In your case, you don't have all 8GB active; you only using certain memory snips. As you said not many people will. But for those that do have large files active then using Swap impacts performance.
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Why is everybody so obsessed with RAM?
- Thread starter iHorseHead
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I feel like I have a pretty heavy workload. Not has heavy as some development/design workloads, but heavy for an average productivity user. I'm regularly running:
* Overcast
* BBEdit
* Messages
* Grammarly in a Brave window
* Calendar
* Github Desktop
* 1Password
* A scheduling web app, in a Brave window
* A Brave window with a set of personal tabs (3x Gmail, and then usually a handful of others)
* A Brave window with a set of work tabs (1x Gmail, and a bunch of others)
* Discord
* Slack
* Zoom
* Things
* Alacritty
(across two ultrawide monitors, one via Thunderbolt and the other via HDMI)
All of these things are usually open all day, and then other apps come and go as needed. Very rarely do I feel like I have to close out of anything to free up memory, or do things get sluggish.
I'm on an M1 Mac Mini w/ 8GB RAM. 🤷 All in all I'm really impressed with this little machine and I don't feel like RAM usage is worth stressing over like it might've been in the Intel days.
* Overcast
* BBEdit
* Messages
* Grammarly in a Brave window
* Calendar
* Github Desktop
* 1Password
* A scheduling web app, in a Brave window
* A Brave window with a set of personal tabs (3x Gmail, and then usually a handful of others)
* A Brave window with a set of work tabs (1x Gmail, and a bunch of others)
* Discord
* Slack
* Zoom
* Things
* Alacritty
(across two ultrawide monitors, one via Thunderbolt and the other via HDMI)
All of these things are usually open all day, and then other apps come and go as needed. Very rarely do I feel like I have to close out of anything to free up memory, or do things get sluggish.
I'm on an M1 Mac Mini w/ 8GB RAM. 🤷 All in all I'm really impressed with this little machine and I don't feel like RAM usage is worth stressing over like it might've been in the Intel days.
Well there you go. Even more reason as to why 8GB is enough. All Chrome tabs and apps were active and ready to use.
Not exactly how it works. Remember each tab is separate in memory and has its own memory cache. Hence, a tab might be active and live in Swap.
I have no idea how it works, no, but no offence but I'm here using my laptop with 8GB and I'm telling you it's smooth.
What was your original point even about? Not using the 8GB right? Well if I'm not using my 8GB and I my laptop is smooth with 30 Chrome tabs, a video, and Pages open then the only conclusion is that 8GB is enough for me.
In the vast majority of everyday use cases, nobody is actually using applications that will truly starve the working memory capacity of the system. Think about web browsers (a common example). Chrome will gladly allocate well over 8GB of memory for itself if you have a decent amount of tabs open, but most of these tabs aren't actively being used by the CPU at any given time. You can literally open hundreds of Chrome tabs and swap back and forth, and it'll remain smooth as butter. Same with Word, same with most Apple apps including Notes, Facetime, Photos, all of it. Same with almost all of the everyday apps people generally use on their computers.
There are plenty of use cases where working memory requirements are higher, but these situations don't necessarily occur just because you're working with large files. Even with, say, 20GB files, the CPU might not necessarily be working with that entire file at once (Most of the time, applications are written to work with data in chunks if the algorithm permits, as most computers don't have 20GB+ of RAM). There are exceptions I can think of off the top of my head. Machine learning is one, and LZMA on ridiculously ludicrous settings (settings you can only use from the command line) is another. Some very graphics-intensive applications are much the same, among others. These exceptions exist and large amounts of RAM are pretty much mandatory for these kinds of workloads, but these workloads are generally the exception, not the norm.
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Cases like your exemplify how the standard configs works best for 80% of people
Spot on. Many of the big software vendors do this, because consumers are too lazy to look at the fine print in reviews on memory use. All they are interested in are features, and so the vendors give them features, with as a result that apps that used to run fine in 1 GB now take up 4 GB. I remember running Photoshop on my Power Mac 9500/120, we used to make gorgeous illustrated books with those machines.
But I don’t blame Apple for sticking with an 8 GB min-spec. As long as there are enough people to whom those machines are useful, by all means make (and sell) them. But they shouldn’t make it so hard to get a machine with 16 GB… doing a build-to-order and waiting a month for it is not ideal, 16/512 and 16/1TB machines should be common in the shops.
Encouraging this “you can do everything with 8 GB” is silly. These days there are good reasons to get 16 GB, and with a little research you can find out your needs.
Agree, completely agreed. Although giving users more options for memory would be nice. For instance, the M2 offers, 16GB or 24GB as options, no 12GB? I mean, the memory controller allows it, why not? It gives a nice headroom for a fraction cost.
As per machines with BTO configs being hard to come by, hello China lockdowns.
No, I am arguing that a lot of Mac users will have a good experience with 8Gb of memory and the Mac will be seen as responsive.
For a lot of people, the non-experienced or negligible higher perfomance they will see, isn't worth the price increase.
You misunderstand how macOS and applications use memory. If your Mac has a lot of memory, the OS and applications will use more memory!
Here macOS is doing a splendid job using 63 of 64Gb of memory.
Having free physical memory should be seen as an abomination.
Which is very common for a lot of users. If you are doing mostly Office + Teams/Zoom and some web applications, the probability your dataset is above 1Gb per application is small.
How often do you deal with 1Gb spreadsheets or documents?
Even concerning large files, those don't necessarily require large working memory sets though. Suppose you have a 20GB spreadsheet. You aren't looking at the entire spreadsheet all at once, nor is the CPU trying to access data from the entire file at any given time. It would be slow to load because it would have to swap some stuff out on that initial load, but that swapout won't substantially hurt performance much afterwards. Mac OS will simply keep the sections of the file that are being actively used in memory, and will keep the rest in swap until you need to visit another section of the spreadsheet.
The working memory set isn't synonymous with the size of the program or the size of the files that were loaded. It is just a representation of what the computer is actually using at any given time. Virtual memory can get quite granular about it and is good at figuring out what is actually needed and what isn't.
Yes some do, and when they do, they'll make your system crawl. Stuff like you mentioned in Excel is even worse if part os the arrays are stuck in Swap.
I don't, but that doesn't mean users with programs that deal in the multi-GB file sizes will agree.
I didn't say there were no use cases for having more RAM. Of course there are exceptions (I named numerous exceptions in my original post). But for the everyday user, how often are people running into those exceptions?
I'm a software developer for a living and I don't run into those exceptions often. If I don't run into those exceptions often, the everyday user doing everyday tasks certainly won't. 8GB might not necessarily be "futureproof" the way 16GB is, but 8GB is not insufficient for everyday users. 8GB Macs perform great for millions of people around the world.
8GB is not enough for the "i constantly need 50+ browser tabs open all the time" crowd.
i persomally see no actual use case in this, as i'm usually with just a handful open at best. very rarely up to maybe twenty if i'm doing some research, but this only a temporarily.
I will close most of those tabs right after that. Naybe make some bookmarks if they are important to me.
but of course maybe i'm just not "pro" enough 🤷♂️
I have a M1 MBA that I bought back in August. I only got the 8GB model and it didn't take long to realize that it can't handle the 20 tabs that I keep open in Safari. There are times it will literally stutter as I scroll down a page and several times, it has slowed to a snails pace in doing anything. A reboot fixes sometimes for a month or two until it started to lag again. I've never had that problem on my 2019 16"MBP or my 2021 16" MBP, both have 16GB.
A lot of people don't realize this. I had a Mac mini with 32 GB of RAM and it would use over 20 GB routinely doing normal stuff. If I took that as a recommendation I would have thought that I needed at least 32 GB of RAM.
I had a car with a V-8 engine and that thing would always overheat when it was over 95 Fahrenheit outside. The car I have now has a 4 cylinder engine and it runs perfectly fine even when it's 100 outside. I would recommend if you live in a hot climate to get a car with a smaller engine.
The point is you can't equate one issue you're having with that one specification. There's so many other issues that could have caused this
Probably going to pick up an 8GB M1 air for my OH. Have a question for you evernote users out there - OH is a big EN user, and would be running safari, maybe powerpoint, word and goodnotes in the background. Thats about it normally. Just wondering if 8GB will suffice for EN? Its been a bit of a mess since they released the new version of it. I dont have any experience with the M1s so its a bit of an unknown for me.
As a web developer, photography and deals with video from time to time I have found out that 8 GB isn't enough for me. I bought a 8GB MacBook M1 13" Pro about a year ago as I wanted to see how good the M1 chip really was. While I really like the MacBook, I soon found out that 8GB wasn't enough for me as soon as I started having more application opened up at the same time. The computer worked fine when I would have only have one or maybe two opened at the same time, but any more than that it started bogging down and acting weird. I trained myself to close the application when I was done with that particular task, but it's a pain when one has to switch back and forth many times from multiple applications. So I decided to bite the bullet and purchase a Studio Max with 64GB along with a few other upgrades. I am sure glad I did as now I basically don't have to worry about how many apps I have open (which still isn't a lot in my opinion) and applications themselves even feels snappier. I also prefer a desktop over a laptop, so this is a win-win for me going back to a desktop.
Now 8 GB would probably be find for most people who just browse the web, play the occasional video(s) and do some light work on a computer. However, I recommend getting the most RAM you can get or afford if you do some work that taxes the computer.
Now 8 GB would probably be find for most people who just browse the web, play the occasional video(s) and do some light work on a computer. However, I recommend getting the most RAM you can get or afford if you do some work that taxes the computer.