You might notice the difference with larger or more complex projects in Final Cut. I had a project on the M1 Air 16GB that couldn’t export fully because of full ram (external plugins used too much), so I had to split and merge it. On the M1 Max with 64GB, the same project exported in just 3:30mins without any issues. So I‘s go for the 24GB on the Air just to be sure.
M2 is a very different than M1. memory is not as important in M2 , its a different architect cpu. maybe a truck might be better for you than a Ferrari (little man syndrome) ?
Bruh, you realise the difference between Air and Max CPUs? The base M1 has only a 7 core GPU while M1 Max has 32 Cores! Also, it costs 1000s of $ more than the Air.
@@pascalbaselmost my videos I edit are between 4.5-50gb MAX on a really crazy day. Once or twice a year and I’m wondering if I should get the 24gb ram, or 16gb ram. And 256ssd or 512ssd. (Both with external hard drive 1050mbps)
It's a pity audio production is rarely included in testing. A template with multiple tracks, vst instruments, effects would really test out these machines.
As a musician that uses many sample libraries, RAM is very important for loading all those samples. I know it's not really your world, but I'd love to see the differences between 16 and 24 when using large sample libraries in Logic Pro. Something like Spitfire Audio's BBC Core library with Strings, Brass, Woodwind tracks running and not crashing. If you ever have time/budget to do that! Thanks again for all the amazing videos!
He did do a test comparing the 16gb m1 pro which Vastly outperformed the 16gb m2 in concurrent tracks, but yes I know it’s not the same as loading a massive sample library
@@tronam but like Max said. When you push the software to that level, you are professional enough to know you gonna to use that much RAM. So this video is meaningless to you. This is for more general public.
I would love to test this out. Something to consider: most (if not all?) sample library apps use primarily disk-streaming these days, so RAM is not as big a consideration as it used to be. But I'm sure it adds up with a bunch of tracks!
I agree but they won't be able to set up this test on their own as they don't really understand music production workflows. It would be cooler to see someone like sonic state or a music oriented channel do this test or someone collab with MaxTech. They'd also have to test it at different buffer sizes and test whether using external drives makes a difference or not. In the end though i think you're better off with a 14 in because of the 2x SSD speed and the 32gig ram option or even 64 if you go m1max. It will be exciting to see the M2Pro and Max increase the Ram scale to 48gb/96gb or even more hopefully.
I opted for the 24GB so that I could permanently give 8gb to my always running Windows VM (Parallels), and then 16gb to MacOS. I basically have 2 un-compromised computers in one. I normally have between 5-6 different spaces running with different apps, dozens of chrome taps/whatsapp, teams docs all open at once across built in display and 2 externals (1 using displaylink adapter) I haven't seen memory pressure go above 40% once.. it's pretty amazing
Great point. If you want to run Parallels, you need those 24Gb! Gets you two laptops in one if you’d ever need it. And TBH, there’s some Windows software that’s just so much better than Mac right now (even Excel, sadly).
@@pressrepeat2000 m1 and m2 only support 1 natively. Additional with a displaylink adapter (requires a driver to be installed). It works flawlessly for me, mainly productivity, no gaming.
@@pressrepeat2000 And there are professionals in many industries that are tied to Windows due to to the lack of any other software, especially where cloud versions are not yet available. This is often overlooked by the YT testing/influencing/benchmarking crowd but it is still a common scenario. I'm probably going for the 24 GB for that reason.
Hello Sir, I have one question about it. When you dont use parallels on your mac, can you use 24gb for MacOs? Or 8gb is always dedicated for Win 11 arm even if it is not running in the background? And in the one time purchase (not Subscription model) Can we dedicate 8gb of ram? Or parallel only allows pro user to use 8gb ram?
If you are keeping this for over 3 years and are a power user - get 24gb. Will give you at least another 18 months of usable performance over 16Gb. Basically, software always increases its memory use over the years.
Late reply but I have the opposite opinion. 16 GB is already an improvement over the base. You'd be far better off spending the $200 on more SSD, especially how heavily both machines cache. For $200, I'd require noticeable performance improvement today, which you seen in the 16 GB vs 8 GB model. 8GB base model is particularly crippled by slow SSD, something they appear to have rectified in the M3 AIR.
@@AsifSaifuddinAuvipy I'm going off of my personal experience being frustrated with a 2018 MacBook Pro with 32 GB ram and 512 GB SSD and bought it based on the same assumption you suggest. I think external drive is fine for a specific project or for desktop, but regret not getting at least 1 TB. I used a 1 TB SanDisk extreme and lost everything (common problem) so now external SSD suitable for laptop can only be trusted for temporary use. OP said 4K 60 but no idea what their projects are like so they'd have to figure it out for themselves because you have diminishing returns on an investment in RAM at some point.
@@origamitom wouldn’t it be best to get 24/1tb? This is what I’m thinking of getting so I don’t have to worry about it seeing as I’ll be using it for 7-10 yrs.
Same here, 16 tabs is nothing, nor just 3 or 4 apps. Test 100+ tabs and 10+ apps. I’m concerned 24GB RAM isn’t enough even though I prefer the Air format
@@helencooper286 I just got my 24GB Air M2 a few days ago. I don't have much time, but can test something like that though I don't have Lightroom or similar yet installed.
Don’t know how many people would actually edit on Premiere with a machine like this, but I’ve had some weird instances where Premiere chewed through a ton of ram, so it’s made me always opt for more just to avoid issues. I’ve seen a lot of compelling TH-cam videos illustrating diminishing returns with all these tests, but real world application twice has shown me Premiere don’t care about none of that. It do what it do. So I got the 24gb model. That said, had I seen this video before placing my order, this would have given me pause and made me reconsider what the right move is.
Final cut pro is optimized for those machines (and now also Resolve) but Premiere Pro and Avid Media Composer are renowned for consuming much more system resources, RAM above all. For MC, 16gb of RAM is actually the current minimum requirement, with 32gb being what they recommend... so I bet that people doing video editing with Premiere Pro and Avid Media Composer are going to see a difference between the 16gb and the 24gb models, even with the MacBook Air. As soon as you have a complex timeline open with all rendered effects, LUTs, gradings, titles etc., those two softwares are going to have to use a lof of RAM, even just for example for scrolling faster through the timeline.
@@marcoo5550 honestly, no. I’d debate myself needlessly before I realize I’d rather spend the $200 and realize I’d have been fine without it because of tons of overhead space rather than save the money and discover I’m frustrated for not having it because of a resource wall I’ve hit.
That logic does not work, you cannot predict how it will work, always better to buy what you currently need, otherwise you just trapped 200$ for nothing. 16vs24 is pretty similar in 99% use cases, when 16Gb is not enough, probably 24Gb will not make drastic difference, only 32GB, since laptop will be outdated too.
I would suspect the bigger advantage with going with the 24 GB of RAM is when you are using a programme like Parallels with being able to run windows with more that 8 GB of memory.
@@SaranKRS he didn't say most people run virtual machines, he said that people that run virtual machines will benefit more from more ram than other people.
Guys I am using M1 iMac with 16 Gb of RAM and my machine has 54 GB of swap during video editing (Sony A7SIII). I think even 64 GB might not be enough for some users, let alone 24 or 16.
So, my MBA M2 24 GB uses ~12 GB of RAM (~10 GB is app memory) just by having ONLY Safari open with 4 tabs of normal websites. Something can't be right with that?
If there's one question I have about all your testing methods it's this.. All these tests tend to get run on brand new machines. Brand new machines with mostly empty hard drives. I point that out because most computer slowed down as they get littered with files and programs. Hard drives run slower the fuller they get. I really think if you're going to spot the difference in swap usage you need to take both machines and fill the hard drives up to 80% capacity to slow the drives down a bit then run the tests and see if having more ram makes a difference at that point. In other words if the hard drive is slowing down because it's getting filled up to capacity will the operating system then start accessing more memory to keep the machine running faster or not? This is kind of relevant to my workflows where I frequently find myself using my laptop with a slower external drive and tons of files on the laptop and external drive until I can get home get everything organized and copy it over to my desktop system. When I'm travelling and doing a lot of filming and photography that's when I'm going to notice the difference on my laptop.
Absolutely. Videos on this are truly few and far between. I have a 16 GB Windows machine though and regularly use more than 8 GB on that, so running the same setup under 24 GB probably makes sense.
Just want to say something about 3D rendering (like Blender) in general since you say it is not worth spending that money. It really depends on the type of project that you're doing, From my experience with 3D rendering, my project can easily close to maxing out 64GB system. The only reason why it doesn't go over 64GB is that because I tried to optimize the scene so it won't go over 64GB. Basically once you hit swap in a meaningful amount, it is a nightmare in terms of speed. Basically just like the example between 8GB vs 16GB system, Someone probably can replicate similar result with 16GB vs 24GB system. Something like VRay I believe can be set to not use more than X amount of memory, so what you end up with is that the renderer wouldn't hit swap, thus perform faster. It might perform even faster if you don't cap it and you have enough memory, but compared capping the usage vs hitting swap, swap will still be much much slower. So basically you work with what you have and optimize around it. If I only have a 16GB system and I have a project that when rendering require 24GB to not hit swap and I don't use a renderer that can cap the memory usage, then I will render the view in half and stitch it together later (basically it is like rendering at lower resolution, thus reducing the memory requirement).
@@lenn55 Either Intel or AMD. But that doesn't really matter. What matters is how the actual app works and 3D rendering can use a ton of RAM. Even for GPU rendering, the more complex the scene is, the more RAM and VRAM you'll need. That's one of the reason why Pro GPU can come with more than 16GB of VRAM.
Agreed here. This has been the configuration decision that most are struggling with that I’ve been reading on forums. Where should you upgrade to improve speeds - 16GB of Ram or 512GB storage.
There’s a Chinese video. It shows the fact 16ram > 512storage … M2 has an upgraded 100GB/s bus for cpu accessing the ram comparing to M1 60GB/s. Most of tasks, 16ram is sufficient to handle, and swapping no matter how large storage can offer as “virtual memory”, it’s still slower than ram.
Just purchased the M2 Pro 24GB Ram with 1Tb unit last month, I only upgrade once every couple of years and decided to use it for my creative needs specially in Photo Editing in photography as well as video editing and 3D Rendering didn't really encountered much of a problem so far as I've exported my very first basic 3D animation in blender last night came easy. My projects are fairly for personal use rather than a big heavy production projects so I guess It will be fine.
M1: RAM doesn't really matter as it's way more efficient than x86 and even 8GB will do. M2: RAM DOES matter and having only 8GB is a big bottleneck. At this point, you are way better off just getting an M1 Pro 14" as it's much more powerful and has much faster SSDs and better monitor.
@@sergeyd2199 portability?? Lol I used to use an Asus zenbook that was the exact same size and weight as the old MacBook Air. Replaced the Asus withthe 14” pro since November and I HAVE NEVER once said, “this thing is just so heavy!!” A more powerful computer will be beefier and more quality. That said, it’s not even heavy…but then I also come from the age of actually carrying books in a backpack…so there’s that… lol
@@NOT_A_TOP_FAN lol books in a backpack. I just realized that's not much of a thing anymore. We used to have like 4 large books in our bag at a time. Made us stronger.
I was wondering this exact thing. For my use case, it looks like the 16GB model will fill my needs just fine. It really surprised me. I'd be curious to compare a 24GB Air with a 18GB MB Pro and see if the Air beats the Pro, at least in some cases. I'd also like to see this same comparison with Premiere Pro and After Effects tests, as other commenters have said that's when the extra RAM would make a big difference.
I just bought a 2022 MacBook Pro 13 Inch Mid with 24GB/1TB from Best Buy for 1450 brand new not including taxes of course. I was comparing it with the 2023 MacBook Air 15 16GB/1TB both with M2 both brand new. Same price for both models, I want longevity so getting a 8GB seems like a bad idea. Is this a good deal? It's a lot of money so wanted to make sure this could possibly last me 8-10 years with current software updates.
3:03 “MacOS doesn’t shy away from using swap” - Of course. They want your SSD life to suffer so you can either pay them to replace it, or pay them for a new laptop. It’s a money move and typical of Apple.
Well shit. This has me thinking if I should change my order from the 24gb 1tb ssd to the 16gb 1tb. I don't need all of it but I like the whole buy once cry one game.
RAM tests are probably the most unreliable benchmark. If you have enough RAM for a task there’s not going to be an improvement from adding more. Some programs are designed to use a certain about of swap, and I would guess it is for data redundancy or something if you’re not out of RAM like if your program crashes it can recover the changes or w/e. So yeah highly dependent depending on a particular project. Why you’re seeing such a minimal improvement over 16GB I would assume is a memory bandwidth limitation.
just curious, if you have the 128gb m1 studio, I imagine you do some substantial productivity work. so if thats the case, what made you get the m2air instead of a 14' m1 pro?
@@josephdejesus Because I rarely do any actual work on a laptop (i hate those small screens for working). 99% of the time, I use it to watch TH-cam in the garden or use it for communication when travelling. So I wanted a light and small device that has no fan. I still got the 24GB version because if some emergency comes up and I'm travelling, I could still start one db/backend cluster on the docker and fix it. On the M1 Studio, I run all clusters for several companies all the time in parallel.
Thr test is pretty much pointless, most of his test is CPU and GPU driven, that’s why he didn’t notice the difference. For day to day user (programmer like me), we do notice thr big different on 16 GB and 24GB, and I m using 14 pro with 64GB for coding, most of the time the machine is using more than half(32G+) on multiple projects… so it’s really depends on how you use the device, and for ppl like day to day programmer the 200bucks is pretty much spent wisely
Will you compare a 15 inch MacBook Air M2 24ram vs 16 inch MacBook Pro 16ram? I don’t want to waste 2,500 on a MacBook Pro 16 inch if I can get the air for 700 less. Mostly want the 16 inch for the screen/display quality.
You can disable swap memory in Terminal on your Mac by typing the command lines sysctl -a vm. compressor_mode, and sudo nvram boot-args="vm_compressor=2" if the mode number is 4. I know the 24 and 16gb ram are very similar in performance but I would still take the 24gb for the longevity because sooner than later apps will require more and more ram to run.
@ i’m pretty sure that Apple engineers are not as smart as you think because alot of M1 MacBooks were reported dead after two years of usage due to their SSD!
@@Gearsandco well, this could result in unwanted performance impacts. I guess you can destroy your SSD if you have 8 GB RAM and are heavy user who would need 32 GB RAM, but disabling swap would probably result in big performance drops. 98-99% of people will be fine with keeping it normal. However, I have to say you are right in Apple engineers not knowing what they do, I remember the current Mac OS first Developer beta, where the search engine was broken and absolutely rekking the SSD usage. At least that was Developer Beta, I guess I should stop caring about trying Beta versions.
It’s fairly normal for most operating systems to use a smidge of swap. When it’s time to worry is when swap becomes the answer to insufficient memory instead of just deciding some stale pages are less important than others. With 16 GB of RAM today, you basically need some real load to hit that point. Hamming a cluster of virtual machines emulating a rack of servers for example.
Vadeem, I need to tell you what's going on with swap when you have an abundance of RAM, it's not what you think:. If you've created something new or made any change to an image, there is no hard drive backup, because you've changed the image or created something new that's not on the hard drive yet. Even with an abundance of ram you're operating system wants to create an image, just in case you do go under ram pressure. So yes, even when you have an abundance of RAM the operating system will be creating swap images from the new work that doesn't have an image yet on the hard drive. This comment is too verbose already, so I'll end it right there there is more to discuss though. The actual benefit of having more RAM when you don't put it under pressure is so that Mac OS caches files, making them quicker to access later on There are also predictive file cash strategies, it will proactively cashe your commonly accessed data even if you haven't access them this session, in Windows this is called superfetch, in unix that's called preload.
Pricing on the M2 MacBook makes absolutely no sense. If you need to upgrade anything from the base model the price jacks up so high that you might as well get the almost same size MBP 14 for 10% more money. The 512GB/16GB model should be the base model at 1299!
All creatives, musicians, 3D artists, etc. should go for 24GB of RAM. In the future if there is an M3 MBA that can go up to 32 (or higher) then get that. Always max out the RAM. Always. Up the base storage too. 256 GB storage is simply not enough and it throttles the CPU. At least 1 TB for storage. It’s a higher-priced initial investment but it will always be able to do what you need it to do for about five to eight years. Possibly more.
I’d be curious about Running a couple Kubernetes VMs (app + database) and IntelliJ IDE, Safari/Chrome browsers … I think 24GB RAM would be very useful.
It's all about futureproofing the device. You can never upgrade RAM on these Macs and 16 GB is simply not much already by today's standards. So chosing the 24 GB makes you worry less about the future.
Worry less about the future? Do you understand how unified memory works? 16GB on Macs are like 64GB on windows. I think you might have some mental health issues if you feel like needing 8gb more ram will help you worry less.
If you spend the extra money for the 24GB RAM it is not really far away from the 14' MacBook Pro so I would rather go with this, if I had the money, then with the 24GB M2 Macbook Air.
Only get the 24GB if you know you're gonna use it, but also if you're at a point where you're thinking of speccing out an M2 machine to 24GB you might just want to get a 16GB M1 Pro 14" MBP, as that has faster RAM (2x wider bus width, 204GB/s bw vs. 102GB/s), *along with* a faster SSD (~5GB/s on the base 512G model vs. ~3GB/s). So both your RAM and SSD are gonna be faster on the 14", with either just a little bit higher price or no price difference at all with current discounts (Best Buy is currently selling brand new 14" base models for $1699 for Best Buy members, and usually discounts it to $1749-99 if you're not a member).
Can you please do a video about 16 gigs of ram 256 vs. 8/512? It is really important. Most people want to make one upgrade, so will the more ram shine through in multitasking?
There’s a Chinese video. It shows the fact 16ram > 512storage … M2 has an upgraded 100GB/s bus for cpu accessing the ram comparing to M1 60GB/s. Most of tasks, 16ram is sufficient to handle, and swapping no matter how large storage can offer as “virtual memory”, it’s still slower than ram.
RAM is always better in this case. 8GB unified means video and tasks take from the same pool of ram. Your screen gets rendered from that RAM pool. 16gb is the lowest you can go in these cases. If on windows you need more than 16 then upgrade it to 24
Did you found something out in this regard? I mean not some opinion of some dudes in the comment section or on reddit or something like that, but perhaps somebody who did some real testing like in this video? I struggle very hard to decide if 24Gb is worth the extra 200€ on the M3 Air 15". As of now my feeling is to skip it. Many dudettes also say programs get more and more demanding in the future and while on some programs I noticed that too, I personally experienced kind of the opposite on at least equally as much of them. Just curious if you found out something new. :) Best regards Q
@@newQns I didn't :-/ what you could do is buy both versions run some tests and comparisons, see for yourself and send back the one you don't need. And tell us here what are your findings! I'm actually thinking of doing that
@@brunopetit17 I currently don't have the time and/or the money for this. I just went with the 16Gb/1Tb variant (for a pretty good price of 1900€) because I ultimately think this also applies on the M3. Also: I think with the 1Tb I have enough headroom to 'swap' if needed and I (for sure) need more than 512Gb anyway. Additionally the 1Tb-variant is perhaps a bit faster in SSD-speed and for sure has a larger life span (cf. TBW). On the other hand I think the resale value has a sweet spot at 16/1. And by believing that the results of this video are kind of similar for the M3 my choice was pretty solid I think. xD The 230€/200$ I partially invested in a nice USB-dock (second hand 50€), some thermal pads for the regarding mod (~30€) and an USB-A/USB-C-Stick with 512Gb (46€). So far I'm impressed by the machine, but I didn't push it too hard yet.
The ARM architecture that Apple is using does use unified memory. What we are still thinking is in ways of memory slots as in the olden days where there was a different bus between the processor and memory (very simplified explanation).
Great video! You honestly make the best comparisons on TH-cam! I’m personally not in the market for a MacBook, my old iPad Pro 10.5 is doing everything i want pretty well. However, if I were to by a MacBook I wold consider the 24 gb option, not for today, but for two or three years ahead. But anyway I love your videos they are certainly the best! 😁👍
Has anyone done a comparison of the 512GB storage model M2 Air 8GB vs 16GB . I know the speed difference between the 256GB and 512GB models is significant but I really wanted to see how the 8GB vs 16GB RAM options with the 512GB of storage would go.
All very interesting, but when I buy I also take into account future proofing, not many os or software updates use less ram. When I buy I want something that is going to last me a few years.
it depends on the work you do. in 5 years 16gb of ram will still be enough for most projects(4k video/image editing,light 3d renders), because apple won't make 24gb a requirement when the mass population is still on 16 or less(not on a dime anyways). But ofc if you already do heavy 3d renders or any extremely demanding tasks, you probably already know 24 to 32gb of RAM is for you
You might notice the difference with larger or more complex projects in Final Cut. I had a project on the M1 Air 16GB that couldn’t export fully because of full ram (external plugins used too much), so I had to split and merge it. On the M1 Max with 64GB, the same project exported in just 3:30mins without any issues. So I‘s go for the 24GB on the Air just to be sure.
M2 is a very different than M1. memory is not as important in M2 , its a different architect cpu. maybe a truck might be better for you than a Ferrari (little man syndrome) ?
Bruh, you realise the difference between Air and Max CPUs?
The base M1 has only a 7 core GPU while M1 Max has 32 Cores!
Also, it costs 1000s of $ more than the Air.
@@sanchogodinho Doesn't change the fact that the ram was full, what caused the export to fail.
@@pascalbaselhow large of a project we talking? 20gb+? 50gb+? 100gb+?
@@pascalbaselmost my videos I edit are between 4.5-50gb MAX on a really crazy day. Once or twice a year and I’m wondering if I should get the 24gb ram, or 16gb ram. And 256ssd or 512ssd. (Both with external hard drive 1050mbps)
It's a pity audio production is rarely included in testing. A template with multiple tracks, vst instruments, effects would really test out these machines.
Comment for the algorithm. Yes definitely!!!
Great idea. I like when they do the quick sound comparison, but you make a great point. It would be nice to see sound tested a bit more extensively.
I have the MBA M2 and it vibrates then playing audio even on mid sound level, so (so me) it's weird to type on while playing audio :/
yeah this is what I came to see !!
every youtube video review will only test a lot of video editing because that's the only thing they do Lol @@ShajeeTheMan
As a musician that uses many sample libraries, RAM is very important for loading all those samples. I know it's not really your world, but I'd love to see the differences between 16 and 24 when using large sample libraries in Logic Pro. Something like Spitfire Audio's BBC Core library with Strings, Brass, Woodwind tracks running and not crashing. If you ever have time/budget to do that! Thanks again for all the amazing videos!
He did do a test comparing the 16gb m1 pro which Vastly outperformed the 16gb m2 in concurrent tracks, but yes I know it’s not the same as loading a massive sample library
Me too
@@tronam but like Max said. When you push the software to that level, you are professional enough to know you gonna to use that much RAM. So this video is meaningless to you. This is for more general public.
I would love to test this out. Something to consider: most (if not all?) sample library apps use primarily disk-streaming these days, so RAM is not as big a consideration as it used to be. But I'm sure it adds up with a bunch of tracks!
I agree but they won't be able to set up this test on their own as they don't really understand music production workflows. It would be cooler to see someone like sonic state or a music oriented channel do this test or someone collab with MaxTech. They'd also have to test it at different buffer sizes and test whether using external drives makes a difference or not. In the end though i think you're better off with a 14 in because of the 2x SSD speed and the 32gig ram option or even 64 if you go m1max.
It will be exciting to see the M2Pro and Max increase the Ram scale to 48gb/96gb or even more hopefully.
I opted for the 24GB so that I could permanently give 8gb to my always running Windows VM (Parallels), and then 16gb to MacOS. I basically have 2 un-compromised computers in one. I normally have between 5-6 different spaces running with different apps, dozens of chrome taps/whatsapp, teams docs all open at once across built in display and 2 externals (1 using displaylink adapter) I haven't seen memory pressure go above 40% once.. it's pretty amazing
Great point. If you want to run Parallels, you need those 24Gb! Gets you two laptops in one if you’d ever need it. And TBH, there’s some Windows software that’s just so much better than Mac right now (even Excel, sadly).
Does the M2 support two external displays btw? I had heard it doesn’t.
@@pressrepeat2000 m1 and m2 only support 1 natively. Additional with a displaylink adapter (requires a driver to be installed). It works flawlessly for me, mainly productivity, no gaming.
@@pressrepeat2000 And there are professionals in many industries that are tied to Windows due to to the lack of any other software, especially where cloud versions are not yet available. This is often overlooked by the YT testing/influencing/benchmarking crowd but it is still a common scenario. I'm probably going for the 24 GB for that reason.
Hello Sir,
I have one question about it.
When you dont use parallels on your mac, can you use 24gb for MacOs? Or 8gb is always dedicated for Win 11 arm even if it is not running in the background?
And in the one time purchase (not Subscription model) Can we dedicate 8gb of ram? Or parallel only allows pro user to use 8gb ram?
If you are keeping this for over 3 years and are a power user - get 24gb. Will give you at least another 18 months of usable performance over 16Gb. Basically, software always increases its memory use over the years.
Late reply but I have the opposite opinion. 16 GB is already an improvement over the base. You'd be far better off spending the $200 on more SSD, especially how heavily both machines cache. For $200, I'd require noticeable performance improvement today, which you seen in the 16 GB vs 8 GB model. 8GB base model is particularly crippled by slow SSD, something they appear to have rectified in the M3 AIR.
@@origamitomextremely wrong assumption. You can use External SSD. So RAM for better performance
@@AsifSaifuddinAuvipy I'm going off of my personal experience being frustrated with a 2018 MacBook Pro with 32 GB ram and 512 GB SSD and bought it based on the same assumption you suggest. I think external drive is fine for a specific project or for desktop, but regret not getting at least 1 TB. I used a 1 TB SanDisk extreme and lost everything (common problem) so now external SSD suitable for laptop can only be trusted for temporary use. OP said 4K 60 but no idea what their projects are like so they'd have to figure it out for themselves because you have diminishing returns on an investment in RAM at some point.
@@origamitom wouldn’t it be best to get 24/1tb? This is what I’m thinking of getting so I don’t have to worry about it seeing as I’ll be using it for 7-10 yrs.
For me 16 tabs are not a lot, i usually work with about 100+ tabs spread over like 6 windows or more. Would like to see much more heavy multitasking
u are a psychopath
Same here, 16 tabs is nothing, nor just 3 or 4 apps. Test 100+ tabs and 10+ apps. I’m concerned 24GB RAM isn’t enough even though I prefer the Air format
@@helencooper286 I just got my 24GB Air M2 a few days ago. I don't have much time, but can test something like that though I don't have Lightroom or similar yet installed.
@@FabiVoltair Hey! Any update about the 24gb air m2 multitasking? (100+ chrome tabs & +10 open apps test would be illuminating)
Yeah, doing literature review for research = a stupid amount of tabs, Adobe Acrobat, Zotero, and Spotify.
Don’t know how many people would actually edit on Premiere with a machine like this, but I’ve had some weird instances where Premiere chewed through a ton of ram, so it’s made me always opt for more just to avoid issues. I’ve seen a lot of compelling TH-cam videos illustrating diminishing returns with all these tests, but real world application twice has shown me Premiere don’t care about none of that. It do what it do. So I got the 24gb model. That said, had I seen this video before placing my order, this would have given me pause and made me reconsider what the right move is.
Good to see you here Jaby!
So if you could go back in time you'd get the 16gb ram instead?
Final cut pro is optimized for those machines (and now also Resolve) but Premiere Pro and Avid Media Composer are renowned for consuming much more system resources, RAM above all. For MC, 16gb of RAM is actually the current minimum requirement, with 32gb being what they recommend... so I bet that people doing video editing with Premiere Pro and Avid Media Composer are going to see a difference between the 16gb and the 24gb models, even with the MacBook Air. As soon as you have a complex timeline open with all rendered effects, LUTs, gradings, titles etc., those two softwares are going to have to use a lof of RAM, even just for example for scrolling faster through the timeline.
@@marcoo5550 honestly, no. I’d debate myself needlessly before I realize I’d rather spend the $200 and realize I’d have been fine without it because of tons of overhead space rather than save the money and discover I’m frustrated for not having it because of a resource wall I’ve hit.
so you use it with harder scenarios than here and you bought an Air still??
Can you please compare the M2 MacBook Air 16GB Ram with the M2 MacBook Air 24GB Ram?
It's not for now, it's for 3 years from now. That 24GB will be appreciated.
Why buy for the future when chances are this will be a legacy device by that time?
@@thor.mukbang yeah go ahead and buy a new $1500 laptop in 3 years.. or spend $200 to extend the life of this one now up to you
@@cz5696 I bought my M1 two years ago for $899 and sold it last week for $799
@@thor.mukbang dude nice!
That logic does not work, you cannot predict how it will work, always better to buy what you currently need, otherwise you just trapped 200$ for nothing. 16vs24 is pretty similar in 99% use cases, when 16Gb is not enough, probably 24Gb will not make drastic difference, only 32GB, since laptop will be outdated too.
I would suspect the bigger advantage with going with the 24 GB of RAM is when you are using a programme like Parallels with being able to run windows with more that 8 GB of memory.
Parallel isn’t supported on m2 yet
@@supportyou10 true, it’s not supported yet but there is no indication that support will be dropped either.
Most people will benefit from more RAM if they run virtual machines (e.g. Parallels).
That is not most people
@@SaranKRS he didn't say most people run virtual machines, he said that people that run virtual machines will benefit more from more ram than other people.
@@SaranKRS Sure, but many techies (sysadmins, developers), use those machines as daily drivers, and most of them use virtualisation.
Including docker/kubernetes
@@The_MEMEphis agree
Thank you for such a straightforward and useful video!
Def was on the fence about the 24 or 16 GB but this made it pretty clear. Great comparison. Clean, informative, and not too long. Thank you!
Guys I am using M1 iMac with 16 Gb of RAM and my machine has 54 GB of swap during video editing (Sony A7SIII). I think even 64 GB might not be enough for some users, let alone 24 or 16.
So, my MBA M2 24 GB uses ~12 GB of RAM (~10 GB is app memory) just by having ONLY Safari open with 4 tabs of normal websites. Something can't be right with that?
If there's one question I have about all your testing methods it's this..
All these tests tend to get run on brand new machines.
Brand new machines with mostly empty hard drives.
I point that out because most computer slowed down as they get littered with files and programs.
Hard drives run slower the fuller they get.
I really think if you're going to spot the difference in swap usage you need to take both machines and fill the hard drives up to 80% capacity to slow the drives down a bit then run the tests and see if having more ram makes a difference at that point.
In other words if the hard drive is slowing down because it's getting filled up to capacity will the operating system then start accessing more memory to keep the machine running faster or not?
This is kind of relevant to my workflows where I frequently find myself using my laptop with a slower external drive and tons of files on the laptop and external drive until I can get home get everything organized and copy it over to my desktop system.
When I'm travelling and doing a lot of filming and photography that's when I'm going to notice the difference on my laptop.
Does 24gb help fix the thermal issue on these m2 airs? Does it help it run cooler?
Wondering this as well
I'd love to see a comparison of both running Windows 11 through Parallels.
Yes. Me too please !!!!!!!!!! 🙏
Do not fall for the scammer!
Me too as I use both MacOS and Windows 11…
Absolutely. Videos on this are truly few and far between. I have a 16 GB Windows machine though and regularly use more than 8 GB on that, so running the same setup under 24 GB probably makes sense.
One application in which having an extra RAM wouldn't hurt would be using Parallels as you would have to allocate some RAM.
@TEST-NO-TELEGRAM-@maxtach65 Negative!
Just want to say something about 3D rendering (like Blender) in general since you say it is not worth spending that money. It really depends on the type of project that you're doing, From my experience with 3D rendering, my project can easily close to maxing out 64GB system. The only reason why it doesn't go over 64GB is that because I tried to optimize the scene so it won't go over 64GB. Basically once you hit swap in a meaningful amount, it is a nightmare in terms of speed. Basically just like the example between 8GB vs 16GB system, Someone probably can replicate similar result with 16GB vs 24GB system.
Something like VRay I believe can be set to not use more than X amount of memory, so what you end up with is that the renderer wouldn't hit swap, thus perform faster. It might perform even faster if you don't cap it and you have enough memory, but compared capping the usage vs hitting swap, swap will still be much much slower.
So basically you work with what you have and optimize around it. If I only have a 16GB system and I have a project that when rendering require 24GB to not hit swap and I don't use a renderer that can cap the memory usage, then I will render the view in half and stitch it together later (basically it is like rendering at lower resolution, thus reducing the memory requirement).
Was that with an Intel machine?
@@lenn55 Either Intel or AMD. But that doesn't really matter. What matters is how the actual app works and 3D rendering can use a ton of RAM. Even for GPU rendering, the more complex the scene is, the more RAM and VRAM you'll need. That's one of the reason why Pro GPU can come with more than 16GB of VRAM.
Great work max!! Thanks for this
These comparisons are great!!!
Thx guys, I was waiting for this compare
Mines coming in 2 weeks and im binge watching your videos!!
Can you please do 8GB 512GB SSD M2 Air vs 16GB 256GB SSD M2 Air? I think that’s a test that everyone would be interested in!
Agreed here. This has been the configuration decision that most are struggling with that I’ve been reading on forums. Where should you upgrade to improve speeds - 16GB of Ram or 512GB storage.
There’s a Chinese video. It shows the fact 16ram > 512storage … M2 has an upgraded 100GB/s bus for cpu accessing the ram comparing to M1 60GB/s. Most of tasks, 16ram is sufficient to handle, and swapping no matter how large storage can offer as “virtual memory”, it’s still slower than ram.
@@smbdcry so if I choose 24gb ram 256gb storage is it much better than 512 16gb ram ?
Love the comparison videos
Just purchased the M2 Pro 24GB Ram with 1Tb unit last month, I only upgrade once every couple of years and decided to use it for my creative needs specially in Photo Editing in photography as well as video editing and 3D Rendering didn't really encountered much of a problem so far as I've exported my very first basic 3D animation in blender last night came easy. My projects are fairly for personal use rather than a big heavy production projects so I guess It will be fine.
Where can we see your personal 3d project 😊
M1: RAM doesn't really matter as it's way more efficient than x86 and even 8GB will do.
M2: RAM DOES matter and having only 8GB is a big bottleneck.
At this point, you are way better off just getting an M1 Pro 14" as it's much more powerful and has much faster SSDs and better monitor.
RAM mattered on my M1.. I dealt with a lot of bottlenecking. 16GB fixed that.
Many people won't do that because they care about portability. Even if Air will be slightly slower in some cases for similar money.
People looking to buy the air don't want a big heavy 14inch pro though. That's why the air exists !
@@sergeyd2199 portability?? Lol I used to use an Asus zenbook that was the exact same size and weight as the old MacBook Air. Replaced the Asus withthe 14” pro since November and I HAVE NEVER once said, “this thing is just so heavy!!” A more powerful computer will be beefier and more quality. That said, it’s not even heavy…but then I also come from the age of actually carrying books in a backpack…so there’s that… lol
@@NOT_A_TOP_FAN lol books in a backpack. I just realized that's not much of a thing anymore. We used to have like 4 large books in our bag at a time. Made us stronger.
Great I was waiting for this comparison
I was wondering this exact thing. For my use case, it looks like the 16GB model will fill my needs just fine. It really surprised me. I'd be curious to compare a 24GB Air with a 18GB MB Pro and see if the Air beats the Pro, at least in some cases. I'd also like to see this same comparison with Premiere Pro and After Effects tests, as other commenters have said that's when the extra RAM would make a big difference.
Would be really helpful if you could do a similar comparison between a 16gb RAM VS 24GB RAM M3 Macbook pro 14". Thank you!
Congrats on the 1 million subs Vadim, Max and Angelika! Well deserved achievement!
Great video and congratulations on hitting one million subs!!!
Thank You for this!
Did you see the video about RAM upgrade vs SSD upgrade on the M2 MBA?
Looks like the 256gb SSD isn’t really an issue.
Thank you!!
Wow. Thank you. This is what I wanted to know.
Running virtual VMs in Parallel or VMWare might be a better test.
I just bought a 2022 MacBook Pro 13 Inch Mid with 24GB/1TB from Best Buy for 1450 brand new not including taxes of course. I was comparing it with the 2023 MacBook Air 15 16GB/1TB both with M2 both brand new. Same price for both models, I want longevity so getting a 8GB seems like a bad idea. Is this a good deal? It's a lot of money so wanted to make sure this could possibly last me 8-10 years with current software updates.
Congratulations on 1M subs! 🤗
Weird to see the Touch Bar, I kinda forgot about the 13º MBP
3:03 “MacOS doesn’t shy away from using swap” - Of course. They want your SSD life to suffer so you can either pay them to replace it, or pay them for a new laptop. It’s a money move and typical of Apple.
Ahh I've ordered yesterday, and searched a video similar to this a lot. You guys are amazing in comparisons!!! Thanks
Nice, I was thinking you’d do this video eventually
Very informative. I love your review! Thanks.
Well shit. This has me thinking if I should change my order from the 24gb 1tb ssd to the 16gb 1tb. I don't need all of it but I like the whole buy once cry one game.
Is it possible to add OBS Studio to your tests !. Awesome & Thanks :)
Great vid!
RAM tests are probably the most unreliable benchmark. If you have enough RAM for a task there’s not going to be an improvement from adding more. Some programs are designed to use a certain about of swap, and I would guess it is for data redundancy or something if you’re not out of RAM like if your program crashes it can recover the changes or w/e.
So yeah highly dependent depending on a particular project. Why you’re seeing such a minimal improvement over 16GB I would assume is a memory bandwidth limitation.
Good video Max. I wasn’t too surprised 😲. I think you got similar results on the M1 MacBook Pro models.
Awesome video, guys. Love these analysis videos. Keep it up
Wow max. This is a best review
Great video again. This topic I was most curious about :) Thx a lot!
nice comparison
Interesting verdict. Thanks for the comparison!
😏🤥🤡🤥🕵♂️👮♂️
Ah, you can never have enough ram. I got 128GB in the M1 Studio and 24GB in the M2 Air. I'm usually running a bunch of docker containers and VMs.
just curious, if you have the 128gb m1 studio, I imagine you do some substantial productivity work. so if thats the case, what made you get the m2air instead of a 14' m1 pro?
@@josephdejesus Because I rarely do any actual work on a laptop (i hate those small screens for working). 99% of the time, I use it to watch TH-cam in the garden or use it for communication when travelling. So I wanted a light and small device that has no fan. I still got the 24GB version because if some emergency comes up and I'm travelling, I could still start one db/backend cluster on the docker and fix it. On the M1 Studio, I run all clusters for several companies all the time in parallel.
8:49-8:52 that is the fastest Photoshop startup I have ever seen! (even faster that that king of speed of yore photoshop 7)
Didnt even have time to blink to see the loading. My windows PC takes maybe 10-15 seconds to load and this took nothing.
16 GB mustn't be that slouch than 24 GB stated that apple's unified memory works almost fine even with 8 GB
Yesn’t
Good video!
Thr test is pretty much pointless, most of his test is CPU and GPU driven, that’s why he didn’t notice the difference. For day to day user (programmer like me), we do notice thr big different on 16 GB and 24GB, and I m using 14 pro with 64GB for coding, most of the time the machine is using more than half(32G+) on multiple projects… so it’s really depends on how you use the device, and for ppl like day to day programmer the 200bucks is pretty much spent wisely
Whats the storage used for each ? Did i miss that ?
Would be great if you do this same video comparison for MBA M2 also.
Could you for the developer test use an actual heavy IDE like IntelliJ?
I don’t know about supercharge but allow it to multitask a bit longer without running out of memory, sure. Really need to start at about 32gb.
Will you compare a 15 inch MacBook Air M2 24ram vs 16 inch MacBook Pro 16ram? I don’t want to waste 2,500 on a MacBook Pro 16 inch if I can get the air for 700 less. Mostly want the 16 inch for the screen/display quality.
Thank you
You can disable swap memory in Terminal on your Mac by typing the command lines sysctl -a vm. compressor_mode, and sudo nvram boot-args="vm_compressor=2" if the mode number is 4.
I know the 24 and 16gb ram are very similar in performance but I would still take the 24gb for the longevity because sooner than later apps will require more and more ram to run.
I would not recommend tinkering with stuff like that, I am pretty sure that Apple engineers know what's best for your Mac.
@ i’m pretty sure that Apple engineers are not as smart as you think because alot of M1 MacBooks were reported dead after two years of usage due to their SSD!
@@Gearsandco well, this could result in unwanted performance impacts.
I guess you can destroy your SSD if you have 8 GB RAM and are heavy user who would need 32 GB RAM, but disabling swap would probably result in big performance drops.
98-99% of people will be fine with keeping it normal.
However, I have to say you are right in Apple engineers not knowing what they do, I remember the current Mac OS first Developer beta, where the search engine was broken and absolutely rekking the SSD usage.
At least that was Developer Beta, I guess I should stop caring about trying Beta versions.
Straight away like- exactly what I was wondering about
It’s fairly normal for most operating systems to use a smidge of swap. When it’s time to worry is when swap becomes the answer to insufficient memory instead of just deciding some stale pages are less important than others. With 16 GB of RAM today, you basically need some real load to hit that point. Hamming a cluster of virtual machines emulating a rack of servers for example.
how about LOW POWER MODE m1 air VS m2 air, who uses the least wattssss
Maybe 24GB version is a better choice for those who use Parallels Desktop.
1:18 to 1:08 isn't more than 10% .. from with side do you calculate this to make it more than 10% "faster"?
Vadeem, I need to tell you what's going on with swap when you have an abundance of RAM, it's not what you think:.
If you've created something new or made any change to an image, there is no hard drive backup, because you've changed the image or created something new that's not on the hard drive yet.
Even with an abundance of ram you're operating system wants to create an image, just in case you do go under ram pressure.
So yes, even when you have an abundance of RAM the operating system will be creating swap images from the new work that doesn't have an image yet on the hard drive.
This comment is too verbose already, so I'll end it right there there is more to discuss though.
The actual benefit of having more RAM when you don't put it under pressure is so that Mac OS caches files, making them quicker to access later on
There are also predictive file cash strategies, it will proactively cashe your commonly accessed data even if you haven't access them this session, in Windows this is called superfetch, in unix that's called preload.
great vídeo, guys, wud love if you cud include after effects in these ram tests, that’s definitely an app that cud show a difference, thanks! 🥳
Congratulations on 1 million
Pricing on the M2 MacBook makes absolutely no sense. If you need to upgrade anything from the base model the price jacks up so high that you might as well get the almost same size MBP 14 for 10% more money. The 512GB/16GB model should be the base model at 1299!
All creatives, musicians, 3D artists, etc. should go for 24GB of RAM. In the future if there is an M3 MBA that can go up to 32 (or higher) then get that. Always max out the RAM. Always. Up the base storage too. 256 GB storage is simply not enough and it throttles the CPU. At least 1 TB for storage. It’s a higher-priced initial investment but it will always be able to do what you need it to do for about five to eight years. Possibly more.
I’d be curious about Running a couple Kubernetes VMs (app + database) and IntelliJ IDE, Safari/Chrome browsers … I think 24GB RAM would be very useful.
It's all about futureproofing the device. You can never upgrade RAM on these Macs and 16 GB is simply not much already by today's standards. So chosing the 24 GB makes you worry less about the future.
Worry less about the future? Do you understand how unified memory works? 16GB on Macs are like 64GB on windows. I think you might have some mental health issues if you feel like needing 8gb more ram will help you worry less.
Still waiting the comparison with 8/256 and 16/256!!
If you spend the extra money for the 24GB RAM it is not really far away from the 14' MacBook Pro so I would rather go with this, if I had the money, then with the 24GB M2 Macbook Air.
So what’s better now. 24gb m2 air or the new 14 MacBook Pro with m2 pro base?
Отлично!! Очень ждал это сравнение. Спасибо Вам большое))
Only get the 24GB if you know you're gonna use it, but also if you're at a point where you're thinking of speccing out an M2 machine to 24GB you might just want to get a 16GB M1 Pro 14" MBP, as that has faster RAM (2x wider bus width, 204GB/s bw vs. 102GB/s), *along with* a faster SSD (~5GB/s on the base 512G model vs. ~3GB/s). So both your RAM and SSD are gonna be faster on the 14", with either just a little bit higher price or no price difference at all with current discounts (Best Buy is currently selling brand new 14" base models for $1699 for Best Buy members, and usually discounts it to $1749-99 if you're not a member).
The M1 Pro has a worse neural engine and overall single core performance though. Not to mention it’s bulkier.
Can you please do a video about 16 gigs of ram 256 vs. 8/512? It is really important. Most people want to make one upgrade, so will the more ram shine through in multitasking?
There’s a Chinese video. It shows the fact 16ram > 512storage … M2 has an upgraded 100GB/s bus for cpu accessing the ram comparing to M1 60GB/s. Most of tasks, 16ram is sufficient to handle, and swapping no matter how large storage can offer as “virtual memory”, it’s still slower than ram.
@@smbdcry Thanks
RAM is always better in this case. 8GB unified means video and tasks take from the same pool of ram. Your screen gets rendered from that RAM pool. 16gb is the lowest you can go in these cases. If on windows you need more than 16 then upgrade it to 24
the main diffrence betweeen ram speeds will be in worklood while working in timeline not in export times as you make benchmarks
As a student, I cant imagine needing that much horsepower, but the fact that I can get it is really nice.
Jesus! What a great review! I've downgraded from a 96gb Mac book pro (needed the cash) and I'm stoked I can still render big files in fcp.
Wow, great video! This channel has such interesting videos. I'm glad I subscribed.
I would love to see the same comparison with the M3 chip 16gb vs 24gb in either macbook air or macbook pro M3 base version.
Did you found something out in this regard? I mean not some opinion of some dudes in the comment section or on reddit or something like that, but perhaps somebody who did some real testing like in this video? I struggle very hard to decide if 24Gb is worth the extra 200€ on the M3 Air 15". As of now my feeling is to skip it. Many dudettes also say programs get more and more demanding in the future and while on some programs I noticed that too, I personally experienced kind of the opposite on at least equally as much of them. Just curious if you found out something new. :) Best regards Q
@@newQns I didn't :-/ what you could do is buy both versions run some tests and comparisons, see for yourself and send back the one you don't need. And tell us here what are your findings! I'm actually thinking of doing that
@@brunopetit17 I currently don't have the time and/or the money for this. I just went with the 16Gb/1Tb variant (for a pretty good price of 1900€) because I ultimately think this also applies on the M3. Also: I think with the 1Tb I have enough headroom to 'swap' if needed and I (for sure) need more than 512Gb anyway. Additionally the 1Tb-variant is perhaps a bit faster in SSD-speed and for sure has a larger life span (cf. TBW). On the other hand I think the resale value has a sweet spot at 16/1. And by believing that the results of this video are kind of similar for the M3 my choice was pretty solid I think. xD The 230€/200$ I partially invested in a nice USB-dock (second hand 50€), some thermal pads for the regarding mod (~30€) and an USB-A/USB-C-Stick with 512Gb (46€). So far I'm impressed by the machine, but I didn't push it too hard yet.
Where did you get touchbar m2 air ?
Hey Max tech at 5:01 you mentioned that you're using cycles because it's faster, but the faster render engine in blender is Eevee. Good video though.
So now you used only pro but wrote air in the description...man..
btw, isn't 24GB RAM weird number of ram to have? I think I always saw 8, 16, 32 kind of odds only.
It’s more uncommon but not unheard of. There’s also a few windows laptops with 12GB of ram lol
@@chidorirasenganz is that like 3 of 4GB ram? 😆
32 is for m3
because its Apple Silicon chip
The ARM architecture that Apple is using does use unified memory. What we are still thinking is in ways of memory slots as in the olden days where there was a different bus between the processor and memory (very simplified explanation).
Great video! You honestly make the best comparisons on TH-cam! I’m personally not in the market for a MacBook, my old iPad Pro 10.5 is doing everything i want pretty well.
However, if I were to by a MacBook I wold consider the 24 gb option, not for today, but for two or three years ahead.
But anyway I love your videos they are certainly the best! 😁👍
Love the MacBook Pro m2 - hence why I bought one, over the untested Air. Pro, tried and tested design - love it
I would get it if it didn't have a touch bar
@Charlie Cant really ???? Oh I’m excited 😆
@@ahsoka6807 I never had a Touch Bar on my older 2015 MBP so love it tbf… it looks so cool and modern 👍
If you test RAM - Test something big and heavy in Logic Pro X. Seriously. That would be the only reason for me to get more.... Do it! Please!
Has anyone done a comparison of the 512GB storage model M2 Air 8GB vs 16GB . I know the speed difference between the 256GB and 512GB models is significant but I really wanted to see how the 8GB vs 16GB RAM options with the 512GB of storage would go.
All very interesting, but when I buy I also take into account future proofing, not many os or software updates use less ram. When I buy I want something that is going to last me a few years.
it depends on the work you do. in 5 years 16gb of ram will still be enough for most projects(4k video/image editing,light 3d renders), because apple won't make 24gb a requirement when the mass population is still on 16 or less(not on a dime anyways). But ofc if you already do heavy 3d renders or any extremely demanding tasks, you probably already know 24 to 32gb of RAM is for you
Hi bro, I use Logic Pro... Which of both work for me?? Heeeeeelp!!!!