Should I upgrade to 16GB (within 14 day returns....)?

[SeeGeeAitch]

Hey all.

Thanks for the advice and replies I've been given on other threads I've started in the past. People have been really helpful

Anyway, I purchased a 13" MBP with 256GB HDD, 8GB RAM, 1.4CPU last week.
So far those specs have been enough and I love the thing!

It's replacing a 2008 MB which I had upgraded from 2GB to 6GB RAM and stuck in an SSD. It was running reasonably well but the CPU was slowing it down.
I never went over 4.5GB of memory used on that old thing so just went for the base 8GB RAM with my new MBP but I do understand that due to newer OS, updated services and programs/apps etc I should see a little more RAM use on the newer model.

Today I thought it'd be fun to try out Parallels running Windows 10 as I still use a desktop PC now and again (and it saves re-buying Photoshop and MS Office etc Mac versions - I also prefer not to be on a subscription model).

So I had Parallels running with Win 10 Pro, Photoshop and Word open. In the background (on the MacOS) I had Safari, Mail, Calendar and Messages open and Finder was copying a few GBs of files from a NAS to a USB Drive - so I was running far more at one time than I usually (or ever) would. Messed about with a file in Photoshop with 20-30 or so layers.

Memory usage never went above 7.1GB. Pressure never went about 72%. Graph stayed green, never went yellow or red (I've heard it changes colour when it reaches critical values but I've never actually seen it).

My question is, considering that I'd never be running all those tasks (or that would be the absolute maximum I ever would and that would be extremely unlikely/rare) is it worth me taking this MBP back within the 14day period and upgrading to the 16GB model?
At the moment everything looks fine but what worries me is how things will be in a couple of years from now..... it's not quite maxing out but it's not really that far off either...

General/normal usage sees memory usage between 4.5-5GB, pressure between 35-40%.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Cheers
CGH

 

[mick2]

If money's no object then sure, why not, but if its not burning a hole in your pocket i'd say no; you did exactly the right thing by running the test you did and based on this you'd simply be paying for a load of RAM to sit there being unused 99.9% of the time.

Remember also that if you do have occasion to run the kind of scenario in your test for real - or even more stuff open - its not that your mac would suddenly stop working or would become unusable. It would just start paging some of the stuff you have open but are not currently using to the SSD, as its designed to do. Accessing data or apps that are paged is slower than that in RAM, but the OS is very clever about how it does this and the chances are that you wouldnt even notice that it's doing this. This is particularly true now that the paging is happening to a fast SSD rather than a spinning HDD.

You'll no doubt get answers here invoking 'future proofing' and 'video editing' etc as reasons for always getting more RAM, but these answers tend to be based on blind assumption and a sense that spending more money is always the right answer, rather than the kind of real world test you did. Its only if you regularly and routinely have need to open stuff that causes paging that I'd start looking at more RAM.

 

[FlyingDutch]

16 Gb are necessary only if you are planning to make an extensive use of Parallels and Photoshop (in a virtual machine).
With just one VM most probably 8 Gb are enough for years. But your mileage may vary.

 

[SeeGeeAitch]

If money's no object then sure, why not, but if its not burning a hole in your pocket i'd say no; you did exactly the right thing by running the test you did and based on this you'd simply be paying for a load of RAM to sit there being unused 99.9% of the time.

Remember also that if you do have occasion to run the kind of scenario in your test for real - or even more stuff open - its not that your mac would suddenly stop working or would become unusable. It would just start paging some of the stuff you have open but are not currently using to the SSD, as its designed to do. Accessing data or apps that are paged is slower than that in RAM, but the OS is very clever about how it does this and the chances are that you wouldnt even notice that it's doing this. This is particularly true now that the paging is happening to a fast SSD rather than a spinning HDD.

You'll no doubt get answers here invoking 'future proofing' and 'video editing' etc as reasons for always getting more RAM, but these answers tend to be based on blind assumption and a sense that spending more money is always the right answer, rather than the kind of real world test you did. Its only if you regularly and routinely have need to open stuff that causes paging that I'd start looking at more RAM.

Great info, thank you for taking the time to type all that out @mick2, much appreciated.
Yes I'd rather not spend anymore $$ to be honest.
I will stick with what I have.
[doublepost=1567592512][/doublepost]

16 Gb are necessary only if you are planning to make an extensive use of Parallels and Photoshop (in a virtual machine).
With just one VM most probably 8 Gb are enough for years. But your mileage may vary.

Thanks @FlyingDutch yeah I stick with what I have methinks

 

[pshufd]

I usually check my memory consumption when I see these threads. My work machine (that I'm typing on) is using 8.03 GB of RAM out of 16 GB. No problems. It's running VNC, Firefox, Thunderbird, Growly Notes, Notes, iCal, and, of course, Activity Monitor.

My personal machine is running Firefox, Apple Mail, Notes, Reminders, iCal, Think or Swim, iTunes and Active Trader Pro and is using 10.66 GB of RAM. The memory usage for Think or Swim will grow somewhat through the day. I used to run everything on one laptop and Think or Swim and ActiveTraderPro under Parallels and memory was an issue. Running on two machines partitions things nicely. The personal machine is doing a lot more work than the work machine CPU-wise. It sometimes plays streaming videos as well but those probably don't take much RAM.

I would love to get 32 GB on my next system just so that I have plenty of overhead room for the future. My personal machine is a 2014 MacBook Pro 15 so it's already five years old and I can see getting another five years out of it. But not with more RAM. I would either buy a used 2015 or a Windows laptop (17.3 inches) with more RAM overhead if I had to buy a machine today.

 

[Stephen.R]

So I had Parallels running with Win 10 Pro, Photoshop and Word open

The things running in the VM don't really make much difference, what will make a difference is how much memory is assigned to the VM. If you only assign it 1GB, then you can open 50 apps in the VM, it's still only going to use 1GB.

I had Safari, Mail, Calendar and Messages open and Finder was copying a few GBs of files from a NAS to a USB Drive

Safari's use of memory is entirely variable based on the specifics of the the sites you visit and the number of tabs/windows open at once.

Your usage may be vastly different from myself or others, but in my experience, Mac users tend to leave apps open and multi-task between them more so than Windows users. Hitting 7.1/8GB used with a single Windows VM and 4 system-default apps open would be a red flag that the machine's life will be artificially short because of a lack of memory.

 

[Howard2k]

Before I picked up my current device I bought an Air with 4GB of RAM, which I thought I'd be able to get by with. I did what you did, I tried to mimic my most heavy usage based on real world tests, and it jumped into the red fairly quickly.

Even though that test was more demanding than my every day usage, it was still based on my real world usage.

I realized that with 4 GB I would have to keep an eye on my memory usage and be selective about closing apps, so I went for 8GB. 8GB has been great, and macOS is really quite impressive at memory management. With a fast SSD the paging is less noticeable than it would be with HDD or slower SSD.

If you're thinking of 2-3 years I think you are doing the right thing in keeping it. If you're thinking 4 or 5 years then I would certainly consider 16GB.

My usage seems somewhat similar to yours. I don't do VMs, but I am doing Lightroom, GarageBand, Safari, iTunes, OneNote etc.

The thing that seems to put the most stress on my machine is not lack of memory but runaway Safari processes. I keep Activity Monitor running in the dock and every now and then I'll notice that the CPU is running harder than it normally would. Usually that is a poorly behaved website. I typically have around 30 tabs open and tend to hit that CPU issue more than memory issues.

One other thing to keep in mind is that macOS will use whatever memory you have. If your machine has 128GB of memory it will use a huge amount of that for caching files etc. The mistake that folks sometimes make is buying a machine with gobs of memory and then being concerned when that memory gets used. That's the way it's supposed to work. The majority of 13" machines are 8GB and although we get plenty of threads from people who are concerned about whether 8GB is enough, there are very rarely threads from folks who actually have 8GB and are struggling. There are plenty of threads from people with 16GB or 32GB who will tell you that their system is barely doing anything and it's using 9GB of RAM or more. Again, that's kinda how it's supposed to work.

Having said that, I would also look at your Swap Used too. A green memory graph but high swap usage means that you're putting stress on the memory and the SSD is picking up the slack (and managing).

Last consideration - you're working with images obviously. I'm not sure if you're working with your own photos or working on images from other sources, but let's say you have a 20MP camera today and upgrade to a 30MP camera down the road, what impact will that have? I fairly recently upgraded from a 10MP camera to a 24MP camera. I haven't noticed any significant impact (aside from disk space usage!) but that's an example of how your requirements can change even if your workflow stays the same. I was a little concerned about how my system would handle it. 10MP was fine, but 24MP is more than double the pixel count, obviously.