough how big of a leap in performance the 2018 13" laptops will bring for anyone who does processor-intensive work.

Not exactly.... The current 8th gen Intel chips DO NOT use Iris graphics. Intel is suppose to be releasing a dual core 8th gen chip later this year with Iris graphics. I'd be shocked if Apple made the change from Iris graphics to accommodate the quad core cips in the 13" machines.

I expect dual core 8th gen with Iris graphics once they are ready.

 

[spooklog]

I run a 2012 Mac Mini with 8GB RAM and a non-SSD hard drive. Right now I have Vivaldi (the browser) open, Messages, Word and Activity Monitor, plus a smattering of icons in my menu bar. Activity Monitor tells me it is using 6.4GB of RAM. So on the face of it, I should upgrade to 12GB or 16GB, or so it would seem. The thing is, the Mac manages memory pretty well--I can have many more apps running and still not exceed 8GB of RAM. How? Again, it's the miracle of Apple's memory management and the algorithms which determine how swap space on the hard drive is used along with physical RAM.

I do know that my Mini has become slow at times, but in my case it makes more sense to optimize the hard drive by replacing it with a solid state drive. This is an inexpensive option which is often recommended by those who seem to understand how Macs work. On the other hand, RAM is pretty cheap these days: From OWC, I can upgrade to 12GB for $124 or upgrade to 16GB for $164.

Pick your poison: Faster solid state drive or 16GB of RAM. For me, and for many ordinary users, the most dramatic difference is seen with an SSD upgrade. But if more RAM isn't a hardship, go for it.

 

[T909]

I run a 2012 Mac Mini with 8GB RAM and a non-SSD hard drive. Right now I have Vivaldi (the browser) open, Messages, Word and Activity Monitor, plus a smattering of icons in my menu bar. Activity Monitor tells me it is using 6.4GB of RAM. So on the face of it, I should upgrade to 12GB or 16GB, or so it would seem. The thing is, the Mac manages memory pretty well--I can have many more apps running and still not exceed 8GB of RAM. How? Again, it's the miracle of Apple's memory management and the algorithms which determine how swap space on the hard drive is used along with physical RAM.

I do know that my Mini has become slow at times, but in my case it makes more sense to optimize the hard drive by replacing it with a solid state drive. This is an inexpensive option which is often recommended by those who seem to understand how Macs work. On the other hand, RAM is pretty cheap these days: From OWC, I can upgrade to 12GB for $124 or upgrade to 16GB for $164.

Pick your poison: Faster solid state drive or 16GB of RAM. For me, and for many ordinary users, the most dramatic difference is seen with an SSD upgrade. But if more RAM isn't a hardship, go for it.

I have Safari opened with 8 tabs and Chrome opened with 2 tabs, also Notes, Viber FTP, Photshop, WhatsApp opened on 4GB of ram and activity monitor says 3,44GB of 4GB is used. Also, I have 320GB HDD and it takes a minute to boot up on high Sierra.

 

[Dave245]

The one thing i don't understand is why Apple added the 16GB option to the 12" MacBook if it's not meant for serious work? yet 16GB will only be used when doing serious work, editing 4K footage with effects will be better with 16GB Ram but will people really use the 12" MacBook for that.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

The one thing i don't understand is why Apple added the 16GB option to the 12" MacBook if it's not meant for serious work? yet 16GB will only be used when doing serious work, editing 4K footage with effects will be better with 16GB Ram but will people really use the 12" MacBook for that.

Head over to the MacBook forum many people use macbooks for video editing and photo editing on the road, huge batch editing of photos could use a lot of RAM as well.

I do agree though I can't imagine its an option they sell all that often, although if you believed this site anyone with less than 32gb of RAM will be unable to send an email in 2 years time.

 

[raqball]

although if you believed this site anyone with less than 32gb of RAM will be unable to send an email in 2 years time.

Hahahah... So true!

Thread go something like this:

Question form an OP: My grandmother wants a new MacBook Pro. She does email, browses the web and runs a website for her online bingo group. I told here to get the MacBook base model. Thoughts?

Responses to the thread:

-She needs 16GB of RAM for her bingo site
-If she want to future proof tell her to get a machine with 32GB of RAM
-Is she going to edit a photo for her bingo website? If so she needs 16GB or RAM

ect, ect, ect...

Some responses are rather entertaining though..

 

[New_Mac_Smell]

Not exactly.... The current 8th gen Intel chips DO NOT use Iris graphics. Intel is suppose to be releasing a dual core 8th gen chip later this year with Iris graphics. I'd be shocked if Apple made the change from Iris graphics to accommodate the quad core cips in the 13" machines.

I expect dual core 8th gen with Iris graphics once they are ready.

To be fair, these processors don't exist yet. So pulling numbers out of a magical hat is entirely fair game at this stage. I would expect personally a 20% increase in performance, in line with every other CPU update. Regardless of how many cores it has, pretty sure Intel haven't invented an entirely new form of silicon for these things.

Kind of reminds me of the 32bit/64bit days, or when dual cores first came out. Promises of amazing performance abound, realistically it made no difference for 3-4 years and you may as well have brought one then when they were actually a lot faster.

I think people think 4 cores is 2 more than 2 so will double the performance or something, it's more like having 2 tanks full, or 4 tanks half full. It can just utilise more area to balance a load and does not automatically add performance.

 

[raqball]

To be fair, these processors don't exist yet. So pulling numbers out of a magical hat is entirely fair game at this stage. I would expect personally a 20% increase in performance, in line with every other CPU update. Regardless of how many cores it has, pretty sure Intel haven't invented an entirely new form of silicon for these things.

Kind of reminds me of the 32bit/64bit days, or when dual cores first came out. Promises of amazing performance abound, realistically it made no difference for 3-4 years and you may as well have brought one then when they were actually a lot faster.

I think people think 4 cores is 2 more than 2 so will double the performance or something, it's more like having 2 tanks full, or 4 tanks half full. It can just utilise more area to balance a load and does not automatically add performance.

We won't know until Intel announces them but my guess is the 8th gen quad cores are a non starter for Apple as they don't use Iris graphics. Will the 8th gen dual core be faster? Yup! How much who knows but I can't dispute your 20% comment..

 

[maflynn]

I have Safari opened with 8 tabs and Chrome opened with 2 tabs, also Notes, Viber FTP, Photshop, WhatsApp opened on 4GB of ram and activity monitor says 3,44GB of 4GB is used. Also, I have 320GB HDD and it takes a minute to boot up on high Sierra.

Yep, I think OS X's memory management is great, and I see no issues with my 8GB iMac. I was tempted to upgrade that to 16gb to "make it faster" but looking at ram utilization, when running LR, PS, or even Vmware, I found that all in all, I'd not really benefit from the upgrade.

I know its a little different with the MBP, because the ram is soldered on, but the point remains that the OS does a really good job managing its resources

 

[joefoong79]

Yep, I think OS X's memory management is great, and I see no issues with my 8GB iMac. I was tempted to upgrade that to 16gb to "make it faster" but looking at ram utilization, when running LR, PS, or even Vmware, I found that all in all, I'd not really benefit from the upgrade.

I know its a little different with the MBP, because the ram is soldered on, but the point remains that the OS does a really good job managing its resources

This debate is just like buying a fast car. How many Ferrari or Lamborghini you spot on the street? If you can afford it, then go with it. Remember what is the speed limit, even you get the fast car and how often you able to speed the max that you paid for. Is all about egos vs smart saving.

 

[BananaX]

Sorry to dig up the old thread. Do you guys think I need 16 Ram?

Office tasks/Youtube/Netflix/other media consumptions - I do this everyday

And I am planning to get an eGPU + an external monitor later for gaming (DOTA2/PUBG).

Will the 8GB ram or the i5 CPU become a bottleneck?

Cheers

 

[cruisin]

Sorry to dig up the old thread. Do you guys think I need 16 Ram?

Office tasks/Youtube/Netflix/other media consumptions - I do this everyday

And I am planning to get an eGPU + an external monitor later for gaming (DOTA2/PUBG).

Will the 8GB ram or the i5 CPU become a bottleneck?

Cheers

Office or media consumption will be fine with 8. Gaming will likely hit the CPU limit before the 8 GB limit as I cannot think of a game that has a higher memory demand than CPU. Obviously check the system requirements for your game.

 

[Sebastian79]

Looking at the 13” tb MBP. What circumstances would you guys look to custom order 16gb ram?

Just looking at future proofing vs overkill.

You just can't 'future proof' these models because of the keyboard issue. just sayin'...

 

[Malus120]

To the OP, the person who revived the thread, and anyone pondering the same question, as someone who owns a 2016 nTB 13" MBP w/ 8GB of ram, trust me, unless you can get an amazing deal and really need to save the money, go for a model with 16GB of ram.

Coming from a 2014 Retina iMac w/ 24GB of ram, I can honestly say that at times using the MBP can be painful (MBP is primarily used for 10+ Safari tabs, Mail, Tweetbot, Slack, iMessage, Office Apps, some light photo work, etc) Looking at activity monitor it seems to be primarily because my ram is constantly on or over the (green) edge of yellow memory pressure without active and aggressive management. Based on casually looking at activity monitor on my previous iMac and my current hackintosh, I think that 10-12GB of ram is probably the current "sweet spot" but obviously this isn't possible on the MBP.

That said. For anyone considering buying right now, keep in mind quad core replacement chips for the 13" MBP from Intel (and AMD) are already out and will offer a significant performance boost. I really can't recommend anyone purchase a 13" MBP right now unless absolutely necessary

 

[EugW]

To the OP, the person who revived the thread, and anyone pondering the same question, as someone who owns a 2016 nTB 13" MBP w/ 8GB of ram, trust me, unless you can get an amazing deal and really need to save the money, go for a model with 16GB of ram.

Coming from a 2014 Retina iMac w/ 24GB of ram, I can honestly say that at times using the MBP can be painful (MBP is primarily used for 10+ Safari tabs, Mail, Tweetbot, Slack, iMessage, Office Apps, some light photo work, etc) Looking at activity monitor it seems to be primarily because my ram is constantly on or over the (green) edge of yellow memory pressure without active and aggressive management. Based on casually looking at activity monitor on my previous iMac and my current hackintosh, I think that 10-12GB of ram is probably the current "sweet spot" but obviously this isn't possible on the MBP.

That said. For anyone considering buying right now, keep in mind quad core replacement chips for the 13" MBP from Intel (and AMD) are already out and will offer a significant performance boost. I really can't recommend anyone purchase a 13" MBP right now unless absolutely necessary

I agree. Judging by the OPs stated needs, and if the OP wants to keep the machine several years, it seems like a no brainer to me. Get 16 GB.

Your point about 10-12 GB is what I’ve been saying for a long time now. For many people 8 GB would be manageable but 10-12 GB would sometimes be better. This would especially be true several years from now as OSes and software get updated. But you can’t spec a MacBook with 12 GB, so 16 it is.

 

[Stoopac]

I ask as I am coming for a 15 pro with 16 down to a 13 pro with 8 and not sure if I’ll miss the 8

I am doing the same thing. I am freaking out about it, but the quad core i5 vs the dual core i7 and the 512G of HD vs the 256G that I had... I'm pretty sure the 8G of memory didn't get utilized. Of course, if it does I will likely buy a new one in 2 years because Apple will have something completely new and I won't be able to not buy it.

 

[GoldfishRT]

I'm just an office worker and student that does some data in Excel and the typical email, slack, Netflix dealio.

Notice no real performance difference with 8 or 16 gigs of ram. But of course, I'm not running VMs or doing proper data science or anything like that.

Buy what you need now.

 

[MacModMachine]

Just to throw my 2 cents in in case anyone reads this again.

I did some serious testing back in dec 18 with the air '18. 8GB vs 16GB.

I managed to max out the 8gb with lots of apps running , once it filled the memory it began swapping , However the swapping was being done at 2000 mbps , hardly a noticeable speed difference from memory , sure its very large difference but still hardly noticeable , your talking 10ths of a second.

I would get a 256gb ssd before 128 if the option came up , SSD's wear level and 256 I think would be more beneficial than 128 in the long run rather than 16gb ram.

Im going to be posting another benchmark soon with 8 vs 16 + egpu (570 8gb ) vs MacBook Pro 13 '18 + egpu 570 8gb to see the Frame difference from the lower end cpu , should be interesting.

 

[Perezx]

Just a couple of facts:
- freshly booted Mojave occupies about 4 Gb of RAM;
- built-in graphics (the only choice for 13” and the 80% of time for 15”) needs 1.5 Gb “shared with the main memory”
So whats left of your 8Gb? Just 2.5Gb for applications you launch. That might be enough even for tomorrow. However, that ISNT so much...
Needless to say that 2011 MBP supports 16Gb and plenty of 2014-2015 PCs aLready had 12-16Gb in stock.

 

[Beachguy]

One more thing to consider: With SSDs, you'll feel tightness from RAM at a higher usage than in the HDD days. Because the paging is much faster, your heavy load will not hurt as much.

Not well phrased, but I hope this makes sense to the reader.

 

[MacModMachine]

Just a couple of facts:
- freshly booted Mojave occupies about 4 Gb of RAM;
- built-in graphics (the only choice for 13” and the 80% of time for 15”) needs 1.5 Gb “shared with the main memory”
So whats left of your 8Gb? Just 2.5Gb for applications you launch. That might be enough even for tomorrow. However, that ISNT so much...
Needless to say that 2011 MBP supports 16Gb and plenty of 2014-2015 PCs aLready had 12-16Gb in stock.

Mojave uses 2gb on boot , on all the system I have installed it. so that's no fact.

you most likely do not know how to read the memory under activity monitor. Wired memory is what is USED and cannot be swapped to disk. That I consider USED memory, the rest is in use/ swapped /cached ect.

1.5gb video memory is not allocated , very rarely would it allocated 1.5.gb so not a great way to go by

 

[Perezx]

One more thing to consider: With SSDs, you'll feel tightness from RAM at a higher usage than in the HDD days. Because the paging is much faster, your heavy load will not hurt as much.

Not well phrased, but I hope this makes sense to the reader.

1. Paging hurts your SSD. Not good.
2. As long, as relatively slow HDD is the main reason for spinning rainbow etc, you may not notice lack or free RAM. When your storage is fast enough, insufficient RAM might become the next weak point.

Mojave uses 2gb on boot , on all the system I have installed it. so that's no fact.

you most likely do not know how to read the memory under activity monitor. Wired memory is what is USED and cannot be swapped to disk. That I consider USED memory, the rest is in use/ swapped /cached ect.

Oh, yes, lets switch to personalities and blame each other
Just try to run Mojave at 2Gb, which will be enough by your opinion. Even at 4Gb it is barely usable.

To get smooth experience you need to avoid swapping as much as it is possible at all. Not to just squeeze unswappable into the ram and everything else on disk.