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Why is everybody so obsessed with RAM?

jav6454 said:
Why? Any specific need? Just curious.
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A couple e-commerce backend websites I need to use don't work at all or don't work properly on Safari. Some eBay sites don't like Safari. Some other random websites I can't remember didn't load on Safari at all. All of those sites work just fine on Google Chrome.
Also Safari's unpredictable tab-closing behavior just drives me nuts. I want to like Safari but Apple just never gives me the chance. Even macrumors don't work right with Safari sometimes. I thought Safari being the only browser on iOS devices would incentivise developers to support them better. But nope.
 
HDFan said:
Can you summarize? Given the slow information transfer rate per minute of videos vs text that gives one an idea as to whether it is worth the time investment in watching it.
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It's really interesting - even to a not-particularly-technical person llike myself. Mark Payne did some Mac reviews when the M1s came out; he works (worked?) in audio/production, but has a long-term computers-related professional background. He explains the evolution of memory 'disks', how they work, and how unless you're absolutely hammering your writes / rewrites beyond the rate at which 99% of even heavy users are going to, you have nothing to worry about regarding SSD cells expiring or the drive 'wearing out' over a decade plus...
 
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Shirasaki said:
A couple e-commerce backend websites I need to use don't work at all or don't work properly on Safari. Some eBay sites don't like Safari. Some other random websites I can't remember didn't load on Safari at all. All of those sites work just fine on Google Chrome.
Also Safari's unpredictable tab-closing behavior just drives me nuts. I want to like Safari but Apple just never gives me the chance. Even macrumors don't work right with Safari sometimes. I thought Safari being the only browser on iOS devices would incentivise developers to support them better. But nope.
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Safari has come on a long way, but I still come across random websites which just don't work properly on it meaning I have to open them in Chrome instead. Its always worth having it around for this sort of thing.
 
ascender said:
Safari has come on a long way, but I still come across random websites which just don't work properly on it meaning I have to open them in Chrome instead. Its always worth having it around for this sort of thing.
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Yeah, I have a list including which browser I need to use. Not a ton but enough to be annoying.
 
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8 GB is just a small amount of RAM, especially in 2022 and since it's unified, it's also used for video memory as well. That means that even less RAM is available. Not only that, those Electron apps use a lot of RAM like a drunken sailor, which is why I hate and refuse to use Electron apps if there is an alternative available. 8 GB is okay for someone who just browses the internet and do basic tasks. For things like heavy photo/video editing, 3D work, software development, etc, 16 GB or even 32GB+ is better.

Even with 16 GB, I ran into issues as I left my Mac mini on 24/7 and eventually end up with the memory pressure being in the yellow as I have a lot of apps open. That is why I relegated my m1 Mac mini to a home server, replacing my 2014 one and replaced it with a base Mac Studio. Also, my M1 Pro MacBook Pro 16 has 32 GB. No matter what people say, 8 GB does not act like 16 GB as 8 GB is 8GB. 16 GB should be the baseline in my opinion.
 
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HDFan said:
There have been lots of discussions about Mac SSD's wearing out. I have never seen a single post here about that actually happening.
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It will though. Mac SSDs are not special. Every SSD will eventually wear out after a number of writes. I know from firsthand experience it is a nightmare when it happens. In my case, it was at about 80% the rated TBW and was fully covered by warranty. For reference the TBW is basically just a warranty limit at which point the manufacturer won't cover it, because there are no guarantees at that point it will continue to write.

This is not a mac vs pc issue, or a Mac OS vs linux vs windows issue. It has to do with how SSDs write to their memory, the different implementations have different limits.

Edit: Going to add a final note to everyone saying "they've never seen it". I have never seen a million dollars in person in cash... that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Facts are facts, and every single SSD manufacturer says it will happen eventually. For the vast majority of users it will hopefully come well after the useful lifespan of their machine, but it can happen sooner. Each chip is slightly different.
 
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Cognizant. said:
I’ve never actually witnessed an SSD wearing out in general, Mac or PC, and I’ve worked on hundreds of computers with them over the years. I know they’re supposed to wear out eventually, but I’ve yet to see it happen in the real world. Regardless, always keep a backup.
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Never had any disks wear out due to swap. Ssd or hdd. Just saying.
 
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TLDR: more Ram is always going to be important when you are task switching on a regular basis between big heavy apps.

I can’t speak for those who code or do creative projects but I think that:

Home users: Who browse a few websites & do other light productivity tasks, play a (full screen casual or older AAA game) ie who stay in one app for a long time, 8 GB is fine for the foreseeable future

Productivity workers: Who have MS office apps, Slack Teams or Zoom all open (sometimes all three!), plus lots of web apps in Chrome tabs (which your company will likely make you use), 16 GB and up is going to help simply because these binary ans web apps are so heavy.
 
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I have seen the GPU on my 16” M1 Max GPU occupy 21GB from the 32GB RAM by itself and here people are talking about 8GB RAM is enough?

These machines do not have dedicated graphics with dedicated VRAM so your actual RAM might be way less than 8GB RAM as it is shared.

Now I got 8GB RAM on my M1 12.9 iPad Pro because there is literally nothing (yet) that makes use of 16GB RAM, but on a laptop I would go for atleast 16GB in 2022, especially if it has integrated graphics like the M1 / M2.

And it is my opinion that Apple should have put 16GB RAM on the base model atleast for this type of money.
 
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Having 32GB Ram is over kill for me, 16GB is just fine. 8GB is slow and good for an iPhone.
I only use my MBP 2018 2.6GHz 6 core i7 for photography. My Early 2011 Had a Bad Graphics Card and 16 GB RAM and was in the shop 12 times APPLE SCREWED ME! They knew what they did and Only fixed it 1 time for free.
 
chikorita157 said:
For things like heavy photo/video editing, 3D work, software development, etc, 16 GB or even 32GB+ is better.
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UBS28 said:
These machines do not have dedicated graphics with dedicated VRAM
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This. I was getting 30+ GB swap (!) on a 32 GB M1 Max MacBook while rendering a 3D sequence with physics simulation and hi-res textures in Blender. Luckily it's not my common workflow and I won't regret much about not buying a 64 GB model. Usually, 32 gigs are okay for me and I have to reboot the machine only once every 5 days or so. But 8 GB… No way
 
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its not so hard to understand why someone might need more ram than the usual. For me, this is why:
 

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Shirasaki said:
A couple e-commerce backend websites I need to use don't work at all or don't work properly on Safari. Some eBay sites don't like Safari. Some other random websites I can't remember didn't load on Safari at all. All of those sites work just fine on Google Chrome.
Also Safari's unpredictable tab-closing behavior just drives me nuts. I want to like Safari but Apple just never gives me the chance. Even macrumors don't work right with Safari sometimes. I thought Safari being the only browser on iOS devices would incentivise developers to support them better. But nope.
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As soon as they moved the add tab button I couldnt cope. Jumped to brave and never looked back. The advert cancelling works better than using an adblocker on safari ever did, especially with youtube.
 
Shirasaki said:
A couple e-commerce backend websites I need to use don't work at all or don't work properly on Safari. Some eBay sites don't like Safari. Some other random websites I can't remember didn't load on Safari at all. All of those sites work just fine on Google Chrome.
Also Safari's unpredictable tab-closing behavior just drives me nuts. I want to like Safari but Apple just never gives me the chance. Even macrumors don't work right with Safari sometimes. I thought Safari being the only browser on iOS devices would incentivise developers to support them better. But nope.
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Firefox is just as compatible as Chrome, you don’t need Chrome.
 
m1maverick said:
IMO the issue isn't that Apple has an 8GB option but rather the memory cannot be upgraded post purchase.
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this is not new, and there are obvious reasons for it (it's not like the old days, when ram was an easily-accessible swap). so (and for years), macusers choose what they need, and work with what they've purchased.
 
fisherking said:
this is not new, and there are obvious reasons for it (it's not like the old days, when ram was an easily-accessible swap). so (and for years), macusers choose what they need, and work with what they've purchased.
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Of course it's not new but that doesn't make it any less of an issue. It means they may under / over purchase RAM and they're stuck with that decision (short of selling the system and buying another one).
 
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hans1972 said:
Are you arguing that 4Gb is good enough for millions of Windows users but not for Mac users at all?
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Windows is designed to work on pretty much anything. macOS on the other hand, is designed to work best on supported hardware, preferably the latest one. And at the same time Apple Get away with as little power as they could (aka base model) for macOS support.

Also, iOS 9 disaster hints how inefficient Apple’s software actually is when hardware resource is scarce, and snappiness was half because of the powerful hardware.
 
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