I've found Parallels works better with 16 over 8. As does Adobe's CC. Most other apps I use, I don't think I would notice a lick.
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Thinking of getting a MBA M1 but..
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You missed the point. Having more RAM doesn't guaranteed "longevity, snappiness" or any of the other buzzwords used to justify the upgrade.
P.S. you can also open 20 tabs with 8GB of RAM, and macOS will manage it just fine.
Agreed. This whole idea of getting more ram than you need as a way of 'future proofing' is idiotic. The whole rest of the machine will likely be way behind the current tech by the time that extra ram would ever come in handy.
That said, I do believe for any current computer, 16gb should be the baseline default option. Not to future proof, but for the here and now.
yes it does, on big sur my 16gig was green with plenty to spare, on monterey my ram pressure is yellow with 7-8gig on swap. same amount of tabs open with same apps in background.
Besides a yellow line on a graph, how was your work (browsing the web?) severely impacted by having only 8GB? Did the 8GB machine crash with a kernel panic?
the mouse got extremely draggy, both chrome and safari froze up periodically while switching between tabs, all this is well documented on apple's troubleshooting forum. it wasn't until the system push more memory on swap did the impact became less severe. i'm no power user by any means, no adobe, audio or final cuts. just tabs and words and couple other non intensive apps.
You concede that RAM management is better on macOS, so is it really wrong for someone to think that what they can do with 8GB of RAM on an M1 Air is comparable to many 16GB Windows configurations? Again, when RAM is managed better you can do more with it, especially when it's combined with the efficiency of an in-house chip that flies through tasks on a passively cooled laptop.
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I'm not sure why the 8GB vs. 16GB argument always needs to be so contentious. I do agree with you that 16GB should be the baseline going forward, and it’s certainly very useful to a number of workflows today (not just tomorrow). I went with 16GB for my Air and I know it was the right decision for me. But I think the term future proofing simply translates to "I want to buy a device that's going to give me solid performance for multiple years”
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Pardon the interruption here: My first Apple computer was the original Apple II (not IIe or plus ). It came with 4K of memory but when I bought I wanted 16K because there is no such thing as too much memory. They did sell it to me but looked at me strangely. Now we discuss 8GB vs. 16 GB - a long way from 4K
My first computer had 16MB of RAM and the upgrade took it to 64MB. Yup, long way indeed.
But as many have said, MBA M1 8GB *would* give and has given solid performance for multiple years. Nobody is going to buy a new computer if there was a chance of less than solid performance.
I think of future proofing as meaning that if there are big shifts in apps/streaming demand on RAM, that it will keep up. But that's more for gamers/coders/graphic designers, not casual users. I'm one of those casual users currently using a MBP 2012 and I honestly get solid performance with everyday use. Emails, Netflix, web browsing... it's fine. And it's 8GB with very old hardware (e.g. 2.5 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5).
Yes, it is totally wrong. People have a completely wrong idea of what RAM is used for, if they think 16GB == 8GB + better RAM mangement gives the same user experience, unless you only work with extremely small files, which almost no one does.
The worlds best chip doesn't remove the need for physical RAM, until its IO is equivalent to that of RAM. which is not going to happen anytime this century.
If Apple charged $50 instead of $200 for 16GB RAM, I guarantee this argument wouldn't come up in most threads.
When RAM is relatively expensive, there seems to be all sorts of excuses why 8GB is enough.
When RAM is relatively expensive, there seems to be all sorts of excuses why 8GB is enough.
DankPods recently made a video proving that 8GB base model is better than Intel's 16GB model.
This may be true, but most of the replies I read here say they are in yellow memory pressure etc.
My MacPro (32gb Ram) is NEVER more than about 7% green pressure, usually zero swap, minimal compressed.
Agreed, but then again, RAM right now is under pressure due to chip manufacturing.
Literally not saying that “16Gb == 8Gb + better RAM management” my original statement literally said “pretty much equivalent”…meaning 8Gb of unified memory is a lot more efficient than 16Gb of RAM would be on even a modern Windows Intel computer…obviously more RAM is more RAM, but I think you’re thinking too far into what I simply said. I didn’t say 8Gb is literally what 16Gb is….I’m saying that based on my experience and of many others, 8Gb of RAM on an M1 computer feels as equivalent to a 16Gb Intel powered computer…