Xcode with 8GB RAM

[neo_cs193p]

Any iOS devs in the house currently living on M1 with 8GB RAM? I'm wondering if this would be a viable and enjoyable experience in 2022. Some devs reported last year they were doing good with this config on Big Sur, but did Monterey add to the memory usage? Will Ventura?

My use case includes Xcode with medium sized projects, 1-2 simulators, 10-25 tabs in Safari, a few other small utilities like Mail, Notes etc. I'm pondering a base M2 Air as a secondary, on-the-go device. I'm using a 16" M1Pro as a desktop-laptop main machine and it's great.

 

[ctjack]

I am tracking one foreign website with lots of xcoders and such - everyone say that 8GB is doable but 16GB has more fun, which means that everything will work with 8GB but not necessarily as pleasant(read fast) as 16GB.
But yeah, you are right: 8GB in BigSur goes way far than in Monterey. Source: downgraded from Monterey to BigSur.

 

[neo_cs193p]

Thanks for the response! Unfortunately for me it's not an option to downgrade the OS, nor will I be able to. The new M2 Airs will come with Monterey and that's the oldest version they'll ever support.

Any other devs with greatly appreciated opinions?

 

[neo_cs193p]

I should add that I don't care a lot about longevity (I plan to use it 2-3 years) or memory swapping, as long as it's fast enough.

 

[jdb8167]

It depends on how large of a project you need to build. If you hit swap, you are going to see some serious slowdowns. Swap for multiple applications or browser tabs is probably acceptable for most people since you can swap in the whole app/tab when you switch to it (while swapping something older out). But for something like compiling or linking, you are just going to thrash the SSD while trying to fit everything into virtual memory. If everything mostly fits in 8 GB you should be fine but if your project is using memory way outside that, your performance is going to suffer.

 

[jav6454]

Any iOS devs in the house currently living on M1 with 8GB RAM? I'm wondering if this would be a viable and enjoyable experience in 2022. Some devs reported last year they were doing good with this config on Big Sur, but did Monterey add to the memory usage? Will Ventura?

My use case includes Xcode with medium sized projects, 1-2 simulators, 10-25 tabs in Safari, a few other small utilities like Mail, Notes etc. I'm pondering a base M2 Air as a secondary, on-the-go device. I'm using a 16" M1Pro as a desktop-laptop main machine and it's great.

I wouldn’t advice using 8GB for that.