That person doesn't know what he's writing about.
What I see from those screenshots is that macOS is doing the best job of using memory. I would even argue macOS isn't using enough memory but it might be because the Mac was recently started.
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Why is everybody so obsessed with RAM?
- Thread starter iHorseHead
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That person doesn't know what he's writing about.
What I see from those screenshots is that macOS is doing the best job of using memory. I would even argue macOS isn't using enough memory but it might be because the Mac was recently started.
So you are arguing that millions of Windows users would have a good experience on a PC with 4Gb of RAM?
Windows is made to run with 2GB minimum @ 64-bit. So yeah, Win users don't usually care for that or 8GB.
Well said. I wonder if this applies to Modern web and desktop app developers. Web apps are very heavy these days, maybe because devs get a lot of ram they don’t care to optimize there apps.
Did I? or do you believe people with 8GB mac has the same experience compared with people who Has 32GB or 64GB ram?
they most likely will have... unless they do HEAVY video editing, CGI movie rendering, heavy multi tasking or some other "fringe case" tasks, but these people know about that... oh and of course AAA gaming, but that's not an issue on Mac (yet?)
most other people (most likely at least 95% from my uneducated guess) who do normal web brwoing, editing a couple of their photos, editing short video clips, writing "normal" books that don't consist of thousands of super high res images, making music that won't use a gargantuan 100+ track count (yes, this can be done... tons of some of the best songs of all time have been done on 20 tracks max, maybe even 4, or just one...) can be fine with 8GB if they aren't wasting resources and close everything every time when it isn't needed anymore
Sadly, This is my work laptop that was provided to me, my personal macbook pro has 64GB of ram, there was no way i would have purchased anything lesser tbh, especially when my line of work is video editing & motion graphics.
Also, being able to multitask and have multiple applications open at once is a must, EX: closing other applications to save on ram would be more of a headache as the workflow is now disrupted by me closing and opening applications multiple times to get things done.
which puts macOS into an iOS-like multitasking philosophy: only use one app or a handful at a time, close out anything else you don't want. I am not saying it is wrong, but this philosophy feeds Apple's greed by allowing them to get away as few as possible rather than guaranteeing proper experience reflected by the product price tag.
Hell, I'd argue even "normal browsing" nowadays could put strains on 8GB of RAM if the user keeps tabs open and use some other programs in the background. But that's a discussion for another day.
It was an Apple SSD which was replaced by Apple?
Never said it didn't. There have been maybe hundreds of posts worrying about SSD failures. I'm just saying that in almost all cases they just don't need to worry about it. If it was a major problem there would be lots of posts. Yours is the first I've seen.
yes . mac mini 2014 gb horrible lag if not external ssd . Windows and linux would survive as normal .Only startup slow.
That is the problem, you are trapped in your own bubble.
Not everyone uses their computer like you do.
And there is one more thing, with these new devices the RAM is NOT UPGRADEABLE. Just because 8GB of RAM might be enough for you today, that doesn't mean it is gonna be enough tomorrow. And if it becomes not enough, you are left in the dust.
Solution? Get a new computer? Sure...
The case for more RAM is even stronger for the devices in which RAM is not upgradeable.
This is my work computer, just with an office workload. No heavy-weight multimedia applications. No memory-gobbling virtual machines. As you can see there are 20GB of RAM in use by applications. So no, I would not recommend anybody to buy a machine with 8GB of RAM in 2022.
This stems from decades of people having crappy experiences when their machines get dog slow from paging or swapping to a mechanical hard drive.
I'm the only developer on my team who is using an 8GB Mac (the rest of them are using 16GB+). We develop very heavy NodeJS applications and have to run multiple instances, fire up XCode, run iOS simulators, have browsers with 40+ tabs open, and so forth. This kicks up the memory pressure well into the yellow and sometimes into the red, and is a heavy enough workload to do so on their 16GB Macs as well. Despite the memory demands, mine generally performs just as well, and builds run in approximately the same amount of time.
8GB does have its limitations if you push it hard enough, but it takes a much heavier workload than people expect to really grind this thing to a halt. The only difference in my workflow (compared to the rest of the team) is that I generally have to be very careful about the iOS simulator (and either have to close out background applications or just forgo it altogether and test on my physical device). Besides this, 8GB has been plenty. I wouldn't exactly call it "future proof" - but Apple's memory management is excellent.
what important is swap used 0 and compressed is 0. For us either windows or mac , compressed is normal loh.
Memory pressure is abysmal, do not worry. Mac OS memory management has been designed in such way that it uses bunch of available memory for caching
While editing a large Word document yesterday, I had a small amount of swap memory that was being used on my Mac Studio M1 Max with 64GB of memory.
Currently I'm at 17.9 GB with Chrome, Mail, Outlook, Teams, Messages, Discord, Banktivity, Sonos, and Activity Monitor apps open. Paste, OneDrive, SynologyDrive Client, and Time Machine are running in the background.
I have 17.09 GB of cached files being used right now.
Currently I'm at 17.9 GB with Chrome, Mail, Outlook, Teams, Messages, Discord, Banktivity, Sonos, and Activity Monitor apps open. Paste, OneDrive, SynologyDrive Client, and Time Machine are running in the background.
I have 17.09 GB of cached files being used right now.
What are you trying to say with "Memory pressure is abysmal"? I agree on the memory management and caching, which is why I didn't mention the 40GB cached files, just the 20GB app memory.
it's been this way for so long, it should not be a surprise (or issue) for anyone. think ahead, go for what you think you'll need over time. no use complaining about something that's been true for years...
This is true of most modern operating systems. When it comes to memory management macOS, Windows, Linux, the BSD variants, all effectively function the same.
Even if an application is using 1GB of memory there's a possibility a good portion of it isn't resident in memory (depending on memory pressure). Thus an 8GB system could support memory usage of 16GB without issue because the current working set is likely to be the only part in memory and much smaller than the entirety. With modern SSDs the impact of paging between main memory and secondary memory has greatly diminished. Still, if you're actively working with a 16GB data set more memory is likely to be beneficial.
It makes sense and given the demands, I can see this an issue. However, my curiosity is getting the better of me. Why not a Mac Studio?
Just look at the that^
Can't we just end the discussion now and say 8GB is plenty for the average user?
As I said in this thread earlier on I did my whole university dissertation on my 8GB machine with an 80 odd page Office doc, Excel with 20 graphs, Rstudio and plenty of Chrome tabs and it felt smooth. I've also edited 1080p footage on FCPX to make a short vid about 4 times. Again, no hiccups, no beachballs.
Right now, 30 Chrome tabs open, 5 of which are youtube. An 7GB video playing, Pages and some other stuff. All smooth.
6 years on and TBW is only 32. Nothing wrong with using swap.
8GB is perfectly fine for the vast vast majority of mac users.
