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Who is the 24gb RAM M2 model for?
- Thread starter inglishmayjur
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It is for people who need more than 16GB of RAM, but cannot budget for a 14"/16" MBP with 32GB. Video Editors, 3D modellers/animators and developers (who run lots of VMs) would like the extra headroom.
A very few people as at that point it makes more sense to buy a MBP.
Those who use a lot of VMs or do other RAM-intensive tasks who want to carry a lighter Mac might disagree.
This has been discussed many times on these forums. There are many use cases that benefit from 24gig ram and don’t benefit from the other 14” mbp pros and/or don’t want to take on the 14” mbp cons relative to the air.
I for one went for the 24gig for my engineering purposes. I am not a creative, so the display and the additional GPUs are of no value to me. And, I travel constantly so the increased bulkiness and weight are a downgrade to me.
I for one went for the 24gig for my engineering purposes. I am not a creative, so the display and the additional GPUs are of no value to me. And, I travel constantly so the increased bulkiness and weight are a downgrade to me.
👆
Part of a *very* select few. Also, running multiple VMs on an Air? Lol.
Or containers. Way more common than you think…
If you don’t know, you don’t know. And if you don’t need it, you don’t need it. But you have no idea what the population is of those that do.
I’d actually posit that there are likely more with needs similar to my use case than there are of people that upgrade to the pro because they’ll actually make use of the hardware in any meaningful way. Gotta have that 120hz for the 30fps Netflix and chill, right? Or gotta render that YouTube vid for those 300 followers in 3 secs instead of 4! Time is money, after all!
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Do you have any idea how fast an M2 is compared to say a 2020 i7? I ran VMs on i7s all the time. I don't understand the attitude that just because there are higher spec machines that a lower spec machine is somehow incapable. It's so weird. If Apple would allow iCloud logins on MacOS guests, I would probably do most of my work in a Monterey VM. The speed is nearly identical to the M2 itself.
The extra memory is useful for data works (holding objects in memory, use during calculations, etc.). For people who works on data for a living and values portability (or can expense the machine/paid for by employer), this is a worthwhile investment.
If I upgrade my M1, would do 24gb so I can dedicate 8gb to Parallels for a Windows VM. I wish it had 32gb, but such is life.
A maxed M2 Air 24/2TB would actually suit my needs better than a 14" Pro. I would rather have storage and ram than CPU/GPU. The M is already fast enough. Storage without external drives is very appealing in such a light form factor. I played with an M2 Air at Best Buy the other day and it looks like a great machine. (minus the stupid notch)
I bought one. I like working with large photos/RAW. My 16GB was swapping. The performance is more than enough as long as the files are in memory.
Now they are.
Simple as that.
Now they are.
Simple as that.
It's funny how people lol at those wanting to run multiple VMs on an Air. It handles everything extremely well, better than any Intel MacBook Pro before.
Yes, I got mine with 24 GB of RAM. I do engineering and I use VMs. What I need is portability, storage and RAM.
What would a MacBook Pro with M1 Pro/Max CPU get me? More GPU cores. Which I literally never use. It would not be faster in any way for me, just bulkier and heavier, which is something I really don't want. I don't do rendering, I never have workloads that hit my CPU limits. Also I'm happy to not have active cooling, one less thing that can break or get filled with dust (yes, I've had 2 broken MacBook Pros because of fan problems, one was DoA).
It's funny how Apple's marketing combined with some "tech" youtubers manage to make people think an Air is a slow or inferior laptop. It suits different use cases, for sure, but not everyone in this world renders 4K videos. There are other jobs out there 😉
Yes, I got mine with 24 GB of RAM. I do engineering and I use VMs. What I need is portability, storage and RAM.
What would a MacBook Pro with M1 Pro/Max CPU get me? More GPU cores. Which I literally never use. It would not be faster in any way for me, just bulkier and heavier, which is something I really don't want. I don't do rendering, I never have workloads that hit my CPU limits. Also I'm happy to not have active cooling, one less thing that can break or get filled with dust (yes, I've had 2 broken MacBook Pros because of fan problems, one was DoA).
It's funny how Apple's marketing combined with some "tech" youtubers manage to make people think an Air is a slow or inferior laptop. It suits different use cases, for sure, but not everyone in this world renders 4K videos. There are other jobs out there 😉
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People who want 24GB of ram? Why is it so hard to comprehend that someone could use more than 16 but maybe doesn't need 32?
It's weird because so many people on this forum (and Youtube) scream get as much RAM as you can... but then you do that and they're like... why are you getting 24GB???? I don't get it.
I'm inclined to get simply because I want/expect this machine to last 5-7 years.
I'm inclined to get simply because I want/expect this machine to last 5-7 years.
I’m guessing that everyone who is getting 24GB would get 32gb if it were an option.
Music production with VI's use a lot of ram. I can see having a loaded MBA for working while traveling, or in a remote location, or visiting a studio to collaborate.
Probably but 24 GB is also probably big enough for my current needs. The 16 GB M1 MacBook Air was just barely adequate but it worked fine.
I've seen this asked elsewhere so here's a genuine attempt at an answer. Oversimplifying it for a second, I think Apple has a few different buyer categories that it targets with both its machines and (most importantly for this question) the upgrades that it offers.
The first group is in the market for an Apple machine but will mainly get the entry level spec as they don't necessarily care about the tech specs (or they're priced out of the higher end of things.) Then there will always be a group who look to buy the best possible computer for the money at the time; these people wouldn't accept a MBP13/iMac/Mini/Air, and will only opt for a MBP/Studio as anything less just doesn't cut it.
Both of these groups are miles apart in terms of their needs. But there's quite a significant gap in the middle, and that's where the importance of the upgrade in (some) Apple customers minds comes in.
This other group is trickier to pin down. You can't say they should buy a Pro machine, because there will be some who just prefer the form factor of the non Pro/Max/Ultra machines, including the Air. But more generally, this group is not neccesarily wedded to the Pro tag, but they are absolutely not satisfied with a base level machine. And heavily upgrading a MBP13/iMac/Mini/Air can make it feel better as a long term investment.
The M2 Air is interesting because yup, a 24GB/1TB Air costs about the same as a 16GB/1TB Pro. But if you're in the "anything but base" group, if you're commiting to spending 2k, you might prefer the feeling (this is nothing to do with effeciency cores and RAM) of bumping up the spec a long way from base, rather than a tiny tweak to the SSD for example.
Again, purely subjectively, the 16GB/M1 vs 16GB/M1Pro feels a lot simpler to decide between than 24GB/M2 vs 16GB/M1Pro because the 16GB max of the RAM on M1 threw the speed of the processors into the spotlight.
The first group is in the market for an Apple machine but will mainly get the entry level spec as they don't necessarily care about the tech specs (or they're priced out of the higher end of things.) Then there will always be a group who look to buy the best possible computer for the money at the time; these people wouldn't accept a MBP13/iMac/Mini/Air, and will only opt for a MBP/Studio as anything less just doesn't cut it.
Both of these groups are miles apart in terms of their needs. But there's quite a significant gap in the middle, and that's where the importance of the upgrade in (some) Apple customers minds comes in.
This other group is trickier to pin down. You can't say they should buy a Pro machine, because there will be some who just prefer the form factor of the non Pro/Max/Ultra machines, including the Air. But more generally, this group is not neccesarily wedded to the Pro tag, but they are absolutely not satisfied with a base level machine. And heavily upgrading a MBP13/iMac/Mini/Air can make it feel better as a long term investment.
The M2 Air is interesting because yup, a 24GB/1TB Air costs about the same as a 16GB/1TB Pro. But if you're in the "anything but base" group, if you're commiting to spending 2k, you might prefer the feeling (this is nothing to do with effeciency cores and RAM) of bumping up the spec a long way from base, rather than a tiny tweak to the SSD for example.
Again, purely subjectively, the 16GB/M1 vs 16GB/M1Pro feels a lot simpler to decide between than 24GB/M2 vs 16GB/M1Pro because the 16GB max of the RAM on M1 threw the speed of the processors into the spotlight.
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Yes, or for whom the extra .8 lbs in the 14" is a dealbreaker. The old 13" MBPs were .5 lbs lighter than today's 14"; both of those were the "small" MBP machines. The Air OTOH is closer to the form factor of the old 13".
So, video editors, etc who were the target market for the 2020 13" MBP.
Doesn't it basically benefit anyone who multitasks a lot or keeps a lot of stuff open?
As someone who is always working on a lot of projects at once and doesn't like to close them up, I always seem to use a lot of RAM.
I am not questioning you...fellow photographer working with large images. What program are you using causing the swapping? For reference, I have made my MBP Pro 16 Max 64GB swap...just wondering
I'm using an Air and have a Windows 11 VM running alongside a couple of Kali Linux ones... Not sure why you think that's so strange?
Working with Sony A7R3 files on Lightroom classic and select sky command always causes the swapping on 16gb MacBooks, either m1 mba or m2 mba though the performance is still smooth.
My colleague had an overall decent laptop that we had to get rid off because it came with soldered 16GB RAM and the things she was doing in Avid made the memory go completely full, rendering the laptop unusable.
Granted that was on Windows, but I don't feel I want to replicate the mistake as I'm doing pretty similar things on my machine as well, and don't want to end up with such an issue in the midst of doing something important.
Safed it up, went 24GB and am glad that Apple offered that option for the M2.
Granted that was on Windows, but I don't feel I want to replicate the mistake as I'm doing pretty similar things on my machine as well, and don't want to end up with such an issue in the midst of doing something important.
Safed it up, went 24GB and am glad that Apple offered that option for the M2.