How much RAM / SSD do you need in a Mac for your workload? Timestamps ⬇ Intro - 00:00 Swap Memory Usage- 0:26 Understanding RAM - 00:42 Understanding SSD - 01:07 Understanding Swap Memory Usage - 01:41 Recommendation - 02:52 Save Your Money - 03:28 Added Perspective - 03:38
For my web development workflow, the only time I feel the hit of 8GB of RAM is when I need to use Docker. But as you stated in your video, starting up dev servers and having my 10 - 20 Chrome tabs open, I have no problems so far. Although, I do use Neovim as my editor, so I don't think I would use as much RAM as with VS Code, but I think it should still be fine either way.
"No silly benchmarks" and "To the point explaination" is such a contradictory statement when talking about the literla performacne of a computer under different conditions
These types of explanations and clarifications is what most people need, and not the benchmark comparisons - in order to make their decision. Love the way you explained the concept! 👍🏻
we wouldnt need any explanation if apple stopped ripping ppl off on ram and storage upgrades........they could easily go back to making them removable.........or better yet just buy a framework laptop.
swap memory is good, but the video makes one big mistake... Talking about overwriting files, does not wear out an SSD alone... Garbage collection does (cleaning up)... although kept to a minimum to make sure its not unnecessarily worn out. In fact an SSD will do more (cleaning up) garbage collection than legit writing of data over its lifetime.. i reckon. This cleaning up is not factored into write cycles "how many you have left", You could say this cleaning up kept to a min. is not really a major factor and that's why its not added to the 1000 write cycles.,
As a former software engineer and Data Architect, I’m impressed by how clearly you were able to articulate the memory management and it’s impact on the I/O write/read performance. Great explanation and use of graphics.
I'm a bit confused by this advice to be honest. I just opened up activity monitor on my Mac with 16GB of ram. I'm using over 13GB. I'm nothing like a heavy user. I have evernote open, MS Word and Excel, a VOIP app, and 2 web browsers. I had 8GB before and it was really laggy. Since upgrading (to a 2017 Macbook pro...) I've had no problems. I'm not in the 5-10% of heavy users but I definitely need more than 8GB.
@@nazift.3728 yes you can.... The only reason why people say 8 gig is more snappier than Intel, is because of access time only, memory is directly onboard SoC... Access time does nothing to amount of physical memory limit you buy at purchase. 8 Gig is still and always going to be 8Gig,, regardless of how quick it 'feels'.
I bought a MacBook Air and MacBook Pro 13” both equipped with the M1 chip. Only difference is 8 GB ram on the MacBook Air and 16 GB of ram with the Pro. It makes a big difference! With every day tasks, I didn’t notice any differences. But exporting a video with Chrome in the background open and a lot of tabs, the video was hardly rendered. After 10 minutes it had like 5%. The moment I closed the Chrome app, the video rendered in about 60 second finished. that’s with the 8 GB on the MacBook Air M1. With the MacBook Pro 13” M1 and the 16 GB of ram, I never had any of those problems. It’s still fast, even with Chrome and Lightroom in the background opened. I regret that I didn’t spend the money for the 16GB.
For Apple devices in particular, the most compelling reason I have to go with more RAM is the inability to change this later. As you say; external SSD is relatively cheap and easy to come by, so you can just buy more when needed. With RAM in the MacBook you're stuck with your initial choice, so I always go with the most I can.
@@Christomshack I saw that 800 dollar deal and saw charts comparing the performance between the m1 and m2 base configurations and am now seriously considering the purchase of the m1.
@@TranceFan05 The M1 chips outperform the M2 in several benchmark tests too. Max Tech have several videos on benchmark testing. Not only do I recommend the M1 models over the M2, I put my wallet where my mouth is and own both a base model M1 MBA and base model M1 MBP. If you want to support the channel, I linked the best prices available for new Macs in the description of the video 🤝
@@Christomshack Hello chris, I know what you mean and its such a juicy deal. As a remote worker despite building my own gaming pc I find myself with a stronger desire to leave the house so i have been considering a laptop. My dad and I are the last android hold outs in the family but he is considering switching with that in mind I have been pricing a apple conversion. M1 base + 12 Mini is only like 1240 dollars from BB so its very tempting. I Think whats holding me back is the closed system apple keeps trying to expand every year xD. Like for instance the apple card or the recent ( 1 month agoish ) tech support calls I had to take with peopel whose apple tv box would only let them sign the new terms and Cs with another apple device ( now patched). They have always made me a little suspicious about switching over cause I know its a slippery slope. The environments functionality is supreme though. With that in mind im gonna hold out longer and see how I feel. I did however watch your top m2 acessories video and purchase the anker 747 with the affiliate link. Thanks for the concise and detailed videos. Comparison videos are always 100 times more useful than solo reviews. You have earned a non apple user sub :D
@@TranceFan05 Thanks for subscribing! Happy to hear you like the content. I'm interested to hear which model Mac you end up buying, so keep me in the loop!
The views don't reflect the quality of this video.Please hang in, you are doing a great job and I think you will become one of the top Apple channels. Thanks for the video!
Much appreciated! I am focusing on quality over quantity content to deliver the most value with each video, so it is great to read compliments like this. Thanks
Agreed on the sentiment of this comment! Great quality video. One thought for consideration: A lot of TH-cam reviewers are quick to recommend the M1 or M2 MacBook Air models for the majority of users as they offer good value for the price (especially the M1). While I believe their intent is good, and they’re trying to save their viewers money, it’s often forgotten to mention that the vanilla M chips only support a single external monitor. I bring this up because I’ve had a number of people in my family/friend circle purchase an Air model and are disappointed when they can’t use a dual monitor setup while they WFH.
@@waylonnicholson371 Thanks Wayne! Yes, that's one of the largest downsides to the MBA, IMO. I figured since so many other videos mention the single display compatibility that I wouldn't beat the same drum by mentioning it again. Although come to think of it, maybe it would have been a beneficial 10sec. add to the video. Thanks for the comment
@@Christomshack Yeah man, not calling you out-I just typically have TH-cam streaming while I work and the majority of reviewers that I see are quick to recommend the Air models, but forget to mention the display count issue. Thought I’d put my word in while you’re still relatively small and reading comments-and before you blow up and have too many comments to read through.
I agree. With so many tech youtubers being excessive it's refreshing to see people who are realistic and do consider use cases and sensible spending instead of buying a 8tb/64gib M1 Max MacBook Pro in the name of some vague, poorly defined idea of 'future proofing'. Granted, the most popular creators don't explicitly recommend configs like this, but this is still what i consider an age of excess.
While I agree getting more RAM is a good idea to reduce swapping, which can, in theory, cause damage to the SSD, I think there's a couple of practical things to consider first. Before assuming the SSD is damaged due to read/write, I'd wipe the system and reinstall MacOS. Don't restore a Time Machine backup, clone your system onto an external drive and start from scratch. With your data being consistently written around RAM swaps, fragmentation comes into play too, especially if your SSD gets full. SSD failure due to NAND failure is quite rare, some SSDs with SLC NAND (1 bit per cell) can withstand up to 10,000 write cycles before failure. Apple uses TLC NAND (3 bits per cell) as far as I'm aware, which is a bit lower at around 3000 write cycles. Think about how often you write enough data to fill your SSD, then remove all of it and start again. You'd have to do that 3000 times to see damage. This equates to a total write over the lifetime of your Mac of 3 petabytes. Or it equates to rendering 1TB of video every day for 3000 days (which is still 10 years...). Great video though, haven't heard of SSD write damage being described like that before, it's a great analogy.
Yeah, as a CS graduate this was the first time I’d ever heard of damaging your SSD as a consequence of swap memory. Usually, I’d just say you want to avoid using swap memory because is ungodly slow. Never really imagined damaging the SSD was an issue
This is great! I haven't seen a single TH-camr go over this. They all talk specs. This is much more important. I also don't typically comment anywhere, but I think this video deserves more recognition. And thank you for not making it a 20-30 Minute video and getting straight to the point.
My dude… I know I’m late to the party here, but I gotta say that you absolutely killed it. You explain technology in such an elegant yet straight forward way. It’s like being asked to explain the Internet to a child or someone who knows nothing about how technology works. You seem to have taken the master class here in how you explain things. Now, I know how the Internet works. And I’m a programmer, infrastructure analyst and I always keep up to date on the latest technology trends. But I gotta say it’s sooo refreshing to watch a creator so eloquently describe technology in such a simple manner that is informative, but without assuming that your viewers aren’t tech-savvy or that they are. You explain things how they are. Man, I wrote a short story here but needless to say.. the view count doesn’t reflect the quality. Keep this up man. You’re gonna do big things! Your work here is evident of that.
I think it’s absolutely criminal from Apple to charge +$200 for 8gb of extra ram when ram prices have SIGNIFICANTLY dropped down (laptop 8gb ddr4 ram go for less than $25), they used to charge that in 2019, and they’re still charging the same amount.
I disagee. I think it's criminal to KEEP buying overpriced products when you don't like what the company is charging. Bottom line: they're not holding a gun to your head to buy.
@@mrsamot4677 ah yes, like it’s made out of different components. It’s almost the same shit, and yes they should charge more for it, but they’re charging the same amount they did in 2019 even tho it’s like thrice as cheap to make? Smh.
Wow dude.. I’ve finally grasped the idea of ram and ssd much better now. I know all the comments say the same thing but this concept can save a lot of people money and time. Thanks ! Great content and a new sub
A content creator that wholly explains their point fast and effectively without droning over minute details to reach the 10 minute mark? Instant subscribe.
Thank youuuu for making this understandable for the 90-95% of us that are not editing massive files! Greatly appreciate the short and to the point explanation!
I know this video is a year old, but I refurbished an M2 MacBook Pro for my wife two year ago. She is a highschool teacher and she has been earning her doctorate online at night. She is ALWAYS behind that MacBook. 8GB seems to serve her well. Now, it is very fast DDR5 integrated into the CPU, so I'm sure it purges and fills quickly, but I'm surprised with her usage 8GB is enough.
Okay… this was the actual greatest explanation I’ve ever experienced regarding computers. It takes me so long to understand new concepts, let alone actually grasp it after 4 minutes. The online classroom was so supportive with my learning style. Seriously - This was wildly helpful. thank you so much!!!
If it wasn’t for the closed architecture preventing user upgrades in terms of both memory and storage, think a lot of people would be happier to start off with a lower spec model. However, given Apple Silicon is locked upon production, I’d still go for a 16Gb/512Gb option with any discounts when purchasing. If Apple hadn’t nobbled the 256Gb SSD, staying external for additional storage would have been easier to opt for.
You can solve this problem by selling the old laptop and upgrading :) I got 8Gb MacBook Air and basic photoshop hit swap already. System and graphics uses around 3 to 4Gb leaving apps with very little. Back in the days we used to swap to HDD and old school users know the impact of swap.
Interesting video and great explanation but I think a good suggestion for the future in terms of RAM amount that you need is really to mention how many tabs you run on average either in Safari or other browser. If you run 30+ tabs in Safari on 8GB of ram you tend to start hitting swap pretty heavily, especially if you have 2-3 TH-cam tabs open at the same time too.
When I hear about someone with 30+ tabs open, it makes me think there’s a mismatch between their habits and their expectations. At work, I use 3 monitors but keep my applications to a minimum. If someone chooses to have a lot of tabs open, especially with videos, they should anticipate that it’ll demand a lot of resources. It’s not just about needing more RAM. It’s about understanding how our choices impact our tech’s performance. While everyone works differently, being mindful of how our habits affect what we expect from our devices can save us a lot of frustration.
I have 5 tabs open, and it's struggling to even write this comment (15" base model m2). It actually takes about 8 second for my text to display. Crazy.
@@EnzoPersson-r3g my ram is always at a minimum of 8-9gb in use but that’s because it uses more if the capacity is there 😅. Yours should optimise itself for 8gb setup
Video ends abruptly (which is weird) but the way you've explained everything deserves a shoutout. Simple, objective and didactic! Congratulations! Apart from the end, your editing skills, lighting setup, sound quality, bgm choice (especially volume), screen composition and your thumbnails are also on point! I've seen a lot of "amateur" content on youtube (I mean no disrespect with the expression) and I'm really impressed with your video. Keep doing what you're doing!
I have been in IT management for almost 30 years, and this is the best explanation for the difference between RAM and storage memory I have ever heard. Great job!
I am not gonna lie, this video cleared my mind giving me literally what I need to know before choosing the ram. Thank u g, the best video among all in YT for macbook
THANK YOU. I've had the base model M2 Air since launch almost a year ago. That thing is lightning quick, even with 8GB of RAM. I typically have 5-6 apps open at a time. Including apps like Photoshop and audio editing software. The Air breezes through all of it. I've always said that the base model has plenty of horsepower for 90-95% of users out there as well. Your take on this topic is spot on.
@@rafin8458 I’ve got 10+ years of documents and graphics from our church on it and it’s a little over half full. 256GB of storage is totally fine for the average user.
How's your experience been? Is it good enough? Especially for video editing, does slower SSD impact performance in comparison to M1 Air ? Planning to buy a Macbook Air very soon. Need a Lil guidance
How's your experience been? Is it good enough? Especially for video editing, does slower SSD impact performance in comparison to M1 Air ? Planning to buy a Macbook Air very soon. Need a Lil guidance
Chris, I’m new to the channel : just wanted to tell you that you have a very original an unique way of teaching / speaking about a thematic.and transmitting your thoughts. Never give up what you’re doing, no doubt, you’ll become a BEAST. Keep going man, never let the nesayer push you down. To the way of reaching out 500K (yes five hundred) subscribers. Good skill !
Hands-down, one of the best videos on a computer, memory, drive storage that I have ever seen! This is useful for both Mac users and PC users. As another comment states, no benchmarks, no complex explanation, just common sense was real world examples. Perfection!
Recently upgraded my 2011 iMac to a M2 mac mini, ended up going with the 16gb ram. Though I’m not a super heavy user or a content creator I do like editing photos, have a bunch of apps open, and occasionally do a little video editing, also been thinking about teaching myself how to code, so I feel like 16 was good fit for me. Nice job Chris explains ram 👍🏽
@@Christomshack enjoying it man, it's been super fast so far. Though I'm used to the iMac already having a camera, using my iPhone as a camera been pretty good so far.
@@Christomshack you know what I totally forgot about those mounts, I've just been using my tablet/phone stand, it gets the job done and I don't mind the camera off to the side a little.
Hi Robert, I was in your same shoes but, despite already owning M1 Macbook Pro (16 GB RAM), I bought my M2 Mac Mini with 8 GB and gulped big hoping it’d be fine since, when I use my Macbook Pro my system often uses 12+ GB of RAM…I’m a 3-browser, 40 tabs each plus apps running guy. Lo and behold, the 8 GB Mac Mini works without a hitch! Can’t tell any difference at all…no lag, no beach balls. This supports Chris’s suggestion in the video. I sort of laugh when every other TH-camr says “you’ll want 16 GB to future-proof your machine”…they don’t seem to get that the $200 RAM upgrade is 40% the cost of a brand new Mac Mini…in the “future” I’ll just buy a new Mac Mini with the money I saved in RAM 😂
i’m a marketing student and i got the 8gb ram and 256gb mba m1 and trust me - i could barely used half of my storage. i mostly just research articles and make essays and other document types of assignments and i never really had a problem. and now, i’ve been using my mba m1 for like 3 years now and it’s still fast as ever. storage is barely full. don’t let these other creators tell you that you’d need 16gb even when you’re just an avaerage students who just really do research and make essays.
I like how you actually explain the concepts that tech reviewers throw out. Also first time I've seen the chalk board analogy to explain the potential pitfalls of swap memory on SSD. nice work
Thank you for the simplified explanation for the SSD and RAM. These are the explanation that most of the tech vloggers miss since they focus more on the appearance of the macbooks.
Also a software engineer here! I recently won a M2 MacAir for free with base specs (8gb RAM, 250gb SSD) and because most of my friends are non-tech, the amount of them saying I should just 'upgrade' my current M1 MacAir (16gb RAM, 500gb SSD) just don't get my dilemma. Thanks for making this video so that they can better understand what I've been trying to get at
Oh man 😅 I would probably stick to M1 with 16GB of RAM. 8GB of RAM might become a BOTTLENECK sooner. It’s AWFUL that Apple only offers 8GB of RAM for brand new M3 MacBook PRO 😬
Things to remember on the M2 MacBooks, 256GB is significantly slower than 512GB, (Single NAND Chip as opposed to Double Flash/NAND chip,) so if you only have 8GB RAM and are paging data to the Hard Drive this will make a difference. (The base Model M1s came with dual NAND/Flash on even the base models). Another thing to remember is if you cook your Apple silicon Mac's SSD you will not be able to boot,even from an external SSD. Now all SSDs have a wear levelling algorithm that tries to even out the wear to the SSD memory cells, (each one can only be written to a finite amount of times before it reverts to a read only state). So try to keep as much space free on the SSD as possible to help the wear levelling. I would avoid the T7 SSDs, they have hardly any RAM/Cache and in my experience when writing a lot of data to them, the pseudo SLC fills and they drop down to 45=50MBps , M@ drives have fallen significantly in price. look at rolling your own USB4/TB3/4 drive, this enclosure hots 2900MBps on my Mac Studio R/W Vs 700MBps on same device, (admittedly the "external display trick" speeds this up to 800MBps, + eshop.macsales.com/blog/74780-faster-external-drive-speed-m1-mac/ So my advice is if you can strecth to a 512GB SSD even if you have to have 8GB RAM, (I also have an M2 MBA 8GB/512GB and find it plenty fast enough)
Agreed, you can always find storage work arounds, like network storage or external drives, but you can't upgrade your RAM, and when you need it, you're really gonna need it.
Nicely stated...but there's also the unsaid issue of future-proofing a computer. Getting a unit with a somewhat larger capacity is frequently a good idea, because disk space gets filled pretty quickly in the best of conditions. Increasing the RAM, too, allows you to address the ever-increasing load on your computer. It's like a kind of insurance.
only that with all the past mac laptop issues weve seen, you cant even be sure that it will survive and so upgrading and future proofing means little if the machine is dead on arrival so to speak. In my case, my mbp 15 inch 16gigs 250ssd didnt last more than a year before it starte breaking down and become totally unusable, now it finally died and I need a new one, dont think ill fix it even if it may just be the battery and a fix for 200 dollars (cost me 2,5k). But that def left a deep traumatic experience and now i think going for the cheapest / best ratio money can get might be better than trying to think it will last 3-5 or more years. Even this guy here making the vid seemed to have changed his out 1,5 later because the ssd slowed down or died due to the swap memory which you have really no control over. In the past, you would have just swapped the ssd disk yourself, but apple made sure no one can do this alone. Cooperate greed like with all their latest machines, damn shame, they used to be a fine company or at least so it seemed!
Your are the first TH-camr I saw who recommend the base model for those people who just need a Macbook for basic tasks and don't want spend much money. Thanks for a clear and objective review and opinion! Great Video. New Subscriber! 😁
@@Christomshack I would only need a Macbook Air to work on Microsoft Office software and once in a white edit little videos and audio. A 8gb ram is enough for that then?
I would only need a Macbook Air to work on Microsoft Office software and once in a white edit little videos and audio. A 8gb ram is enough for that then?
THANK YOU for this! First thing first, it’s straight to the point and concise, no bullshit hyping and stuff, and more importantly it’s pretty much the only video that actually describes the problem at hand and gives a perfectly reasonable solution that I’ve seen so far. Keep it up.
can NOT be explained any simpler. Love this explanation and so easy to understand. Sharing this video for family and friends who are just about looking for their next apple upgrade
As a senior-level systems engineer, I’d like to give my ringing endorsement of this information’s technical soundness. Fantastic video all around! Definitely earned my subscription. This channel is going places…
Maybe youtube is missing some super entry level videos that dumb down what computer components do instead of just assuming everyone knows how they work.
This is a refreshingly pragmatic approach to giving this type of information. Many YT reviewers fall over themselves on the numbers but it's good to hear clear advice from someone with real software experience. Subscribed!
This video just brings me good memories. I just finished college, was having my first job and bought my first computer. With 8GB of RAM. How that time flies. 15 years like snap of fingers.
“Don’t blink” is a simple saying that, whenever I think about it, I’m powerfully reminded of all the time that has passed, experiences and memories accrued, etc. since the last time I thought “Don’t blink”. 15 years comes and goes quickly… don’t blink!
I feel higher RAM config is must needed (for Professional & Smalll Business Users) as we deal with Multiple active web tabs along with other resource hungry apps like (Whatsapp, MS Office Suite, Mailbox, Notes / Drafts, Reminders, Zoom / Teams). So 16gb is really needed even if ur not an editor, but a professional who uses multiple software suites to monitor ur business activity.
Well said man. I totally agree with this. My full time profession is as a media manager for various companies. I need exactly what you mentioned to operate on a daily basis successfully.
This video is a great quick look at this conundrum. I work at Costco and do my fair share of Apple product sales. I do tend to recommend upgrading the SSD over more ram. But I am also quick to point out that we have external SSDs for 1tb/$80, and when they’re on sale 2tb/$130 (normally $190).
I remember when the M1 Macbook Air was first released and everyone was pushing the 8GB RAM version saying that the swap memory would make up for it, it's fine. Fell for it and my RAM usage kept going into yellow and sometimes red territory. Upgraded soon after to a machine with 16GB of RAM.
Exactly. In a lot of cases, you can use more than 8 GBs of memory without even trying because programs today are such inefficient pieces of crap. Gone are the days when developers took the time to write good clean and efficient code. These days code is pushed out as fast as possible which results in God knows how many memory leaks and just plain inefficient code.
@@AFatOcelot Bullsh*t. Load up 25 to 30 tabs in... pick your favorite web browser, and watch memory usage go through the roof. Add any other programs you want to run like an email client along with any other programs that are running in the background like perhaps an office suite be it Microsoft Office or Apple's own suite of office applications and you'll easily see memory usage go past 8 GBs of RAM. Not everyone does video editing, some of us want to multitask like a mad man with dual monitors.
@@trparky I just loaded 30-40 tabs of youtube videos and clicked play on all of them (took me a while) and they are all simultaneously playing different videos and ads with no lag. Although I did feel some slow down when installing WoW while watching a 4k youtube video
I’m trying to learn more about “under the hood” parts when it comes to mobile devices, computers, laptops, etc and make a career change. And I have to say this is the best video I’ve come across in easily explaining things to me. Thank you so much! I’m definitely subscribing and will be watching and learning more!
If you have the budget I recommend building your own PC. That and/or use a PC builder simulator. You can learn this stuff in a week or two. The harder stuff is on the software/logical end. Knowing the physical does help though.
I have a MacBook Air M1 base model with 8GB of ram and 256 of SSD. Actually I’m using it to development with heavy tools like Rider IDE and Docker desktop. With this softwares running and some safari tabs the memory pressure keeps on 60%. Really the MacOS memory management is great. I guess is best to me upgrade the SSD to 512 in next Mac.
I have the same setup Rider and Docker, Chrome and few other apps - strangly seems fine, even with two user accounts. I had 16GB model also, and so far I do not notice difference.
What is additionally important to note is that the “M” series mac’s come with a System On a Chip, which includes also your GPU (graphics). The memory you have also is used by this graphics processor. I still am in agreement with your conclusion, but would like to add this
I ordered mac mini m2 that will be exclusively used for music production (Cubase). Upgraded RAM to 16gb but left 256ssd. For about 110USD I got ssd enclosure and 2tb ssd. Look for Acasis enclosure with 40GBps rating. It is Thunderbolt 3 compatible. SSD is Crucial P3 pro. It was the cheapest option.
I think you did a great job explaining what swap is and what it can be used for, but you definitely understated the potentially severe performance impact swap memory can have. Sure it’s not as bad as the HDD days, but you are still talking 100-200us compared to 50-150ns. Pretty big difference and definitely noticeable depending on what you are doing.
The internal drive on macs are worth every penny. They are literally 23x faster then most all external sdd except for a few that don’t get immediately thermal throttled because they have a massive heat sink. Most external ssds are 300mbps even this they say they go up to 2000 or whatever. The internal max drive runs at 7500mbps
Even though I gave up on Mac after a decade and went back to Windows, still glad to see there are at least some reviewers who don't recommend going overboard and over the top with spending the extra money. Buy what you need and what will easily work for you. Unfortunately too many reviews and opinions try to get people to spend more money by upgrading specs and features, throwing away money on computers, phones and other devices.
@@mohammedfaizan3013 - I purchased a windows laptop in Nov 2020. Since about 2015, Apple has released Macbooks that have had more than their share of issues, including the butterfly keyboard conundrum. If you pay a premium amount of money for a laptop, you should have much better reliability. I felt that Apple was not delivering a better product for the premium price during those years. I will admit, that all changed, when Apple released the MacBooks with the M1 chips back in Nov 2020, the same month I bought the windows laptop. Since then it seems the reliability of the MacBook Air/Pro have really improved with the M-series chips. I had already made the decision to transition back to Windows, and I just didn't feel like waiting around for Apple to get their act together anymore. I went with an upscale 15.5" Asus Zenbook laptop, no regrets, no issues for the past 3 years. If I would have purchased an equivalent Macbook with the same size screen and specs, it would have been over 2K. Since then, Apple has released a 15" MacBook Air, for a much more reasonable price, Apple had to do this to make a much more reasonably priced laptop. I just don't feel the need to move back to a Macbook anymore. I admit I still use an iPad, and iPhone, but the combo of devices works for me.
Great video, it’s a bit crazy to think hard drive speeds have gotten so fast that they are no longer a huge bottleneck to system speed. Ssd technology has really been a huge game changer.
They are still waaaaaay slower than RAM and shouldn't be seen as a decent alternative to RAM really. If you're using a lot of swap it is definitely detrimental to your overall system and especially on macs where once the internal SSD goes you're screwed. The majority of the system runs on RAM. If you were to run it on the SSD purely then it would not have the same performance. So essentially, no SSD have not caught up to RAM nor do modern SSD's prevent any issues in performance if you're using too much RAM. You still will take a performance hit or even crash. You may not mean it, but I want to make it clear that storage is no replacement for RAM. It's a last resort.
Bro… you just saved me a TON of money. I’ve been interested in getting into Software Development but being self taught and am currently looking for a MacBook. Was literally gonna buy a new MacBook ProM2 when I now know I most definitely DONT need it. Just found the base model MacBook Air M1 at my BestBuy on sale for like $670. Thanks again, you video was SUPER helpful and informative!
I own an entry-level M1 MBA and quite frankly, I’m shocked as to how much the swap memory is bottlenecking to performance of my system, to the point where switching between workspaces incurs very noticeable lag. I would have expected the low amount of RAM to have an effect on performance (as in, long-running tasks might need longer to run), but the fact that the user experience suffers this badly was kind of unexpected.
SAME!! And I am an average knowledge worker using only Brave with minimal amount of tabs open ... So I'm definitely NOT getting an 8GB RAM MBA next time... :(
@@moderndilemmas_and yet the majority of people using the m1 8gb are happy with their laptop and don’t experience any lag. Wtf are you people doing with your airs?
@@paradiseb5950people are happy with it because most of them don’t know any different and think showing off that Apple logo at Starbucks is everything. Apple makes good products but 8GB on a modern day machine is not OK. I don’t care what magical SOC voodoo you think is going on in there. Yes it works for browsing one web page and maybe a word processing app but for that why do you need a laptop worth more than $200? I’ve witnessed the swap on these things with minimal applications. -typed on my $250 business refurb laptop with Linux and 32GB RAM. 😂
I know how to avoid spending too much money on a new laptop: 1) DON'T BUY APPLE products 2) Choose a laptop from one of those reliable brands: Asus, Dell, HP or Sony 3) Pick any computer with 8GB of RAM preinstalled that suits your needs. My advice: choose one with an extra M.2 slot for a second SSD drive. 4) Buy a 8GB RAM module for 20-30 bucks and install it in the second empty slot 5) If you need an extra 1TB NVME SSD drive, you can get it for 75-90 bucks. And voila! Now you have it, a perfect laptop for 1/3 price of a MacBook which you can easily upgrade whenever you need it.
I recently upgraded my MBP 13” Core i7+16Gb over to a MBP 14” M2 Pro+32Gb. My normal usage is not heavy, but considering long term usability+speed I believe that more RAM is the best upgrade possible.
I doubt you would notice a difference between the M2 with 16GB vs 32GB. The upgrade from i7 to M2 is massive and, as explained in the video, has benefits beyond those two upgrades "on paper". Though if you don't plan on upgrading again in 5 years or so you won't regret the extra ram
@@stove.d I choose to upgrade and have more RAM (32Gb), as I usually keep my MacBook during around 5 years. So this helps keeping him performing very fast. Plus when a resell it, this will be a differentiator.
My experience with the base M2 Air wasn't as pleasant though. It couldn't handle my full-stack development needs as well as I wanted. It would heat up so often causing it to lag. Sometimes when I had to present something I've worked on during a Google Meet call my laptop would be really slow and keep freezing. I eventually had no choice but to upgrade to the 14 inch M1 pro.
Did you find that the 14-inch M1 pro is comfortable to use? I heard several people complaining about (1)how much their wrists hurt after using it and (2) how sharp the edges felt.
I dont use my Mac for work, I only use it for browsing the internet, emails and the odd spreadsheet. I used your video as a guide and I can confidentntly say you helped me pick the wrong Mac model... I should have gone 16GB and now I just get warnings every few hours telling me to close apps. Perhaps it would be wiser to say, if you use your Mac more than your phone, get 16 gigs.
Great video But there is something missing here which is that in the new m2 chip the 256 only have one nan chip which dramatically affect the read and write speed rather than the 512 one which have 2 nan chip Thats a note that MUST be taken into consideration
Many TH-camrs have shown those slower speeds are an important factor when moving large files to external drives, as many professionals and prosumers do, but are mostly irrelevant for the population that this video is targeted at. However, for the casual user that is concerned about R/W speeds the M1 MBA is a great choice.
I think the more important missing info is the TWB, which tells you about how many write/rewrite is the limit on the SSD (it's about always 600x of the initial size, so each sector rewriteable 600x before start to degrade, so 256GB SSD has 150TB TWB, but 1TB SSD has 600TB TWB value, usable 4x longer before start to degrade)
another thing that nobody is mentioning is that the mac memory is shared between CPU and GPU - having 8GB means having a very limited memory for GPU tasks (
@@Teluric2 yes! apple did a great move with coreML and its neural engine/gpu’s- both stablediffusion and openai’s whisper can run on m1 devices for a while now making full use of the integrated GPU; slower than high-end nvidia gpu’s but we are talking about an ecosystem of consumer grade computers/phones that can already run ML tasks such as text transcribing, image segmentation, face recognition etc without needing to offload such task to some remote server.
I'm part of the 5% to 10% :) My current wish is upgrading the memory instead of the SSD. Also as software engineer, I use a lot of thing opened at the same time, especially browser tabs. I often find myself writing 40-80GB per day on my M1 base model even when trying to be reasonable. One thing I would like to be sure of is that the 16GB will indeed decrease swapping, as some seems to say they still observed SSD usage with the 16GB.
@@Etienne85 I think Apple's upgrade scam is ridiculous. And to answer your question yes 16 GB will indeed decrease your swapping. What I do not know is if your use case would require more RAM than 16GB. I don't care what the fanboys say about how special apple's SOC is with magical RAM because 8GB is still not enough for anyone other than grandma. My wife has an M1 Mac mini with 16/1TB and I still notice some small amount of swap occurring. For the record she is a very basic user who does cloud based work with maybe 6 Safari tabs and a document scanner app and a couple PDF's. If you want to keep your Mac for 6 plus years then go big, if you plan to upgrade in 2-3 then buy whatever. I am a PC user and my laptop has 32GB ang desktop 64GB. Overkill yes but I don't want to stay up at night worrying about whether I bought the right system and for mere pennies I can feel secure. I so much wanted an M2 Air but refuse to spend a fortune getting it up to spec.
@@OShackHennessy Before moving to mac, I would never have chosen less than 16GB but in order to keep price attractive I chose M1 base model. I was surprised not noticing the 8GB RAM but was at the price of swap madness. So I chose to run any heavy server tasks on remote Linux which is very suitable for that purpose and keep the mac for browsing/deving which was the main reason I chose it in first place: easy to carry around and unmatched user experience (touchpad, screen, sound, autonomy). My last concern now is the screen which I need a bit bigger and also more RAM to further reduce swapping. Let's hope 15" with 16GB RAM will be the right fit
Thanks you just confirmed my decision to go with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of SSD. I am a light user with simple requirements so the upgrades are really not needed
I was genuinely shocked when this video ended 😂Simple but informative explanations, perfect pacing, and to-the-point examples all stacked on a no-nonesense script made this video a joy to watch. We need more cretors like you on this platform. Kudos! 🙏🏻
I did the opposite of what you suggested and am perfectly happy with the decision. This was not a short term purchase as I anticipate having it for 5-8 years if not longer. Also the laptop is a portable mobile workstation for me and not my main desktop so an external drive for this device isn’t ideal if I want to be portable and minimal.
You know that's a good point to keep in mind too, how long you intend to have it. Im planning on getting a m2 mba soon and intend to have it for atleast 5 years. I cant afford to be dropping $2k every year or two for the newest upgraded model like many mac users seem to do. So with that in mind maybe i should upgrade both after all.
@@GamingPIPI Hi! I've been busy and havent bought mine yet but plan to do so this week or next but to answer your question i plan on upgrading both. So i will be getting 16gb memory and 512gb storage. I know the base model would likely be fine for my needs but i just dont want it to become obsolete and be too slow to run basic things in a few years time. If i can get 5 or 6 years out of it i will be happy, i just cant afford to replace it every 2 - 3 years.
Good job Chris in the memory and white board analogy. For myself, having 16GB RAM now is the most important component to prolong a laptop's life since everything else on a MAC\PC can't be upgraded later and is essential if you're doing the fun stuff like video edits, Adobe apps, and running IDEs. I keep my daily laptop for at least 4 years+.
Yeah was gonna say, his points are true if you are happy to use it for a few years, but even if you look at his workflow for the 16GB model it looks as if he is hitting 80% memory pressure. Give it a few years and he will definitely have to upgrade even though the rest of the computer perfectly works. Even for the average user, in theory you can save money by upgrading the ram to 16GB so you can hold it in for longer as typically the ram is the first thing to get outdated.
@jesselam5867 You're right on the money. I got the 16GB/512GB and saved $400 dollars by letting someone else pay for the upgrade. I went refurbed and it was a brand new laptop really in mint condition. I wasn't gonna pay the insane markups, but also wasn't gonna buy without 16GB of RAM, because I knkw better. Additionally, technically the bigger SSD's will overwhelmingly tend to last longer to if bigger (which is why Apple should allow you to upgrade your own instead of beings dicks tbh...). TBW way higher. I plan on keeping mime 5+ years. I run VM's on it so I'm not messing sound with only 8GB.
I'm so happy I stumbled upon this video. Kudos to Chris for explaining things clearly and opening my eyes that no, I don't need a 16 gb RAM according to my use case. I really thought I needed a 16 RAM but thinking again, use case, I don't use my device for hardcore editing or rendering. Heck, I barely use Photoshop. I'm thankful this video gave me reassurance that yes, by purchasing the base model IS enough for what I need it to do. Thanks, Chris!
You are getting scammed by being an apple user. My PC I built in 2016 has 16gigs of ram, currently worth $33 on amazon lol. More RAM is not required but makes the computer feel fast and smooth when you have more than one thing open. Yall are pathetic.
Amazing video, quick and without the fluff, really enjoyed the chalkboard analogy. Subbed and going to check out more of your channel. This is my first Mac and as tempting as it was to upgrade, I went the base M2 Air model. I am pleasantly surprised with the performance and the lack of constant updates. I can see this machine lasting me a few more years than my previous laptops, wish this video was up a few months ago when I was researching, it would've made the decision easier :)
Much appreciated, Ron. I do my best to keep the videos as short as possible while still delivering the most value I can, so I appreciate your comment. Congrats on the new M2 MBA! How is it handling your workload so far?
@@Christomshack I’m finding the ecosystem rather interesting, it’s fitting my needs and to date hasn’t let me down. Basic small business and accounting with a side of daily browsing streams etc, definitely happy with the performance.
Finally a clear answer that I needed as a dev. No in-depth irrelevant non-sense about a programming language and "issues when installing", all I needed to hear is "I ran multiple browsers with several tabs each as a full-stack dev" and that's it. Not a "hello world" in React and saying "it doesn't sweat", but a real world scenario. M1 with 8 gigs is enough and that's the end of it. Kudos to you sir, I'll be going for a purchase now.
This is one of the most sophisticated videos on the 8 vs 16 ram topic. Very nicely explained and directly to the point 👌🏼😊 .. well done Chris 👏🏼 I’m now much more content and happy with my M1 MacBook Air after watching this video 😊
Why….I am on IT guy and worked with 3 m1 macs and they just been trouble for my clients. My clients been through 7 macs but they will only use macs the software doesn’t like macs. The system broke and the apple service center said it’s not fixable. The medical software doesn’t play nice with the apple soc. Macs just don’t have enough muscle to power against the windows on the market.
That problem does not lie with Mac. Rather it's the developer either not knowing how to properly code for OS X or not caring enough to FULLY develop their software. I've been running Macs almost exclusively since 1995 and I've run into this before and it has almost always been a developer/coding issue. Quickbooks was notorious for this very thing and when they finally did code it properly for Macs, they didn't offer all of the same features as they did for Windozzzze. Also software doesn't "BREAK" computers. It may freeze them up, but a simple erase and install of the system restores them to full functionality 100% of the time!@@neubauerjoseph
Unfortunately I still need to get the 64 GB version because I want to run my own LLMs and they use absolutely insane amounts of VRAM. I’m gonna be saving up forever 😢 The M chip’s unified RAM is the new killer feature of Macs now, in my opinion. Extremely underrated feature. Neural networks use stupid amounts of VRAM but since the M-series macs can use their system RAM as VRAM, you can actually run big neural networks on them. This is a really good tip though. Swap memory is more than enough for most people’s purposes.
A lot of folks are surprised to see only 8GB of RAM in Apple’s new devices, but that’s mainly because they’re used to the old-school way computers handle memory. In most traditional computers, you need more RAM to do even simple stuff smoothly. But Apple’s doing things differently with their Unified Memory Architecture in their Silicon chips. It’s way more efficient, so even 8GB of RAM can go a long way. It’ll take some time for people to get used to this new approach, but it’s just a matter of understanding how Apple’s tech works. It’s not about being wrong or right; it’s just what we’re all used to.
You read too much Apple's marketing slides. Windows have introduced pagingfile since Windows 95 and I've been configuring the allocation of it until about Windows Vista came out. Modern Windows uses BOTH swapping and paging. So how old is this "old school" are you talking about?
This! This is the best explanation I’ve heard. As a person who has basic knowledge ONLY of computers and literally having no idea what these were you explained it very well for someone like me. Thank you! Definitely deserved getting a subscription!
Is 16gb enough for development though? I am on a 2015 MacBook pro with 16gb of ram and using about 1-3gb of swap. One simple docker container, phpstorm with 1-2 projects opened, safari with 3 tabs and chrome with 5-10 tabs
How much RAM / SSD do you need in a Mac for your workload?
Timestamps ⬇
Intro - 00:00
Swap Memory Usage- 0:26
Understanding RAM - 00:42
Understanding SSD - 01:07
Understanding Swap Memory Usage - 01:41
Recommendation - 02:52
Save Your Money - 03:28
Added Perspective - 03:38
The time stamps are great, thank you!
64GB and 2TB if possible 🥲
As a software engineer, 64GB of ram and 1TB of SSD is the go to configuration for a work laptop from the companies I have worked for.
For my own Mac Studio, I got the 32GB, 512GB option because that's what was available at the time and a good enough config.
For my web development workflow, the only time I feel the hit of 8GB of RAM is when I need to use Docker. But as you stated in your video, starting up dev servers and having my 10 - 20 Chrome tabs open, I have no problems so far. Although, I do use Neovim as my editor, so I don't think I would use as much RAM as with VS Code, but I think it should still be fine either way.
No silly benchmarks, no blabber, just a chalkboard and straight to the point explanation. Great content! ❤
Much appreciated! Cheers
I still don’t understand benchmarks! Would be good to do a video on that . But this video is straight to the point
Straight to the point explanation?
Calling benchmarks silly is hilariously stupid.
"No silly benchmarks" and "To the point explaination" is such a contradictory statement when talking about the literla performacne of a computer under different conditions
No bs, no hyper animated tik tok personality, no unnecessary info; just strait to the point. What a gem of a video and creator.
All bullshit*
Should I get you some knee pads?
These types of explanations and clarifications is what most people need, and not the benchmark comparisons - in order to make their decision. Love the way you explained the concept! 👍🏻
we wouldnt need any explanation if apple stopped ripping ppl off on ram and storage upgrades........they could easily go back to making them removable.........or better yet just buy a framework laptop.
swap memory is good, but the video makes one big mistake... Talking about overwriting files, does not wear out an SSD alone... Garbage collection does (cleaning up)... although kept to a minimum to make sure its not unnecessarily worn out.
In fact an SSD will do more (cleaning up) garbage collection than legit writing of data over its lifetime.. i reckon. This cleaning up is not factored into write cycles "how many you have left",
You could say this cleaning up kept to a min. is not really a major factor and that's why its not added to the 1000 write cycles.,
You could also argue by not being benchmarks, so many also make the wrong choice in getting a mac too.. It goes both ways...
As a former software engineer and Data Architect, I’m impressed by how clearly you were able to articulate the memory management and it’s impact on the I/O write/read performance. Great explanation and use of graphics.
Thanks, Joel! What are you doing these days?
@@Christomshack I’m an Enterprise Information/Data Architect at a bank. I focus in compliance and governance systems.
@TheShogunOfHarlem th-cam.com/video/0qbrLiGY4Cg/w-d-xo.html
This says the opposite.
@@jamUSA24 Data architect sounds like some kind of Batman villain lol.
@@LoneSolo23 we can be if required.
I'm a bit confused by this advice to be honest. I just opened up activity monitor on my Mac with 16GB of ram. I'm using over 13GB. I'm nothing like a heavy user. I have evernote open, MS Word and Excel, a VOIP app, and 2 web browsers. I had 8GB before and it was really laggy. Since upgrading (to a 2017 Macbook pro...) I've had no problems. I'm not in the 5-10% of heavy users but I definitely need more than 8GB.
you can't compare m1 macs with intel macs tho
Yeah, be not surprised - He is buffoon making videos for other buffoons
Yeah tbh this isn't good advice. It's a lot of generalizations, claims and "advice" back up by a whole lot of "trust me bro"
@@nazift.3728 yes you can.... The only reason why people say 8 gig is more snappier than Intel, is because of access time only, memory is directly onboard SoC...
Access time does nothing to amount of physical memory limit you buy at purchase.
8 Gig is still and always going to be 8Gig,, regardless of how quick it 'feels'.
@@Justakattoyou talking about the video or this comment?
I bought a MacBook Air and MacBook Pro 13” both equipped with the M1 chip. Only difference is 8 GB ram on the MacBook Air and 16 GB of ram with the Pro. It makes a big difference! With every day tasks, I didn’t notice any differences. But exporting a video with Chrome in the background open and a lot of tabs, the video was hardly rendered. After 10 minutes it had like 5%. The moment I closed the Chrome app, the video rendered in about 60 second finished. that’s with the 8 GB on the MacBook Air M1. With the MacBook Pro 13” M1 and the 16 GB of ram, I never had any of those problems. It’s still fast, even with Chrome and Lightroom in the background opened. I regret that I didn’t spend the money for the 16GB.
That's a good example of why Chrome sucks on the Mac. Just don't use it, and the Mac will perform much better.
Can I buy the pro 13,from you
For Apple devices in particular, the most compelling reason I have to go with more RAM is the inability to change this later. As you say; external SSD is relatively cheap and easy to come by, so you can just buy more when needed. With RAM in the MacBook you're stuck with your initial choice, so I always go with the most I can.
Totally agree.
Although, with seasonal discounts pushing the M1 MBA down to
@@Christomshack I saw that 800 dollar deal and saw charts comparing the performance between the m1 and m2 base configurations and am now seriously considering the purchase of the m1.
@@TranceFan05 The M1 chips outperform the M2 in several benchmark tests too. Max Tech have several videos on benchmark testing.
Not only do I recommend the M1 models over the M2, I put my wallet where my mouth is and own both a base model M1 MBA and base model M1 MBP.
If you want to support the channel, I linked the best prices available for new Macs in the description of the video 🤝
@@Christomshack Hello chris, I know what you mean and its such a juicy deal. As a remote worker despite building my own gaming pc I find myself with a stronger desire to leave the house so i have been considering a laptop. My dad and I are the last android hold outs in the family but he is considering switching with that in mind I have been pricing a apple conversion. M1 base + 12 Mini is only like 1240 dollars from BB so its very tempting. I Think whats holding me back is the closed system apple keeps trying to expand every year xD. Like for instance the apple card or the recent ( 1 month agoish ) tech support calls I had to take with peopel whose apple tv box would only let them sign the new terms and Cs with another apple device ( now patched). They have always made me a little suspicious about switching over cause I know its a slippery slope. The environments functionality is supreme though. With that in mind im gonna hold out longer and see how I feel. I did however watch your top m2 acessories video and purchase the anker 747 with the affiliate link. Thanks for the concise and detailed videos. Comparison videos are always 100 times more useful than solo reviews. You have earned a non apple user sub :D
@@TranceFan05 Thanks for subscribing! Happy to hear you like the content.
I'm interested to hear which model Mac you end up buying, so keep me in the loop!
The views don't reflect the quality of this video.Please hang in, you are doing a great job and I think you will become one of the top Apple channels. Thanks for the video!
Much appreciated! I am focusing on quality over quantity content to deliver the most value with each video, so it is great to read compliments like this. Thanks
Agreed on the sentiment of this comment! Great quality video. One thought for consideration: A lot of TH-cam reviewers are quick to recommend the M1 or M2 MacBook Air models for the majority of users as they offer good value for the price (especially the M1). While I believe their intent is good, and they’re trying to save their viewers money, it’s often forgotten to mention that the vanilla M chips only support a single external monitor.
I bring this up because I’ve had a number of people in my family/friend circle purchase an Air model and are disappointed when they can’t use a dual monitor setup while they WFH.
@@waylonnicholson371 Thanks Wayne! Yes, that's one of the largest downsides to the MBA, IMO. I figured since so many other videos mention the single display compatibility that I wouldn't beat the same drum by mentioning it again. Although come to think of it, maybe it would have been a beneficial 10sec. add to the video.
Thanks for the comment
@@Christomshack
Yeah man, not calling you out-I just typically have TH-cam streaming while I work and the majority of reviewers that I see are quick to recommend the Air models, but forget to mention the display count issue. Thought I’d put my word in while you’re still relatively small and reading comments-and before you blow up and have too many comments to read through.
I agree. With so many tech youtubers being excessive it's refreshing to see people who are realistic and do consider use cases and sensible spending instead of buying a 8tb/64gib M1 Max MacBook Pro in the name of some vague, poorly defined idea of 'future proofing'. Granted, the most popular creators don't explicitly recommend configs like this, but this is still what i consider an age of excess.
While I agree getting more RAM is a good idea to reduce swapping, which can, in theory, cause damage to the SSD, I think there's a couple of practical things to consider first.
Before assuming the SSD is damaged due to read/write, I'd wipe the system and reinstall MacOS. Don't restore a Time Machine backup, clone your system onto an external drive and start from scratch. With your data being consistently written around RAM swaps, fragmentation comes into play too, especially if your SSD gets full.
SSD failure due to NAND failure is quite rare, some SSDs with SLC NAND (1 bit per cell) can withstand up to 10,000 write cycles before failure. Apple uses TLC NAND (3 bits per cell) as far as I'm aware, which is a bit lower at around 3000 write cycles. Think about how often you write enough data to fill your SSD, then remove all of it and start again. You'd have to do that 3000 times to see damage. This equates to a total write over the lifetime of your Mac of 3 petabytes. Or it equates to rendering 1TB of video every day for 3000 days (which is still 10 years...).
Great video though, haven't heard of SSD write damage being described like that before, it's a great analogy.
Yeah, as a CS graduate this was the first time I’d ever heard of damaging your SSD as a consequence of swap memory. Usually, I’d just say you want to avoid using swap memory because is ungodly slow. Never really imagined damaging the SSD was an issue
That is the best analogy I've ever seen for SSD wear and tear in my entire 10+ years as an IT professional. Kudos.
This is great! I haven't seen a single TH-camr go over this. They all talk specs. This is much more important. I also don't typically comment anywhere, but I think this video deserves more recognition. And thank you for not making it a 20-30 Minute video and getting straight to the point.
It's comments like this that are the greatest day boosters. Really appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment and happy to hear your thoughts!
@@Christomshack Anytime! Looking forward to seeing more of your content.
Finally, a straightforward review without unnecessary fluff-straight to the point!
My dude… I know I’m late to the party here, but I gotta say that you absolutely killed it. You explain technology in such an elegant yet straight forward way. It’s like being asked to explain the Internet to a child or someone who knows nothing about how technology works. You seem to have taken the master class here in how you explain things. Now, I know how the Internet works. And I’m a programmer, infrastructure analyst and I always keep up to date on the latest technology trends. But I gotta say it’s sooo refreshing to watch a creator so eloquently describe technology in such a simple manner that is informative, but without assuming that your viewers aren’t tech-savvy or that they are. You explain things how they are. Man, I wrote a short story here but needless to say.. the view count doesn’t reflect the quality. Keep this up man. You’re gonna do big things! Your work here is evident of that.
I agree, as someone new to the field as of a year or so ago I reallllly appreciate people that can concisely communicate things. He does exactly that.
I think it’s absolutely criminal from Apple to charge +$200 for 8gb of extra ram when ram prices have SIGNIFICANTLY dropped down (laptop 8gb ddr4 ram go for less than $25), they used to charge that in 2019, and they’re still charging the same amount.
I disagee. I think it's criminal to KEEP buying overpriced products when you don't like what the company is charging. Bottom line: they're not holding a gun to your head to buy.
apple is a premium company. it's not the dollar store so dont expect low prices. their polishing cloth is $19 and it was backordered for weeks.
@@minigiant8998you say that like it's worth the price and many of the "dollar store" options aren't better and cheaper than what apple offers
Is apple silicon unified memory?? And it’s apple?? Of course it’s gonna be expensive. This isn’t DDR4 bro.
@@mrsamot4677 ah yes, like it’s made out of different components. It’s almost the same shit, and yes they should charge more for it, but they’re charging the same amount they did in 2019 even tho it’s like thrice as cheap to make? Smh.
Wow dude.. I’ve finally grasped the idea of ram and ssd much better now. I know all the comments say the same thing but this concept can save a lot of people money and time. Thanks ! Great content and a new sub
A content creator that wholly explains their point fast and effectively without droning over minute details to reach the 10 minute mark? Instant subscribe.
8 minute mark* but good point
Shutup
@@poojr1828 it’s an important note
Thank youuuu for making this understandable for the 90-95% of us that are not editing massive files! Greatly appreciate the short and to the point explanation!
Like fr broo😂
I know this video is a year old, but I refurbished an M2 MacBook Pro for my wife two year ago. She is a highschool teacher and she has been earning her doctorate online at night. She is ALWAYS behind that MacBook. 8GB seems to serve her well. Now, it is very fast DDR5 integrated into the CPU, so I'm sure it purges and fills quickly, but I'm surprised with her usage 8GB is enough.
Using a heavy app like office ..amazing
Okay… this was the actual greatest explanation I’ve ever experienced regarding computers. It takes me so long to understand new concepts, let alone actually grasp it after 4 minutes. The online classroom was so supportive with my learning style. Seriously - This was wildly helpful. thank you so much!!!
Hey, fancy seeing you here
Glad to hear though, thanks! Hahaha
@@Christomshack how’d I even get here, I’m lost
If it wasn’t for the closed architecture preventing user upgrades in terms of both memory and storage, think a lot of people would be happier to start off with a lower spec model. However, given Apple Silicon is locked upon production, I’d still go for a 16Gb/512Gb option with any discounts when purchasing. If Apple hadn’t nobbled the 256Gb SSD, staying external for additional storage would have been easier to opt for.
You can solve this problem by selling the old laptop and upgrading :) I got 8Gb MacBook Air and basic photoshop hit swap already. System and graphics uses around 3 to 4Gb leaving apps with very little. Back in the days we used to swap to HDD and old school users know the impact of swap.
Interesting video and great explanation but I think a good suggestion for the future in terms of RAM amount that you need is really to mention how many tabs you run on average either in Safari or other browser. If you run 30+ tabs in Safari on 8GB of ram you tend to start hitting swap pretty heavily, especially if you have 2-3 TH-cam tabs open at the same time too.
When I hear about someone with 30+ tabs open, it makes me think there’s a mismatch between their habits and their expectations. At work, I use 3 monitors but keep my applications to a minimum. If someone chooses to have a lot of tabs open, especially with videos, they should anticipate that it’ll demand a lot of resources. It’s not just about needing more RAM. It’s about understanding how our choices impact our tech’s performance. While everyone works differently, being mindful of how our habits affect what we expect from our devices can save us a lot of frustration.
same, especially if you use chrome the RAM will get crazy lmao. And I use soooo many tabs when writing a thesis
I have 5 tabs open, and it's struggling to even write this comment (15" base model m2). It actually takes about 8 second for my text to display. Crazy.
@@EnzoPersson-r3g that’s really weird. Is something wrong maybe? I have never heard people reporting those issues. I chose for 16gb ☺️
@@EnzoPersson-r3g my ram is always at a minimum of 8-9gb in use but that’s because it uses more if the capacity is there 😅. Yours should optimise itself for 8gb setup
Video ends abruptly (which is weird) but the way you've explained everything deserves a shoutout.
Simple, objective and didactic! Congratulations!
Apart from the end, your editing skills, lighting setup, sound quality, bgm choice (especially volume), screen composition and your thumbnails are also on point!
I've seen a lot of "amateur" content on youtube (I mean no disrespect with the expression) and I'm really impressed with your video.
Keep doing what you're doing!
Video was perfect but no ending 😂
🤣🤣🤣@@montavio
He must have ran out of RAM! HA!
wow. its has been FOREVER since ive seen the popcorn time logo..your profile picture
@@charleskra😂😂😂😂😂
I have been in IT management for almost 30 years, and this is the best explanation for the difference between RAM and storage memory I have ever heard. Great job!
Now finally even IT management can understand it. :)
I am not gonna lie, this video cleared my mind giving me literally what I need to know before choosing the ram. Thank u g, the best video among all in YT for macbook
How refreshing that a youtube stays in the real world and makes an honest recommendation like this!
THANK YOU. I've had the base model M2 Air since launch almost a year ago. That thing is lightning quick, even with 8GB of RAM. I typically have 5-6 apps open at a time. Including apps like Photoshop and audio editing software. The Air breezes through all of it. I've always said that the base model has plenty of horsepower for 90-95% of users out there as well. Your take on this topic is spot on.
What about storage tho?
@@rafin8458 I’ve got 10+ years of documents and graphics from our church on it and it’s a little over half full. 256GB of storage is totally fine for the average user.
How's your experience been? Is it good enough? Especially for video editing, does slower SSD impact performance in comparison to M1 Air ? Planning to buy a Macbook Air very soon. Need a Lil guidance
How's your experience been? Is it good enough? Especially for video editing, does slower SSD impact performance in comparison to M1 Air ? Planning to buy a Macbook Air very soon. Need a Lil guidance
Chris, I’m new to the channel : just wanted to tell you that you have a very original an unique way of teaching / speaking about a thematic.and transmitting your thoughts.
Never give up what you’re doing, no doubt, you’ll become a BEAST. Keep going man, never let the nesayer push you down. To the way of reaching out 500K (yes five hundred) subscribers. Good skill !
The best comment I've read in a long time. Cheers!
Hands-down, one of the best videos on a computer, memory, drive storage that I have ever seen! This is useful for both Mac users and PC users.
As another comment states, no benchmarks, no complex explanation, just common sense was real world examples. Perfection!
Love to read comments like this! Thanks 🤝
Recently upgraded my 2011 iMac to a M2 mac mini, ended up going with the 16gb ram. Though I’m not a super heavy user or a content creator I do like editing photos, have a bunch of apps open, and occasionally do a little video editing, also been thinking about teaching myself how to code, so I feel like 16 was good fit for me. Nice job Chris explains ram 👍🏽
Glad to hear you liked the explanation! How are you liking the new M2 mini?
@@Christomshack enjoying it man, it's been super fast so far. Though I'm used to the iMac already having a camera, using my iPhone as a camera been pretty good so far.
@@robcor80 no webcam must be weird to get used to! Are you using one of the monitor mounts for the iPhone? I sent one to a friend and they love it
@@Christomshack you know what I totally forgot about those mounts, I've just been using my tablet/phone stand, it gets the job done and I don't mind the camera off to the side a little.
Hi Robert, I was in your same shoes but, despite already owning M1 Macbook Pro (16 GB RAM), I bought my M2 Mac Mini with 8 GB and gulped big hoping it’d be fine since, when I use my Macbook Pro my system often uses 12+ GB of RAM…I’m a 3-browser, 40 tabs each plus apps running guy. Lo and behold, the 8 GB Mac Mini works without a hitch! Can’t tell any difference at all…no lag, no beach balls. This supports Chris’s suggestion in the video. I sort of laugh when every other TH-camr says “you’ll want 16 GB to future-proof your machine”…they don’t seem to get that the $200 RAM upgrade is 40% the cost of a brand new Mac Mini…in the “future” I’ll just buy a new Mac Mini with the money I saved in RAM 😂
i’m a marketing student and i got the 8gb ram and 256gb mba m1 and trust me - i could barely used half of my storage. i mostly just research articles and make essays and other document types of assignments and i never really had a problem. and now, i’ve been using my mba m1 for like 3 years now and it’s still fast as ever. storage is barely full. don’t let these other creators tell you that you’d need 16gb even when you’re just an avaerage students who just really do research and make essays.
I like how you actually explain the concepts that tech reviewers throw out. Also first time I've seen the chalk board analogy to explain the potential pitfalls of swap memory on SSD. nice work
Thank you for the simplified explanation for the SSD and RAM. These are the explanation that most of the tech vloggers miss since they focus more on the appearance of the macbooks.
Also a software engineer here!
I recently won a M2 MacAir for free with base specs (8gb RAM, 250gb SSD) and because most of my friends are non-tech, the amount of them saying I should just 'upgrade' my current M1 MacAir (16gb RAM, 500gb SSD) just don't get my dilemma. Thanks for making this video so that they can better understand what I've been trying to get at
Oh man 😅 I would probably stick to M1 with 16GB of RAM.
8GB of RAM might become a BOTTLENECK sooner.
It’s AWFUL that Apple only offers 8GB of RAM for brand new M3 MacBook PRO 😬
I never thought Ryan Gosling has a YT channel about Macbooks... WOW 🤩
Things to remember on the M2 MacBooks, 256GB is significantly slower than 512GB, (Single NAND Chip as opposed to Double Flash/NAND chip,) so if you only have 8GB RAM and are paging data to the Hard Drive this will make a difference. (The base Model M1s came with dual NAND/Flash on even the base models).
Another thing to remember is if you cook your Apple silicon Mac's SSD you will not be able to boot,even from an external SSD.
Now all SSDs have a wear levelling algorithm that tries to even out the wear to the SSD memory cells, (each one can only be written to a finite amount of times before it reverts to a read only state). So try to keep as much space free on the SSD as possible to help the wear levelling.
I would avoid the T7 SSDs, they have hardly any RAM/Cache and in my experience when writing a lot of data to them, the pseudo SLC fills and they drop down to 45=50MBps , M@ drives have fallen significantly in price. look at rolling your own USB4/TB3/4 drive, this enclosure hots 2900MBps on my Mac Studio R/W Vs 700MBps on same device, (admittedly the "external display trick" speeds this up to 800MBps, + eshop.macsales.com/blog/74780-faster-external-drive-speed-m1-mac/
So my advice is if you can strecth to a 512GB SSD even if you have to have 8GB RAM, (I also have an M2 MBA 8GB/512GB and find it plenty fast enough)
There is absolute no explanation to why Apple still selling 8gb RAM laptos for almost 2K, other then greed, absolutely ridiculous practice.
Couldn’t agree more
Agreed, you can always find storage work arounds, like network storage or external drives, but you can't upgrade your RAM, and when you need it, you're really gonna need it.
Totally agree!
Nicely stated...but there's also the unsaid issue of future-proofing a computer. Getting a unit with a somewhat larger capacity is frequently a good idea, because disk space gets filled pretty quickly in the best of conditions. Increasing the RAM, too, allows you to address the ever-increasing load on your computer. It's like a kind of insurance.
only that with all the past mac laptop issues weve seen, you cant even be sure that it will survive and so upgrading and future proofing means little if the machine is dead on arrival so to speak. In my case, my mbp 15 inch 16gigs 250ssd didnt last more than a year before it starte breaking down and become totally unusable, now it finally died and I need a new one, dont think ill fix it even if it may just be the battery and a fix for 200 dollars (cost me 2,5k). But that def left a deep traumatic experience and now i think going for the cheapest / best ratio money can get might be better than trying to think it will last 3-5 or more years. Even this guy here making the vid seemed to have changed his out 1,5 later because the ssd slowed down or died due to the swap memory which you have really no control over. In the past, you would have just swapped the ssd disk yourself, but apple made sure no one can do this alone. Cooperate greed like with all their latest machines, damn shame, they used to be a fine company or at least so it seemed!
@familymovie5799 he swapped bc his demands increased, not bc the performance decreased
8 was good enough for me. Nothing but smiles using it.
You forgot the 95% of the people, who have 65536 browser tabs open 😁
I'm sorry to break it to you but that's not an accurate percentage.
@@TempleMadeSimpleratio then 🤡
Thanks th-cam.com/video/zDG4fIvR0Gk/w-d-xo.htmlsi=9F7m8ldTnlTsOm95
@@TempleMadeSimple 86% of percentages are made up on the spot
Me
Your are the first TH-camr I saw who recommend the base model for those people who just need a Macbook for basic tasks and don't want spend much money. Thanks for a clear and objective review and opinion!
Great Video. New Subscriber! 😁
Much appreciated! Glad to hear you liked the video - Thanks for the comment
@@Christomshack I would only need a Macbook Air to work on Microsoft Office software and once in a white edit little videos and audio. A 8gb ram is enough for that then?
I would only need a Macbook Air to work on Microsoft Office software and once in a white edit little videos and audio. A 8gb ram is enough for that then?
Great way of explaining!! I am looking into getting the new iMac and the whole ram thing been so frustrating to decide.. thank you a lot for helping!!
THANK YOU for this! First thing first, it’s straight to the point and concise, no bullshit hyping and stuff, and more importantly it’s pretty much the only video that actually describes the problem at hand and gives a perfectly reasonable solution that I’ve seen so far. Keep it up.
can NOT be explained any simpler. Love this explanation and so easy to understand. Sharing this video for family and friends who are just about looking for their next apple upgrade
Straight to point and not giving unnecessary run around is something I admire you for
As a senior-level systems engineer, I’d like to give my ringing endorsement of this information’s technical soundness. Fantastic video all around! Definitely earned my subscription. This channel is going places…
Thanks for the support and comment, Mike! 🤝
Maybe youtube is missing some super entry level videos that dumb down what computer components do instead of just assuming everyone knows how they work.
This is a refreshingly pragmatic approach to giving this type of information. Many YT reviewers fall over themselves on the numbers but it's good to hear clear advice from someone with real software experience. Subscribed!
This video just brings me good memories. I just finished college, was having my first job and bought my first computer. With 8GB of RAM. How that time flies. 15 years like snap of fingers.
“Don’t blink” is a simple saying that, whenever I think about it, I’m powerfully reminded of all the time that has passed, experiences and memories accrued, etc. since the last time I thought “Don’t blink”.
15 years comes and goes quickly… don’t blink!
I feel higher RAM config is must needed (for Professional & Smalll Business Users) as we deal with Multiple active web tabs along with other resource hungry apps like (Whatsapp, MS Office Suite, Mailbox, Notes / Drafts, Reminders, Zoom / Teams). So 16gb is really needed even if ur not an editor, but a professional who uses multiple software suites to monitor ur business activity.
Well said man. I totally agree with this. My full time profession is as a media manager for various companies. I need exactly what you mentioned to operate on a daily basis successfully.
This video is a great quick look at this conundrum. I work at Costco and do my fair share of Apple product sales. I do tend to recommend upgrading the SSD over more ram. But I am also quick to point out that we have external SSDs for 1tb/$80, and when they’re on sale 2tb/$130 (normally $190).
Are those external SSDs the same speed as the internal one?
The chalkboard analogy to describe ssds is the best I have ever heard, really useful stuff for people looking for a general understanding.
I remember when the M1 Macbook Air was first released and everyone was pushing the 8GB RAM version saying that the swap memory would make up for it, it's fine. Fell for it and my RAM usage kept going into yellow and sometimes red territory. Upgraded soon after to a machine with 16GB of RAM.
Exactly. In a lot of cases, you can use more than 8 GBs of memory without even trying because programs today are such inefficient pieces of crap. Gone are the days when developers took the time to write good clean and efficient code. These days code is pushed out as fast as possible which results in God knows how many memory leaks and just plain inefficient code.
Lol you absolutely do NOT need more than 8GB of ram with an m2 processor unless you are rendering huge huge 4k videos
@@AFatOcelot Bullsh*t. Load up 25 to 30 tabs in... pick your favorite web browser, and watch memory usage go through the roof. Add any other programs you want to run like an email client along with any other programs that are running in the background like perhaps an office suite be it Microsoft Office or Apple's own suite of office applications and you'll easily see memory usage go past 8 GBs of RAM.
Not everyone does video editing, some of us want to multitask like a mad man with dual monitors.
@@trparky I just loaded 30-40 tabs of youtube videos and clicked play on all of them (took me a while) and they are all simultaneously playing different videos and ads with no lag. Although I did feel some slow down when installing WoW while watching a 4k youtube video
@@AFatOcelot Did you look at your RAM usage?
I’m trying to learn more about “under the hood” parts when it comes to mobile devices, computers, laptops, etc and make a career change. And I have to say this is the best video I’ve come across in easily explaining things to me. Thank you so much! I’m definitely subscribing and will be watching and learning more!
If you have the budget I recommend building your own PC. That and/or use a PC builder simulator. You can learn this stuff in a week or two. The harder stuff is on the software/logical end. Knowing the physical does help though.
This was EXTREMELY helpful....I just bought a Mac Air for my sister...she is a medical professional and was in need of a laptop.
I have a MacBook Air M1 base model with 8GB of ram and 256 of SSD. Actually I’m using it to development with heavy tools like Rider IDE and Docker desktop. With this softwares running and some safari tabs the memory pressure keeps on 60%. Really the MacOS memory management is great. I guess is best to me upgrade the SSD to 512 in next Mac.
I have the same setup Rider and Docker, Chrome and few other apps - strangly seems fine, even with two user accounts. I had 16GB model also, and so far I do not notice difference.
What is additionally important to note is that the “M” series mac’s come with a System On a Chip, which includes also your GPU (graphics). The memory you have also is used by this graphics processor. I still am in agreement with your conclusion, but would like to add this
I ordered mac mini m2 that will be exclusively used for music production (Cubase).
Upgraded RAM to 16gb but left 256ssd. For about 110USD I got ssd enclosure and 2tb ssd.
Look for Acasis enclosure with 40GBps rating. It is Thunderbolt 3 compatible.
SSD is Crucial P3 pro. It was the cheapest option.
Really great job of simplifying swap memory. Quick and to the point video. 👍
I think you did a great job explaining what swap is and what it can be used for, but you definitely understated the potentially severe performance impact swap memory can have. Sure it’s not as bad as the HDD days, but you are still talking 100-200us compared to 50-150ns. Pretty big difference and definitely noticeable depending on what you are doing.
No intro, no good bye, straight forward to the point, save my time a lot. Fallen for this man.
The internal drive on macs are worth every penny. They are literally 23x faster then most all external sdd except for a few that don’t get immediately thermal throttled because they have a massive heat sink. Most external ssds are 300mbps even this they say they go up to 2000 or whatever. The internal max drive runs at 7500mbps
0:40 that's an uncomfortably small distance from the Mac to the PC screen :D
FINALLY! Finally someone who understands the logic behind it. Thank you!
Even though I gave up on Mac after a decade and went back to Windows, still glad to see there are at least some reviewers who don't recommend going overboard and over the top with spending the extra money. Buy what you need and what will easily work for you. Unfortunately too many reviews and opinions try to get people to spend more money by upgrading specs and features, throwing away money on computers, phones and other devices.
Why did you move back to Windows?
@@mohammedfaizan3013 - I purchased a windows laptop in Nov 2020. Since about 2015, Apple has released Macbooks that have had more than their share of issues, including the butterfly keyboard conundrum. If you pay a premium amount of money for a laptop, you should have much better reliability. I felt that Apple was not delivering a better product for the premium price during those years.
I will admit, that all changed, when Apple released the MacBooks with the M1 chips back in Nov 2020, the same month I bought the windows laptop. Since then it seems the reliability of the MacBook Air/Pro have really improved with the M-series chips. I had already made the decision to transition back to Windows, and I just didn't feel like waiting around for Apple to get their act together anymore.
I went with an upscale 15.5" Asus Zenbook laptop, no regrets, no issues for the past 3 years. If I would have purchased an equivalent Macbook with the same size screen and specs, it would have been over 2K.
Since then, Apple has released a 15" MacBook Air, for a much more reasonable price, Apple had to do this to make a much more reasonably priced laptop. I just don't feel the need to move back to a Macbook anymore. I admit I still use an iPad, and iPhone, but the combo of devices works for me.
Great video, it’s a bit crazy to think hard drive speeds have gotten so fast that they are no longer a huge bottleneck to system speed. Ssd technology has really been a huge game changer.
Couldn't agree more 🤝
Hard drives and solid state drives are two completely different things.
@@PSYCHOV3N0M ty captain obvious.
They are still waaaaaay slower than RAM and shouldn't be seen as a decent alternative to RAM really. If you're using a lot of swap it is definitely detrimental to your overall system and especially on macs where once the internal SSD goes you're screwed.
The majority of the system runs on RAM. If you were to run it on the SSD purely then it would not have the same performance. So essentially, no SSD have not caught up to RAM nor do modern SSD's prevent any issues in performance if you're using too much RAM. You still will take a performance hit or even crash.
You may not mean it, but I want to make it clear that storage is no replacement for RAM. It's a last resort.
@@kerrydaniels8460 I definitely did not mean that, correct. I was just making a general remark about the shift from mechanical drives to ssd’s.
Bro… you just saved me a TON of money. I’ve been interested in getting into Software Development but being self taught and am currently looking for a MacBook. Was literally gonna buy a new MacBook ProM2 when I now know I most definitely DONT need it. Just found the base model MacBook Air M1 at my BestBuy on sale for like $670. Thanks again, you video was SUPER helpful and informative!
is the base model enough for a software developer??
It’s the tire added perspective for me 4:18 👏🏽
Happy to hear!
I own an entry-level M1 MBA and quite frankly, I’m shocked as to how much the swap memory is bottlenecking to performance of my system, to the point where switching between workspaces incurs very noticeable lag. I would have expected the low amount of RAM to have an effect on performance (as in, long-running tasks might need longer to run), but the fact that the user experience suffers this badly was kind of unexpected.
SAME!! And I am an average knowledge worker using only Brave with minimal amount of tabs open ... So I'm definitely NOT getting an 8GB RAM MBA next time... :(
SAME! Swap memory doesn't work as well. This video would mislead a lot of people into a much worse experience - all for saving $200
@@moderndilemmas_and yet the majority of people using the m1 8gb are happy with their laptop and don’t experience any lag. Wtf are you people doing with your airs?
@@paradiseb5950people are happy with it because most of them don’t know any different and think showing off that Apple logo at Starbucks is everything.
Apple makes good products but 8GB on a modern day machine is not OK. I don’t care what magical SOC voodoo you think is going on in there. Yes it works for browsing one web page and maybe a word processing app but for that why do you need a laptop worth more than $200? I’ve witnessed the swap on these things with minimal applications.
-typed on my $250 business refurb laptop with Linux and 32GB RAM. 😂
I know how to avoid spending too much money on a new laptop:
1) DON'T BUY APPLE products
2) Choose a laptop from one of those reliable brands: Asus, Dell, HP or Sony
3) Pick any computer with 8GB of RAM preinstalled that suits your needs.
My advice: choose one with an extra M.2 slot for a second SSD drive.
4) Buy a 8GB RAM module for 20-30 bucks and install it in the second empty slot
5) If you need an extra 1TB NVME SSD drive, you can get it for 75-90 bucks.
And voila! Now you have it, a perfect laptop for 1/3 price of a MacBook which you can easily upgrade whenever you need it.
I recently upgraded my MBP 13” Core i7+16Gb over to a MBP 14” M2 Pro+32Gb. My normal usage is not heavy, but considering long term usability+speed I believe that more RAM is the best upgrade possible.
Totally agree!
I doubt you would notice a difference between the M2 with 16GB vs 32GB. The upgrade from i7 to M2 is massive and, as explained in the video, has benefits beyond those two upgrades "on paper". Though if you don't plan on upgrading again in 5 years or so you won't regret the extra ram
@@stove.d I choose to upgrade and have more RAM (32Gb), as I usually keep my MacBook during around 5 years. So this helps keeping him performing very fast. Plus when a resell it, this will be a differentiator.
My experience with the base M2 Air wasn't as pleasant though. It couldn't handle my full-stack development needs as well as I wanted. It would heat up so often causing it to lag. Sometimes when I had to present something I've worked on during a Google Meet call my laptop would be really slow and keep freezing. I eventually had no choice but to upgrade to the 14 inch M1 pro.
what's full steck develop
Did you find that the 14-inch M1 pro is comfortable to use? I heard several people complaining about (1)how much their wrists hurt after using it and (2) how sharp the edges felt.
@@MBmysterio I personally haven't any such issue. It feels comfortable to use for me
I dont use my Mac for work, I only use it for browsing the internet, emails and the odd spreadsheet. I used your video as a guide and I can confidentntly say you helped me pick the wrong Mac model... I should have gone 16GB and now I just get warnings every few hours telling me to close apps. Perhaps it would be wiser to say, if you use your Mac more than your phone, get 16 gigs.
Great video
But there is something missing here which is that in the new m2 chip the 256 only have one nan chip which dramatically affect the read and write speed rather than the 512 one which have 2 nan chip
Thats a note that MUST be taken into consideration
Many TH-camrs have shown those slower speeds are an important factor when moving large files to external drives, as many professionals and prosumers do, but are mostly irrelevant for the population that this video is targeted at. However, for the casual user that is concerned about R/W speeds the M1 MBA is a great choice.
I think the more important missing info is the TWB, which tells you about how many write/rewrite is the limit on the SSD (it's about always 600x of the initial size, so each sector rewriteable 600x before start to degrade, so 256GB SSD has 150TB TWB, but 1TB SSD has 600TB TWB value, usable 4x longer before start to degrade)
THIS!
another thing that nobody is mentioning is that the mac memory is shared between CPU and GPU - having 8GB means having a very limited memory for GPU tasks (
AI models on Mac? 😊😅
@@Teluric2 yes! apple did a great move with coreML and its neural engine/gpu’s- both stablediffusion and openai’s whisper can run on m1 devices for a while now making full use of the integrated GPU; slower than high-end nvidia gpu’s but we are talking about an ecosystem of consumer grade computers/phones that can already run ML tasks such as text transcribing, image segmentation, face recognition etc without needing to offload such task to some remote server.
Recommendation at 2:53
I'm part of the 5% to 10% :) My current wish is upgrading the memory instead of the SSD. Also as software engineer, I use a lot of thing opened at the same time, especially browser tabs. I often find myself writing 40-80GB per day on my M1 base model even when trying to be reasonable. One thing I would like to be sure of is that the 16GB will indeed decrease swapping, as some seems to say they still observed SSD usage with the 16GB.
I think 16/500 is the sweet spot
@@OShackHennessy Ideally, but the price then is close to the M2 Pro 14" which is already 16Gb/500Gb by default.
@@Etienne85 I think Apple's upgrade scam is ridiculous. And to answer your question yes 16 GB will indeed decrease your swapping. What I do not know is if your use case would require more RAM than 16GB. I don't care what the fanboys say about how special apple's SOC is with magical RAM because 8GB is still not enough for anyone other than grandma. My wife has an M1 Mac mini with 16/1TB and I still notice some small amount of swap occurring. For the record she is a very basic user who does cloud based work with maybe 6 Safari tabs and a document scanner app and a couple PDF's. If you want to keep your Mac for 6 plus years then go big, if you plan to upgrade in 2-3 then buy whatever. I am a PC user and my laptop has 32GB ang desktop 64GB. Overkill yes but I don't want to stay up at night worrying about whether I bought the right system and for mere pennies I can feel secure. I so much wanted an M2 Air but refuse to spend a fortune getting it up to spec.
@@OShackHennessy Before moving to mac, I would never have chosen less than 16GB but in order to keep price attractive I chose M1 base model. I was surprised not noticing the 8GB RAM but was at the price of swap madness.
So I chose to run any heavy server tasks on remote Linux which is very suitable for that purpose and keep the mac for browsing/deving which was the main reason I chose it in first place: easy to carry around and unmatched user experience (touchpad, screen, sound, autonomy).
My last concern now is the screen which I need a bit bigger and also more RAM to further reduce swapping.
Let's hope 15" with 16GB RAM will be the right fit
Thanks you just confirmed my decision to go with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of SSD. I am a light user with simple requirements so the upgrades are really not needed
I was genuinely shocked when this video ended 😂Simple but informative explanations, perfect pacing, and to-the-point examples all stacked on a no-nonesense script made this video a joy to watch. We need more cretors like you on this platform. Kudos! 🙏🏻
I did the opposite of what you suggested and am perfectly happy with the decision. This was not a short term purchase as I anticipate having it for 5-8 years if not longer. Also the laptop is a portable mobile workstation for me and not my main desktop so an external drive for this device isn’t ideal if I want to be portable and minimal.
Sounds like you made the best decision for your use-case! What model and config did you go with?
You know that's a good point to keep in mind too, how long you intend to have it.
Im planning on getting a m2 mba soon and intend to have it for atleast 5 years. I cant afford to be dropping $2k every year or two for the newest upgraded model like many mac users seem to do. So with that in mind maybe i should upgrade both after all.
@@Lemonade_Stand_ which one would you get?
@@GamingPIPI Hi! I've been busy and havent bought mine yet but plan to do so this week or next but to answer your question i plan on upgrading both. So i will be getting 16gb memory and 512gb storage. I know the base model would likely be fine for my needs but i just dont want it to become obsolete and be too slow to run basic things in a few years time. If i can get 5 or 6 years out of it i will be happy, i just cant afford to replace it every 2 - 3 years.
Good job Chris in the memory and white board analogy. For myself, having 16GB RAM now is the most important component to prolong a laptop's life since everything else on a MAC\PC can't be upgraded later and is essential if you're doing the fun stuff like video edits, Adobe apps, and running IDEs. I keep my daily laptop for at least 4 years+.
Yeah was gonna say, his points are true if you are happy to use it for a few years, but even if you look at his workflow for the 16GB model it looks as if he is hitting 80% memory pressure. Give it a few years and he will definitely have to upgrade even though the rest of the computer perfectly works.
Even for the average user, in theory you can save money by upgrading the ram to 16GB so you can hold it in for longer as typically the ram is the first thing to get outdated.
@jesselam5867 You're right on the money. I got the 16GB/512GB and saved $400 dollars by letting someone else pay for the upgrade. I went refurbed and it was a brand new laptop really in mint condition. I wasn't gonna pay the insane markups, but also wasn't gonna buy without 16GB of RAM, because I knkw better.
Additionally, technically the bigger SSD's will overwhelmingly tend to last longer to if bigger (which is why Apple should allow you to upgrade your own instead of beings dicks tbh...). TBW way higher. I plan on keeping mime 5+ years. I run VM's on it so I'm not messing sound with only 8GB.
Thank you so much for explaining each element in a fashion that a non-tech individual can easily grasp. Such a big help!
I'm so happy I stumbled upon this video. Kudos to Chris for explaining things clearly and opening my eyes that no, I don't need a 16 gb RAM according to my use case. I really thought I needed a 16 RAM but thinking again, use case, I don't use my device for hardcore editing or rendering. Heck, I barely use Photoshop. I'm thankful this video gave me reassurance that yes, by purchasing the base model IS enough for what I need it to do. Thanks, Chris!
You are getting scammed by being an apple user. My PC I built in 2016 has 16gigs of ram, currently worth $33 on amazon lol. More RAM is not required but makes the computer feel fast and smooth when you have more than one thing open. Yall are pathetic.
@@CRF250R1521thank you for enlightening us. We all bow down to you.
@@CRF250R1521 Congrats. How well does that PC tower fit in a backpack?
Amazing video, quick and without the fluff, really enjoyed the chalkboard analogy. Subbed and going to check out more of your channel.
This is my first Mac and as tempting as it was to upgrade, I went the base M2 Air model. I am pleasantly surprised with the performance and the lack of constant updates. I can see this machine lasting me a few more years than my previous laptops, wish this video was up a few months ago when I was researching, it would've made the decision easier :)
Much appreciated, Ron. I do my best to keep the videos as short as possible while still delivering the most value I can, so I appreciate your comment.
Congrats on the new M2 MBA! How is it handling your workload so far?
@@Christomshack I’m finding the ecosystem rather interesting, it’s fitting my needs and to date hasn’t let me down. Basic small business and accounting with a side of daily browsing streams etc, definitely happy with the performance.
Finally a clear answer that I needed as a dev. No in-depth irrelevant non-sense about a programming language and "issues when installing", all I needed to hear is "I ran multiple browsers with several tabs each as a full-stack dev" and that's it. Not a "hello world" in React and saying "it doesn't sweat", but a real world scenario. M1 with 8 gigs is enough and that's the end of it.
Kudos to you sir, I'll be going for a purchase now.
best shortest explanation ever without stupid talk around the problem - thank you!
Glad to hear! Thanks for taking the time to comment 🤝🏼
0:01 I am not in the market for a new Mac, but I am always in the market for a good laugh.
This just solidified exactly what I was thinking, thank you so much!
This is one of the most sophisticated videos on the 8 vs 16 ram topic. Very nicely explained and directly to the point 👌🏼😊 .. well done Chris 👏🏼 I’m now much more content and happy with my M1 MacBook Air after watching this video 😊
Why….I am on IT guy and worked with 3 m1 macs and they just been trouble for my clients. My clients been through 7 macs but they will only use macs the software doesn’t like macs. The system broke and the apple service center said it’s not fixable. The medical software doesn’t play nice with the apple soc. Macs just don’t have enough muscle to power against the windows on the market.
@@neubauerjosephwhat are you talking about
Apple people. 😂
That problem does not lie with Mac. Rather it's the developer either not knowing how to properly code for OS X or not caring enough to FULLY develop their software. I've been running Macs almost exclusively since 1995 and I've run into this before and it has almost always been a developer/coding issue. Quickbooks was notorious for this very thing and when they finally did code it properly for Macs, they didn't offer all of the same features as they did for Windozzzze.
Also software doesn't "BREAK" computers. It may freeze them up, but a simple erase and install of the system restores them to full functionality 100% of the time!@@neubauerjoseph
This video offers factually incorrect info, particularly on SSD's.
Unfortunately I still need to get the 64 GB version because I want to run my own LLMs and they use absolutely insane amounts of VRAM. I’m gonna be saving up forever 😢
The M chip’s unified RAM is the new killer feature of Macs now, in my opinion. Extremely underrated feature. Neural networks use stupid amounts of VRAM but since the M-series macs can use their system RAM as VRAM, you can actually run big neural networks on them.
This is a really good tip though. Swap memory is more than enough for most people’s purposes.
Nice video. Think it was recommending because I bought a M2 Air recently with 16GB. I like your monitor!
A lot of folks are surprised to see only 8GB of RAM in Apple’s new devices, but that’s mainly because they’re used to the old-school way computers handle memory. In most traditional computers, you need more RAM to do even simple stuff smoothly. But Apple’s doing things differently with their Unified Memory Architecture in their Silicon chips. It’s way more efficient, so even 8GB of RAM can go a long way. It’ll take some time for people to get used to this new approach, but it’s just a matter of understanding how Apple’s tech works. It’s not about being wrong or right; it’s just what we’re all used to.
Spot on. Thanks for the comment 🤝🏼
You read too much Apple's marketing slides.
Windows have introduced pagingfile since Windows 95 and I've been configuring the allocation of it until about Windows Vista came out.
Modern Windows uses BOTH swapping and paging.
So how old is this "old school" are you talking about?
Honestly this was such a fantastic breakdown with no nonsense and simple explanations. Great work
This! This is the best explanation I’ve heard. As a person who has basic knowledge ONLY of computers and literally having no idea what these were you explained it very well for someone like me. Thank you! Definitely deserved getting a subscription!
Thanks Ryan Gosling your awesome. always humble!
One of the best comparison videos I've ever seen. Straight to the point and simple to understand. Thank you
For a ui/ux designer who works with Figma and Affinity suit, I believe that the best combo is 16GB RAM + 1TB SSD (+ 1TB external SSD for backups).
8gb of RAM as standard in 2024 is criminal regardless of the configuration/brand/optimization/etc.
Is 16gb enough for development though? I am on a 2015 MacBook pro with 16gb of ram and using about 1-3gb of swap. One simple docker container, phpstorm with 1-2 projects opened, safari with 3 tabs and chrome with 5-10 tabs
With the new Macs, absolutely.
@@Christomshack i personally still go for 32gb ram. I want to keep the machine for at least 5-8 years
@@paralelmind Smart choice then! I personally try to upgrade every ~2 years, so this base model M1 MBP will carry the torch of my workload for now
Paying over $1400+ for a 2023 macbook with a soldered 8gm of RAM i think is just a spit in the consumer's face
Try $1600 + tax for a base MBP with M3 non-Pro...