Video Demos Performance Differences Between 8GB and 16GB Apple M1 MacBook Pro

[Maximara]

This is completely wrong. There is absolutely no RAM on the M1 chip, the RAM chips are separate from the SOC and are standard, off-the-shelf LPDDR4X chips which can be found in many laptops released in the last year, including the early 2020 Intel MBA.

The way apple and the media are presenting the M1 suggests otherwise.

Take Apple Event — November 10 7:15 or read through Full Transcript: Apple ‘One More Thing’ November 2020 Event for example. Here the more relevant things:

"Until now, a Mac needed multiple chips to deliver all of its features. It had chips for their processor, I/O, security, and memory. Now with M1, these technologies are combined into a single SoC, delivering a whole new level of integration for more simplicity, efficiency, and amazing performance."

"M1 also features our unified memory architecture or UMA. M1 unifies its high bandwidth, low latency memory into a single pool within a custom package."

If that isn't enough go Apple's page on the M1. See that thing on the right handsome within the M1? It is DRAM

As for the media press comments about the M1:

"Apple also says the RAM on M1 models is not upgradable — it's integrated into the system-on-a-chip, so you can't upgrade an 8GB model with another stick of RAM"

The "M1 MacBook Air & Pro - EXCLUSIVE Apple Interview! | The Tech Chap" video timestamp 14m13s explains things a little better but it you look at the way the M1 is set up it is basically the core and the DRAM with a cover over it that says "M1". Ergo the memory is within the M1.

 

[v3rlon]

The way apple and the media are presenting the M1 suggests otherwise.

Take Apple Event — November 10 7:15 or read through Full Transcript: Apple ‘One More Thing’ November 2020 Event for example. Here the more relevant things:

"Until now, a Mac needed multiple chips to deliver all of its features. It had chips for their processor, I/O, security, and memory. Now with M1, these technologies are combined into a single SoC, delivering a whole new level of integration for more simplicity, efficiency, and amazing performance."

"M1 also features our unified memory architecture or UMA. M1 unifies its high bandwidth, low latency memory into a single pool within a custom package."

If that isn't enough go Apple's page on the M1. See that thing on the right handsome within the M1? It is DRAM

As for the media press comments about the M1:

"Apple also says the RAM on M1 models is not upgradable — it's integrated into the system-on-a-chip, so you can't upgrade an 8GB model with another stick of RAM"

The "M1 MacBook Air & Pro - EXCLUSIVE Apple Interview! | The Tech Chap" video timestamp 14m13s explains things a little better but it you look at the way the M1 is set up it is basically the core and the DRAM with a cover over it that says "M1". Ergo the memory is within the M1.

I think you may be splitting hairs with him at this point. He is referring to the fabricated die, and the two DRAM chips are packaged with it. Like with the iPad. The DRAMs do not come from the same wafers as the logic portion, but they are packaged together.

 

[JonBOY26]

Max Tech does great videos and a subscriber on YouTube. During the release of the M1 Macs, I've found Max Tech videos to be the most informative as a prospective buyer. I'm not going to see what is released in the next round of M1 Macs before I make a purchase, which will hopefully be in the first half of 2021, but whatever I do buy it'll likely be 16GB RAM with a 1TB SSD.

 

[Maximara]

Try to take an 8 GB M1, open 30 tabs in Chrome and then check the amount of swap written at the end of the day. I absolutely guarantee that it will be way above 5 GB.

And exactly how many days will you be doing that? Remember we are talking an average here.

Your example is like the people to look at life expectancy of 35 and think that next to everyone keeled over dead (or was killed in a war) at 36 - the reason it was so low was because of all the infant deaths. Just because Ben Franklin lived 85 years doesn't mean everybody back then lived that long (average was 35 IIRC).

 

[Maximara]

I think you may be splitting hairs with him at this point. He is referring to the fabricated die, and the two DRAM chips are packaged with it. Like with the iPad. The DRAMs do not come from the same wafers as the logic portion, but they are packaged together.

And that package is called an "M1" Ergo the RAM is in the M1 just like I said.

 

[farewelwilliams]

Developers didn’t need to buy the DTK. Nothing was preventing them from waiting until macOS 11/M1 dropped commercially, from which point they could access retail hardware.

yet, we have so many apps that don't work. partial list: https://isapplesiliconready.com/for/unsupported

not the point anyways. whether you wait for M1 to drop or not, you're forced to buy some form of ARM Mac.

 

[Maximara]

TL;DR: if you significantly exceed your available memory for long periods of time it is well within the realms of possibility that you will kill an SSD. And you probably don't want to pay Apple's prices for a logic board replacement. Buy more RAM.

Which is exactly why I originally suggest getting 16GB over 8GB of RAM:

"Related to the longevity issue, a point brought up in M1 Mac Mini 8GB and why i'm returning it for the 16GB version is because of the greater chance a 8GB will do disk swap which will lessen the life of the SSD (by how much I have no idea) and so for the best lifespan the 16GB is better."

 

[FlyingTexan]

The base Air w/8gig is an absolute monster for the price.

Zero regrets here. It's amazing.

And I didn't want to "future proof" (lol) a rev.A machine...wanted the lowest possibly entry price and will of course buy the M3x or whatever in 2 or so years. I think I'm going to offload my Thinkpads....that's how good this machine is.

I have the Carbon X1 and honestly it’s all fast enough for me. If only apply could do what Lenovo did and ham give a solid machine that can withstand the world out there. I friend a top end 15” mbp in India once when it had a drink spill on it. My carbon x1 you just shake it all out

 

[FlyingTexan]

Which is exactly why I originally suggest getting 16GB over 8GB of RAM:

"Related to the longevity issue, a point brought up in M1 Mac Mini 8GB and why i'm returning it for the 16GB version is because of the greater chance a 8GB will do disk swap which will lessen the life of the SSD (by how much I have no idea) and so for the best lifespan the 16GB is better."

All I can say is I’ve never kept a computer long enough for this to be an issue.

 

[confusedpurple]

Careful here. The guy has absolutely no concept of how ram works on a unix based system. Within a a minute of the test he's already spewed a bunch of total nonsense.

 

[Maximara]

You obviously didn't follow the thread. The poster was declaring that the next Apple chip was going to destroy the Epyc cpu because reasons.

No. I said this:

"The AMD Epyc takes 100+ Watts while the M1 takes only 10 Watts. The closest AMD, specs wise is 15 Watt and the next one up is 35 and I think get the point. That performance boost comes at a price in terms of Watts which means heat.

An AMD Epyc 7742 ist 225 Watts at $7,753.49 while the M1 is 10 Watts at far less then that given the cost of the machines it is in. If they scale in a similar matter then we can take the lazy way and say at the same wattage the "M1" will run at 22.5 time what it currently does it will kick the AMD Epyc 7742 to the curb and then laugh at its insane price."

It was some Intel fanboy that brought up the AMD Epyc and I again ask what consumer in going to expect that in an entry level computer!?

 

[Maximara]

Careful here. The guy has absolutely no concept of how ram works on a unix based system. Within a a minute of the test he's already spewed a bunch of total nonsense.

Well to be fair how many Windows users understand how a unix based system works?

 

[Maximara]

Yup. Seems if Apple doesn't release the higher end M1 models soon or they'll be forced to drop prices severely on current models. I imagine the reburb. store is gonna be bloated with Intel models nobody wants.

That is the one thing that puzzles me. Unless the M1 doesn't scale well why would Apple make "new" Intel Macs?

IIRC they didn't make new PowerPCs after the first Intel Mac came out. And even if they do given how well the M1 turned out unless one had to stick with non translated (Rosetta 2) or emulated (Parallels and VMFusion) x86 code there would be very little reason to get an Intel Mac.

 

[crevalic]

The way apple and the media are presenting the M1 suggests otherwise.

Take Apple Event — November 10 7:15 or read through Full Transcript: Apple ‘One More Thing’ November 2020 Event for example. Here the more relevant things:

"Until now, a Mac needed multiple chips to deliver all of its features. It had chips for their processor, I/O, security, and memory. Now with M1, these technologies are combined into a single SoC, delivering a whole new level of integration for more simplicity, efficiency, and amazing performance."

"M1 also features our unified memory architecture or UMA. M1 unifies its high bandwidth, low latency memory into a single pool within a custom package."

If that isn't enough go Apple's page on the M1. See that thing on the right handsome within the M1? It is DRAM

As for the media press comments about the M1:

"Apple also says the RAM on M1 models is not upgradable — it's integrated into the system-on-a-chip, so you can't upgrade an 8GB model with another stick of RAM"

The "M1 MacBook Air & Pro - EXCLUSIVE Apple Interview! | The Tech Chap" video timestamp 14m13s explains things a little better but it you look at the way the M1 is set up it is basically the core and the DRAM with a cover over it that says "M1". Ergo the memory is within the M1.

Not sure what to tell you, the RAM is not a part of the SoC, it is an external component soldered close to the SoC which makes it part of the "package", but most definitely not the SoC (look up what the C in the abbreviation stands for). I love the fact that you are able to use your eyes to see that the RAM chips are separate from the SoC in the apple M1 ad website and connected to it with standard PCB traces, but somehow conclude the complete opposite. The fact that you think some cherry picked misleading or even false ads and statements somehow support your point after I have provided in depth technical references is kind of confusing.

Oh, and by the way, unified memory architecture simply means that GPU and CPU share a single pool memory rather than each having their own set of chips. It has nothing to do with the memory being physically unified with the CPU/SoC.

If you want to learn about this, you can start by looking into architectures of all Xbox consoles starting with the 360 and PS4 and PS5. Consoles have long had a similar hardware approach to the current Apple silicon computers, with almost all hardware integrated into a single SoC, surrounded by a bunch of unified memory soldered to the same PCB as the CPU.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

This is exactly what I was looking for, thank you MR! Was debating on getting the 16GB Mac mini but it may be good enough with just 8GB!

Second thought, might as well get the 16GB for future proofing.

But then what if I don’t actually need it and it’s a waste? Here we go again

Be careful, this video is misleading. The guy has zero idea what page faulting means, and I recommend you look it up before you decide 8GB is all you need. If you needed 16GB with Intel, then you are going to wish you had 16GB w M1. My mate just bought an M1 MBA, and only got 8GB because of reviews like this, and it page faults and grinds to a crawl when he opens a lot of Safari tabs (which is his normal use case). They are out of stock with 16GB, so he can't just return it and swap it around, so he's in a bind.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

I got 16GB for the first time because I’m a tab hoarder. 8GB wasn’t cutting it on the Intel machines, so I figured it’s better to be safe and go all out by getting the 16GB model.

You made the right choice, my mate just bought an M1 MBA, and only got 8GB because of reviews like this, and it page faults and grinds to a crawl when he opens a lot of Safari tabs (which is his normal use case). They are out of stock with 16GB in Europe, so he can't just return it and swap it around, so he's in a bind.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

No offense, but I'll side with Apple's engineers on this one.

Be careful, this video is misleading. The guy has zero idea what page faulting means, and I recommend you look it up before you decide 8GB is all you need. If you needed 16GB with Intel, then you are going to wish you had 16GB w M1. My mate just bought an M1 MBA, and only got 8GB because of reviews like this, and it page faults and grinds to a crawl when he opens a lot of Safari tabs (which is his normal use case). They are out of stock with 16GB, so he can't just return it and swap it around, so he's in a bind. Apple engineers are good, but they aren't that good.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

Bought a 512/8. And I’m fully expecting those 8 gigabytes to feel like 16 or more in actual use.

The 32 gigabytes in my iMac turned out to be massively underused in my workflows.

Be careful, this video is misleading. The guy has zero idea what page faulting means, and I recommend you look it up before you decide 8GB is all you need. If you needed 16GB with Intel, then you are going to wish you had 16GB w M1. My mate just bought an M1 MBA, and only got 8GB because of reviews like this, and it page faults and grinds to a crawl when he opens a lot of Safari tabs (which is his normal use case).

 

[Superhai]

Be careful, this video is misleading. The guy has zero idea what page faulting means, and I recommend you look it up before you decide 8GB is all you need. If you needed 16GB with Intel, then you are going to wish you had 16GB w M1. My mate just bought an M1 MBA, and only got 8GB because of reviews like this, and it page faults and grinds to a crawl when he opens a lot of Safari tabs (which is his normal use case). They are out of stock with 16GB, so he can't just return it and swap it around, so he's in a bind.

Page fault only means that OS can’t find the data in physical memory and have to retrieve it from swap or wherever it is stored. All modern OS swap lesser used data to disk so it can keep contiguous memory available. But of course with the advent of SSD’s it is more restrictive.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

Page fault only means that OS can’t find the data in physical memory and have to retrieve it from swap or wherever it is stored. All modern OS swap lesser used data to disk so it can keep contiguous memory available. But of course with the advent of SSD’s it is more restrictive.

No no no no no. Page fault means it's run out of RAM, and has to use the SSD as pretend RAM. And the SSD runs at orders of magnitude slower than RAM. So the effect is your machine will grind to a crawl and drive you insane. Instantly fixed by installing more RAM.

 

[ian87w]

New video for more relevant tests stressing the RAM

My take: So seems like the basic idea about RAM remains. More is better. It’s just that macOS is doing a great job in compression and the fact that the M1 system is so efficient, that the 8GB model can handle the pressure quite well. But in the end, if you’re a tab hoarder and never closes apps, 16GB is the choice to keep the swap low and keep things more responsive. And this tests indicate the need for 32GB or larger for those professionals. Makes sense. The first batch of M1 Macs are just entry models.

If I were buying an M1 Mac today for long term use, I would get 16GB of RAM. And I wouldn’t be surprised that in second or third revision, Apple might make 16GB be baseline. If we look at the performance buffer if the M1, I won’t be surprised if Apple will put more features in future versions of macOS, thus necessitating the higher RAM requirement. We can look at how iOS grows up from needing just 1GB of RAM to Apple putting 6GB RAM in less than a decade. The better the chip performance, the more stuff you can do with it, and that comes with a cost (RAM).

 

[v3rlon]

And that package is called an "M1" Ergo the RAM is in the M1 just like I said.

Yes, but that LOGIC PORTION is ALSO called an "M1."

And the RAM isn't IN the heat sink area (under the shiny silver thing). It is just ON the package like an ultra small circuit board. relax.

 

[Superhai]

There is much noise in this thread, but knowing how much memory you need is a very complicated question.
First memory is a table of data, it is not a measure of speed or performance. How you access it however can be measured in speed and is a product of technology and timings.
Now comes the complicated part. Why do Apple M1 use less RAM?
1) Because the chip shares all memory, nothing need to be copied or cached for the other parts. If you take the SSD typically data is stored on a on-drive cache, which is copied from the actual NAND chips. Then the PCI driver allocates memory to copy from the drive to its buffer, which again is copied to the actual file stored in RAM. The same goes with the video card, and other parts of the system.
2) As Apple controls both the software and the hardware, they can add custom instructions and functions to the CPU which can lessen the need for intermediate storage. This can benefit both user software and OS itself.
3) Removing or not running uneccesary parts of the OS. It seems Apple have worked a lot to ensure the OS gets smaller, however I think there are still more that can be done. And this will also benefit Intel machines.
4) Compressed memory. I am not too familiar with techniques Apple is using, but it seem like the de/compression is faster on M1 than on intel.

In sum a smaller memory footprint of OS and it’s essential services means you have more memory available for your apps.

So comes the question of does memory benefit performance? The thing is, there is no answer to that question. It all depends.

if you run a word processor, your ability to create a document is so immensely slow compared to the CPU that the speed of the memory access does not matter. Only the rendering of graphical elements which we will perceive as “snappiness” is likely to be what will matter.

So what about sound and video editing. Here memory speed is on the opposite scale. Now comes something interesting, video and sound are almost never cached in its entirety but read from disc and rendered. And because a second level buffer is not needed and the GPU rendering system have direct access to the first level data, you will save memory as well as performance will increase.

but while photo editing typically do load the entire image into memory, and could thus benefit more memory, still again the frame buffer is “direct”. Meaning you don’t need more copies than needed for storage and the renderer can access it directly.

Now the downside is that unified shared memory is also unified and shared among all the units. A dedicated graphics card as an example can store much of what it needs in its dedicated memory, and if it is not needed by the CPU or other parts, it can safely be removed from main memory. This type of memory is often also optimized for these kinds of specialized operations the graphics unit does.

So how about multi tasking? Does more memory benefit it, yes of course. But depending on application, paging to your storage or compressing the memory will extend your memory pool.

And is the M1 memory faster than the fastest of fast memory? It has yet to be measured. But memory speed depends in broad about timings. And better timings will you get if 1) you have shorter distances and 2) full control of memory quality and how it interact with the memory controller and the cpu, the number must match, and 3) control of production of the parts.

I could elaborate a lot more, but what I want the take from this is; a byte is a byte, but a byte saved is a byte free.

 

[sdf]

It's Xcode not XCode, hoss.

 

[Superhai]

No no no no no. Page fault means it's run out of RAM, and has to use the SSD as pretend RAM. And the SSD runs at orders of magnitude slower than RAM. So the effect is your machine will grind to a crawl and drive you insane. Instantly fixed by installing more RAM.

No, a page fault can occur even when you have plenty of RAM available. It is a part of the virtual memory management system. More technically a page fault occurs if the virtual memory page is not accessible. On x86 it is the MMU that is controlling how to react to page faults. Because it uses the so called Translation Lookaside Buffer to cache access to the pages the actual memory could still even be stored in the memory chip, but not in the TLB.