Trying to decide: 13" model. 16 vs 32GB Ram and i5 vs i7

[curtiscosmos]

Context
I do some audio production work on this machine. Making beats, using software instruments. I also do some web design, photo editing - so use of Photoshop, Figma, etc. While I'm doing that, I tend to have about 30 tabs open at all times (I never shut down and in-progress thoughts or ideas). While working on web and photo stuff, I'm usually listening to music on Spotify or YouTube.

That's about the gist of it. Right now I don't have any clear insight into how the upgraded CPU or RAM would effect my beatmaking, which is mostly what I'm concerned with since I haven't seen a lot of threads talk about this - mostly see stuff on video production. I'm trying to have the most seamless experience as possible and don't mind spending the money but also wouldn't mind saving it if it weren't useful to upgrade.

Thanks in advance!

 

[jabbr]

I think you'd only benefit from 32GB of ram if you are planning on using memory heavy plugins like orchestral libraries. 16GB should be plenty in MacOS, which does a great job of memory management. The i7 upgrade is kinda a waste of money IMO. It's only like a 5% increase in performance. I'd just wait a few more seconds for bounces to finish and save the cash.

Are you a chrome user? it's a big RAM hog in comparison to Safari and Firefox. If I was choosing between the RAM or CPU upgrade, I'd go for the RAM. In my case I wanted more storage so I got the 1TB config.

I've been very happy using Logic on the 2020 10th gen i5 / 16GB / 1TB model.

 

[curtiscosmos]

I think you'd only benefit from 32GB of ram if you are planning on using memory heavy plugins like orchestral libraries. 16GB should be plenty in MacOS, which does a great job of memory management. The i7 upgrade is kinda a waste of money IMO. It's only like a 5% increase in performance. I'd just wait a few more seconds for bounces to finish and save the cash.

Are you a chrome user? it's a big RAM hog in comparison to Safari and Firefox. If I was choosing between the RAM or CPU upgrade, I'd go for the RAM. In my case I wanted more storage so I got the 1TB config.

I've been very happy using Logic on the 2020 10th gen i5 / 16GB / 1TB model.

Thanks for the info. I am dabbling more and more with using orchestral libraries so maybe 32GB does make sense for me while keeping the i5. I have heard time and time again that in 95% of cases, you wouldn't see the difference between i5 and i7. I don't really care how quickly things bounce lol.. Gives me time to step away and take a breather.