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Why do all these new 2020 Macs only have 8gb ram?
- Thread starter mrk123
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I hope nobody listens to this bad advice on MacRumors and buys a device with sufficient RAM. Even my M2 MacBook Air with 16 GB RAM gets swap sometimes indicating that it has insufficient RAM. And this M2 MBA is just a travel device for casual usage.
Anyway, I will let you guys continue have fun trying to spread the word that 8GB RAM is all you need.
Anyway, I will let you guys continue have fun trying to spread the word that 8GB RAM is all you need.
Yes. Of course that's what I'm saying. Obviously...
So; the easiest solution for you is to simply go and buy those other wonderful products. Problem solved!
Actually, I think 4 is more than enough. What do other people think?
In theory you can go as low as you want go. Just install Linux and make it as light as possible, and then do everything you want in the cloud or on prem servers that you have access to.
But have fun doing that for personal use.
The main advice in this thread is that if you're doing simple tasks like web browsing and a few non demanding applications then 8GB is sufficient. I don't see what's wrong about that. Solid consumer advice. 16GB would be a waste of money.
I have 8GB in a 2016 base spec 13" Pro. It uses swap all the time but so what? It's still quick. Six years of big Word docs, Excel, PPT, FCPX, Rstudio... no qualms.
I don't know. Sometimes my M2 MacBook Air "hangs" or gets beachballs sometimes. I'm not sure if I can blame it on the 16 GB RAM yet, but my 16" M1 Max MacBook Pro with 32GB RAM does no such thing, and I do much more demanding stuff on the 16".
But I'm fine with it as it's just a travel device and I don't use the M2 MacBook Air alot.
No one is saying that all you need is 8GB of RAM. You obviously use multiple apps at once and do more demanding tasks and require higher levels of performance than some other people do.
A lot of people use their computers for simple tasks, or only use one app at a time, or don’t mind if some tasks take a little longer to complete sometime. They are willing to make that compromise for a cheaper price, particularly when they are not reaching the limits anyway.
Users have different levels of needs and should get the machine that satisfies their at the price that they are willing to spend. Some will need more and others will be OK with the base level.
I've got to say I get confused sometimes when I read users getting beachballs on their Apple silicone 8GB machines under what appears to be relatively light workloads. On my six year old 8GB machine I get maybe one beachball every week. I use it everyday for at least 4 hours. Mainly with Chrome, about 15 tabs open on average, many being YT and other more demanding things like Google docs/sheets. It'll often have to reload a tab which takes about a second, but it rarely stutters or beachballs. I do do a clean install of the OS every year, I wonder if that helps.
I will try to do a clean reinstall of my M2 MacBook Air someday to see if it fixes it. Hence why I am not blaming it on RAM yet. If it still happens after the clean reinstall, then it's most like RAM related what I am seeing.
It's 6 months old at the most though so shouldn't need it clean install for it to be fast.
Just tested everything right now... I have 32 Chrome tabs open across 3 Chrome windows in different spaces. 7 are YT, 2 are Google Sheets, 5 are Reddit. I clicked on an YT tab I originally opened earlier today, it took about 3 seconds to start playing. I clicked an older YT tab I must have originally opened yesterday, took about 5 seconds. It must have been in swap. Every other tab takes 1-2 seconds to display the content. No beachballs. I just realised I had a few other apps open (Pages, DeepL and something else) so I closed those. Now when I go through the 32 tabs they all display the content immediately. Even when I click on all the 7 YT vids and hit the spacebar they start playing immediately.
For me that's sufficient performance. And surely an M2 Air would be faster?
Have people forgotten that 8GB is actually an insane amount of RAM. Only the people who dont understand are complaining, and they are only complaining because it seems like a relatively small number. It is an embarrassing thing to complain about really.
My first computer had an entire HARD DRIVE, spinning disk type HDD, with a whopping 12.6GB storage. I ran Mac Os 10.3, it was great. It was literally 12,000MB of storage after installation, I felt like I was king of the world.
Now we cry because our RAM is only 8GB. What entitled people we are. Dont give me the "but but modern OS's demand more" crap. No YOU, demand more.
A very small percentage of users can justify a greater amount of RAM. Especially on a regular basis. They know who they are, and they are happy to pay more for the upgrade knowing it is a reliable upgrade. The rest of you are just complainers who don't know what they are talking about.
My first computer had an entire HARD DRIVE, spinning disk type HDD, with a whopping 12.6GB storage. I ran Mac Os 10.3, it was great. It was literally 12,000MB of storage after installation, I felt like I was king of the world.
Now we cry because our RAM is only 8GB. What entitled people we are. Dont give me the "but but modern OS's demand more" crap. No YOU, demand more.
A very small percentage of users can justify a greater amount of RAM. Especially on a regular basis. They know who they are, and they are happy to pay more for the upgrade knowing it is a reliable upgrade. The rest of you are just complainers who don't know what they are talking about.
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Sounds like you don't use software that is very ram dependent. Try starting a Windows 11 ARM instance. With the recommended memory configuration it alone takes 8 GB of memory on my Desktop. One backup service takes ~8Gb, Photoshop 3 GB not doing anything. Using this example 19 Gb of memory on a system with only 8 Gb will give you dramatic slowdowns and excessive swapping which isn't great for the SSD if it doesn't freeze or crash. There is a reason that modern systems start at ~500k more memory than the original IBM PC (16 KB).
Check the posts about people getting the "Your system has run out of application memory". Got the error when a Safari instance had a memory leak and took 32 GB of memory on a 64 GB? system. System became unusable. For me 128 Gb is the sweet spot where I don't have to hassle with memory problems, but I do push my system - 26 applications open at the moment.
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8GB is not an insane amount of memory, period. Depending on individuals, 8GB may be enough, but it's not an "insane amount". And if "near-instantaneous" is true, 8GB of such RAM should be equivalent to many more GB of "non-near-instantaneous" memory, thanks to high transfer speed. But no. We still produce machines with 16GB and more RAM.
RAM compression is also not a new technology either, and such applications can be dated all the way back to 2001 or maybe even earlier when computer RAM chips were in an absolute premium. The sole purpose, of course, is to maximise the efficiency of physical RAM chips so users don't have to upgrade as much and programs can use less RAM, freeing more for users to use.
Saying RAM cannot bottleneck your computer is like saying scientists and data analysts only need a MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM to do their work. It's not true, and those folks sometimes need TB of RAM. Complex excel files can also use up a lot of RAM for Microsoft Excel to process, even though they might not be GB in size. Tab refreshing because the system cannot keep all the cached webpage data in the RAM so they have to flush data out to make room for other more pressing needs.
Another obvious RAM hogger is virtualization, where each VM has to have its own memory space to run the underlying operating system and applications.
In short, 8GB RAM is not an insane amount of RAM. It could be enough for many folks, but some just need more. On that note, if 8GB RAM was enough, Apple might as well never release iPhone 6s Plus with 2GB of RAM. In reality, 2GB of RAM drastically improves the experience over 1GB found on iPhone 6 Plus. Go figure.
The fun part about this is of course your OS is going to use the RAM when it has it, therefore it appears to need it. In a pinch these systems will juggle pretty good and you all know it. SSD Swap is the obvious example.
Yes your "example use cases"... like virtual machining, complex excel files, windows 11 arm, whatever. These are all great examples of someone who is not your average computer user. If you need more RAM you already know that, good for you. Even then I challenge you to question if you really "need" it.
This is coming from a computer with 32GB RAM. Trust me I get it, I bought into the craze, I consider myself a power user. I love the thrill of running Mac OS, and virtualizing both Windows 11 & Linux at the same time, just because I can. Or have zero limits on apps and tabs, sure its great. But really seriously, this is one hell of a stupid luxury. Only certain people "need" this. 8GB is lots... it might not be optimal... yes it will take a couple seconds longer.... the average user doesnt care. - Even if they do dabble with virtualization or whatever example once in a while, it wont kill them to have to wait a few more seconds.
When you consider the literal number of bytes inside of 8 gigabytes. It is insane by the way. The sheer ridiculousness that this is being frowned upon here is crazy.
Yes your "example use cases"... like virtual machining, complex excel files, windows 11 arm, whatever. These are all great examples of someone who is not your average computer user. If you need more RAM you already know that, good for you. Even then I challenge you to question if you really "need" it.
This is coming from a computer with 32GB RAM. Trust me I get it, I bought into the craze, I consider myself a power user. I love the thrill of running Mac OS, and virtualizing both Windows 11 & Linux at the same time, just because I can. Or have zero limits on apps and tabs, sure its great. But really seriously, this is one hell of a stupid luxury. Only certain people "need" this. 8GB is lots... it might not be optimal... yes it will take a couple seconds longer.... the average user doesnt care. - Even if they do dabble with virtualization or whatever example once in a while, it wont kill them to have to wait a few more seconds.
When you consider the literal number of bytes inside of 8 gigabytes. It is insane by the way. The sheer ridiculousness that this is being frowned upon here is crazy.
Unoptimized software is not really a fair example. I'm not even sure Windows 11 ARM counts for your typical "this is why I need my computer to have more than 8GB" example. Sounds like you are part of the group who need a better than average computer. No problem there.
In all honesty you will always get advised on here to get 16GB of RAM, but this is an age old habit from the Macs Intel days.
Now with apple silicon and unified memory swap is so fast the majority won’t notice it, so with that being said 8GB on an Apple silicon Mac behaves similarly to 16GB, obviously 16GB is better no matter what, but in terms of real world usage 8GB of RAM on apple silicon is plenty for the vast majority of users.
Now with apple silicon and unified memory swap is so fast the majority won’t notice it, so with that being said 8GB on an Apple silicon Mac behaves similarly to 16GB, obviously 16GB is better no matter what, but in terms of real world usage 8GB of RAM on apple silicon is plenty for the vast majority of users.
I've lost possession of my M1P 16" 16GB, and been forced to temporarily downgrade to an M1 Air 8GB.
Owned the same Air 8GB before i upgraded to the 16" as well.
My perception is that 8GB RAM will slow down your system if you multitask a lot, even with light software like web browsers or office suites.
Not unbearable, not crippling, but noticeable. And I'm talking about now that the systems are relatively new.
Have fun using that in 3 years from now.
I'd say that 8GB get saturated on an M1 about as fast as they would on a Windows machine running the same tasks.
Your daily usage could make the 8GB sufficient but you can easily step into the other usecase anytime, and that will only get easier with new OS/app releases.
Bottom line, 16GB > 8GB, and yes, 8GB on Mac are (roughly) = to 8GB on Windows.
Have fun kidding yourselves about the opposite.
If you want an honest advice, search for a base 14" on clearance, discount, or used marketplace.
Most futureproofing you can get for the money.
Owned the same Air 8GB before i upgraded to the 16" as well.
My perception is that 8GB RAM will slow down your system if you multitask a lot, even with light software like web browsers or office suites.
Not unbearable, not crippling, but noticeable. And I'm talking about now that the systems are relatively new.
Have fun using that in 3 years from now.
I'd say that 8GB get saturated on an M1 about as fast as they would on a Windows machine running the same tasks.
Your daily usage could make the 8GB sufficient but you can easily step into the other usecase anytime, and that will only get easier with new OS/app releases.
Bottom line, 16GB > 8GB, and yes, 8GB on Mac are (roughly) = to 8GB on Windows.
Have fun kidding yourselves about the opposite.
If you want an honest advice, search for a base 14" on clearance, discount, or used marketplace.
Most futureproofing you can get for the money.
SSD swap is designed specially to handle temporary RAM demand and don’t cause the program to crash. The keyword is temporary. SSD swap is not designed to replace actual RAM. You do know SSD have a limited number of write cycle right? Swap is a great method to shorten the lifespan of the SSD, even if you argue for average people that swap might not even matter, which depends from person to person.
I recommend 8GB to a ton of friends and family.
I've got well more than that in my iMac (40GB), but only 8GB in my 13" M1 MacBook Pro. Right now I've got Lightroom Classic, Mail, 30 Safari tabs, Numbers, Pages, Remote Desktop Client, and 10 Chrome tabs open.
Is it swapping? Yes. It's using about 1GB in swap. It's showing 72% memory pressure, but is totally usable.
It's usable enough that I don't feel hampered by not using the iMac.
90% of the people I know would be fine with 8GB Apple Silicon Macs. And the ones who would use more know they need more without asking for a recommendation.
Okay I'm curious - how do you get a percentage for memory pressure?
I've only every seen the graph...
(Also, I too find I can comfortably run a similar amount on my 8GB M1 Air without issue. In day to day use it's indistinguishable from my 16GB M1 iMac, it just swaps more.)
everything has a limited life.
Windows is using temporary files to speed things up per default, no matter how much RAM you have.
Where's the uproar of the masses of angry Windows users that their SSDs are failing like crazy?
if Apple cared about not writing too much on our disks, macOS wouldn't write a gazillion parameters per second into dozens or hundreds of log files
About a year ago I was thinking ahead to replacing my 2013 MBP. I came across several articles that focused on the new M1 MBA giving tips about what would be good configurations for different users. A couple of these articles described a use case that pretty much matched my pattern and recommended the 8GB option, pretty much identical to your post. When the M2 became available I had decided to go ahead with replacing the old laptop but the one thing I chose differently from the MBP was to order the 512 storage option instead of 256. Both because I’ll probably be using this for almost 10 years as I have the MBP and may come to need more than I had, and I had read that the 512s had a faster SSD. Whether that aspect would have been noticed by me I don’t know, but I thought since essentially I was choosing the base configuration I would bump up this option.
I use iStat Menu's on all of my Macs. I really like the tool and it has built in fan control if you want that too.
I've bought licenses for it in the past, but now just get it through my SetApp subscription. (Which is totally worth it for not only iStat, but also HoudahSpot and HoudahGeo).
For the M1, I went with an 8GB/512GB since I would imagine I will be storage limited before I am memory limited. Most people I've talked to about what they need end up with 8GB / 512GB Apple Silicon machines and are plenty happy with them.
I'm going to go M2 Pro with 16GB/1TB for my next Mac though since it's replacing my iMac and my 13" MacBook Pro.
100% agree, for 90% of users upgrading the RAM is a waste of money.
That is why anyone in the market for the M2 Air, I would always recommend upgrading the storage before the RAM, mainly to avoid the single memory chip, it’s highly likely they would notice a performance improvement with the upgraded storage vs upgrading the RAM imo…