rMBP RAM with Mavericks

[timsaxman]

Hello.

I hear a lot of people recommending that you max out the RAM in a rMBP since it's not upgradable post purchase. But does anyone have any experience of the "Memory Compression"-feature in Mavericks? Does it make huge differences and can you get by with 8 gigs of RAM? I'm not one to always keep almost every app open thus needing a lot of RAM and I don't know if I want it just to "future proof" it.

So to those of you who have used Mavericks on a rMBP, does it make a noticeable difference and does it make buying the rMBP with just 8 gigs of RAM more sufficient?

Thanks in advance!

 

[leman]

You can get by with 8GB even on Mountain Lion. Most users don't need 16GB - only people who work with large data sets (as in videos or photos) or run multiple virtual machines would really benefit from it.

 

[actuallyinaus]

dont worry, 8GB is fine for 90% of users

 

[irock101]

No problems here with 8gb - i use an external thunderbolt display, edit the occasional family video and use photoshop without any problems

 

[MacModMachine]

dont worry, 8GB is fine for 90% of users

It really is , SSD's can swap memory very quickly and you will not find a speed issue , i have 8gb ram and run Virtual machines regularly without issue.

 

[nickandre21]

well i think 8gb is more then enough if you do not work on any creative applications or apps that need lots of ram. When i am not working on music or videos it hardly uses over 4-6gb of ram. Currently as i type this firefox has 5 tabs open i have itunes open, and microsoft word, it shows me 10.5 gb ram free. Plus the app nap feature is amazing, while on ac power if i have lots of apps open i can hear the fans just as i pull the power cord in a matter of minutes the fans go down.

 

[Krazy Bill]

I don't understand how you all can answer the OP's question until he reveals:

1.) What apps he uses.
2.) How long he intends to keep the mac.

Mavrix will never be the magical cure for needing less base memory nor will it future proof "certain" apps 3 or 4 years hence.

 

[NewbieCanada]

I use a Mac Mini and an rMBP with 16 and a MacBook Air with 8 and I can't say that I run into issues on the MBA.

That said, the memory upgrade is fairly minimal in cost compared to the price of the computer and I consider it a better safe than sorry issue.