4:45 with the cat is peak humor haha! Good job mate. over 1000 views on your first video is very good. If you keep it up you'll be suprised where you end up by 2025, im sure of it. Just remember to enjoy the process, you've got to want to fight for it. You've got to want to play the game of youtube in order to succeed. Good luck!
Hi from France, loved the presentation style and the simplicity of your video. I'm looking to change out from an old MacBook on Intel to an Apple silicone. I've already got a Mac Mini with M1. I'd love to see a video spelling out which chip with how much RAM in different use cases i.e. editing a 3 or 10 or 30 or 60 min vidéo on final cut. Integrating Motion as well as normal uses like MS office or an other business suite. Wish you continuing success.
Great job very concise information! I’m in the market and trying to decide on a Mac Pro or going with an AMD powered laptop. You took the confusion out of how Apple thinks I’ve always had the phone never had the laptop. Perhaps I should take the plunge. Keep up the good work! Subscribed 👍
@@bobmorane2082 we had 8 MB on our 486DX33. My next computer was a PowerBook G3 with 64 MB RAM. Then a few years later back to PC with 256 MB. It always feels so good at first, but before you know it it becomes constricting. Now both my home Linux PC and work 2012 MBP are core i7s with 16 GB RAM, and honestly I could easily use more.
I went with the 16 M3 Max. Upgraded to 128GB and 8TB. I use it daily for TH-cam, email and some light porn usage on the weekends. Wanted to be safe with over heating and future proofing.
I have 16inch M1 max with 64GB Ram and 2TB storage I always have 3-4 chrome instances with 50-100 tabs open, docker with 2-4 databases running, 8-10 VS code instances and many more.. Never seen any lag or fan running Love it I am sure i can use it for more than a decade
Yeah, but what if you wanna analyze large data sets? . I was asking chatGPT and it was saying a lot of economic data sets over long time horizons could easily require over 100 gb of ram
@@sethother8012 when i bought M1 max, 64GB ram was the max you can buy. Anyways, that 100GB data set problem willbe rare. If its for my work, then i ll be spinning an EC2 on my office's AWS cloud with required memory. If its for myself, which i doubt will happen, i can usr Google cloud, they also gove free GPU and memory for experimental purpose
Hi, First of all, great production quality, hope your channel grows over time, keep up the good work. Second: I have the base model M1 air with 8GB. I just got a great price on it and decided to jump, in worst case I sell it and upgrade to a 16GB model. Long story short, still using it. For everyday work, browsing the web, casual family image/video editing (4k60FPS from i13mini), and I have zero complains. Yes, it would be nice to have more, but I have not faced anything that slowed down this little machine, saying this with 8-12 hours of daily use since I have it. In long term, time will tell, but in the last two years of using it's a great little machine for the price, you just have to know your limits. If you use it as a productivity machine and video rendering times or 3D animation rendering times are important, go for more ram, no question asked, it will pay for itself over time. If you use it as a "facebook machine" and nothing serious, 8GB will do the job.
Starting off strong with this quality. Instantly impressed by the visual composition of your video from the first few seconds. Clearly spoken, clearly explained, no cruft. Subbed!
I bought the 8gb/512gb M1 two years ago, because that was all that Apple had available here in Australia. It works fine for me, including video editing. Only the storage of 512 is somewhat limiting so I keep all videos and iMovie on a separate pair of HDDs.
I bought my m1 macbook air base model for the price as well. I have not run into any issues whatsoever. Im not a user that needs all that much memory because i dont do anything superr intense. No games, no 3d modeling, no 4k video editing.
I support a group of seniors. Almost everyone uses email, web surfing very light photo editing. I am now replacing their old 2015 Mac’s. 8gb on a MB Air or iMac seems to work well.
I have one of the new MacBook Pro models with 18 GB of RAM. I can run the full MS Office suite, Adobe Acrobat with large files, multiple browser tabs, and a Windows VM comfortably. Were more than casual video editing thrown in, I would have upgraded but this setup has been working well since I purchased the computer on launch day last year.
That’s great! I’m glad Apple offers an 18GB option. It’s perfect for those who would normally get 16GB but just want a little extra headroom just incase and don’t need to go all the way up to 24 or 32 gigs.
If your memory pressure is yellow, it just means you may need to upgrade in future. remember as well, the money you keep in your pocket is a kind of future proofing. I was going to go with 128GB of RAM in my current Macbook, but instead I'll leave it at 64 and put that 800 bones towards the next model alongside a trade in. You can't out spec innovation.
You might be right but at the same time the system requirements are also not outpacing innovation. If you spend a little bit extra you very well may have a system that can last you 10 years. Even though in that 10th year there will be far more powerful systems .. ... Your current system will still be able to handle the workload of modern-day applications. I have an 11-year-old MacBook that's still been quite effective up until this point. Regardless you should be good with 64 gigs of ram anyway.
@@KC-lg8qf I have a 10 year old Macbook in my possession. Had it since 2014. It wouldn't be able to handle my regular Cinema 4D and Redshift workflow. My 2021 M1 MBP struggled with it. I realise that's probably an extreme example but I'm only elaborating from my own perspective.
@@theeightytwentyrule you probably didn't aquire the 10 year old laptop with that workflow in mind ......nor did you buy enough computer in 2021. There are 2021 MacBooks that would handle your current workflow...you likely did not get enough ram, or the the max chip. An m1 max MacBook with enough ram and storage should be relevant for years to come....same with m2 and 3. People often have to replace their machines because they didn't get enough power for what their workflow turned into. Not because capable enough computers were not being made at the time.
@@KC-lg8qf No 10 year old laptop could handle my current workflow. You're right about the M1 Max, that could handle it in theory, but I'd have to wait too long for render previews and it would create a bottleneck in my pipeline. The M3 Max is the first Apple laptop where I've been happy to render on the GPU, it even smokes the M2 Ultra by a comfortable margin. Will it last, probs; will I upgrade in about 2 or 3 years, yes. M1 Pro had enough CPU power to render on the CPU but you have to keep up with modern aesthetic trends and CPU renderers can't cut ti.
@@theeightytwentyrule yeah at this point we are mostly looking at speed improvements for a series workflow. How important saving a minute on a task is I guess is up to the user. You might replace your M3 max but it should still be relevant 5 years on down the line.....I think that's the point of the max line at this point.
Great video, well articulated. I had a M2 13" Air with 8GB RAM for about a week. Ended up taking it back because it crashed a couple of times. Just not enough RAM. Currently have the Pro M3 MBP with 18 GB RAM. I went back and forth between 36 and 18. The decider was a couple of 16 vs 32 comparisons done on M1 Pro's that Created Tech and Max Tech did. Massive stress tests! End of the day the 16 GB using swap faired very well. Opted to upgrade the processor and storage instead. Still happy with the decision. I also practice closing apps that are RAM hungry when not in use. New subscriber. Cheers!
This TH-cam channel needs to get more hype! Right now we are giving way too much attention to TH-camrs (with couple of M subscribers) with fancy video editing but shallow or next to nothing substance. This guy has real substance, real education and great videos!
@@luisnavarro9763 You need the amount of ram you need for the time you intend to use the computer. Most people keep their computer for as long as it's still useful. Having more memory usually means that period is longer.
Instant subscribe. You have a fantastic style of breaking down these things in ways that are easy to understand. I work at the Apple Store and will be using your way of explaining Unified Memory like a studio apartment. With Mac customers, often times they come to the Apple store before they're ready to buy, but they need to learn more to help inform their decision when they do buy. Before they leave I always recommend a yt channel or two (like MKBHD) for them to do a lil further research. I'll definitely be telling them about you, because these two videos alone are going to be EXTREMELY impactful for helping people make informed decisions. Which is a big deal when you're spending that kind of money. Keep em coming!
16Gb of ram are still 16GB of ram BUT... I bought a base M1 MacBook Air and I must confess that it works so much better than a Windows machine with 8GB of ram.
@@Teluric2 I had one in my job because the company give me that :/ also I’m an IT professional, I use a lot of computers of my clients. I use to have a 8GB of ram gaming PC, the performance was ok with its internal SSD but it’s performance was amazing with 16GB of ram. Macs with M1 works better than an equivalent windows PC but I would recommend to anyone a computer with 16 gb of ram or expandable memory.
Same here, couldn't believe there was an 8GB option even for the MB Pro. I am a UI/UX designer and my setup was a 2017 MacBook 12" with a nice PC I set up myself. I am planning on going for master's abroad, so bringing my PC is not an option. This week I upgraded my MacBook 12" to the base model of 14" M3 Pro. I was torn between 24GB of memory on regular M3 and 18GB on M3 Pro. I decided to trust unified memory and upgraded to M3 Pro for better CPU/GPU specs. I don't think I'll regret it 😁 Great video, keep up the good work!
The reason the Apple execs recommend less RAM than you need is for the very fact your computer will crap out on you sooner... forcing you to buy a new one because you didn't think ahead. Why would they want you to "future proof" as Apple's entire business model is based on you upgrading every year or two?
Thanks for the comment! I think you’re right - this may be a possible 3rd reason, but Apple also has built their revenue streams to partly account for this. It’s why their second highest source of income is services, and why they continue to invest further into that arena. Services are a constant revenue stream instead of a customer buy one product and not returning for 5-7 years, they buy into a service and use it year-round. Apple also knows playing the long-game is smarter than making a quick buck. If customers repeatedly have to come back every few years out of frustration their computer hit its limits, they risk those customers abandoning Apple altogether. However I do agree - I’m sure Apple also views that if you want more longevity in your computer, you have to pay for it. So you’re absolutely right!
I know aye? Its like buying an already overpriced car.. hyundai.. cough cough and charging extra for additional options that should have been included in the overall price
@@chrishong7887 But you get what you pay for. My wife is still using a MBP I bought in 2009, and I will give her my 2018 MBP and get the newest MBP fully loaded. The last time I bought a PC was IBM ThinkPad in 2005 fully loaded for top dollar, it died in 2011 after 6 years. Once you've had Mac you can't go back.
This was my point exactly. People think 8GB of RAM maybe enough today to justify Apple's decision but it's definitely not enough for the future. I have two M1 airs and the upgraded M1 with 16GB performs far better than the base model. I hope the next M4 series solves this problem for good and Apple starts with 16GB on all Macs.
I just updated my Mac, i went with 16GB ram after my last 2013 Mac was 8GB ram. My new M3 Mac is so much faster than my old 2013. After watching this video im glad i went with 16GB ram. Thanks.
I tried with 96 gbs on an m2 pro. It wasn’t enough to multi task and play video games at the same time. Now I Have 126gbs on an m3 pro max and it works. 126gbs is the winner.
I don't usually comment but: I could not believe you a few hundred subscribers. Fantastic video, quality and production. Just subscribed. Keep up the great work!
If Apple is able to sell 16 GB ram Mac’s for the same price as the current 8 GB models, then i’d be fine with that. Truth is, I bought someone a MacBook and insisted over and over to “torture test” the machine to see if she would need a 16 GB model, because of reasons like this video. As it turns out, after two weeks, she was completely satisfied with it for what she used it for and never had it slow down on her and the battery life was insanely good. That saved me hundreds of dollars and so 8GB was really all she needed, as a college student. So I’m happy for the cheaper, lower ram Mac.
Would you say the 8GB M3 is sufficient for general office work? Office suite, Teams/Zoom, moderate browser work? Budget wise I have to choose between the 8GB/256GB or 16GB/512GB option. To my mind storage is more functionally important than RAM. You can always close a few tabs but you can't magic more storage? It's either that or jump on the Snapdragon X elite train.
@ if it’s on your dime and your work isnt paying for it at all, I’d say the 8GB is sufficient. If work pays for any of it, I’d say get the 16GB. I’ve checked in on my friend many times to see if it’s still a good computer for them and she tells me it’s fast enough for everything she’s needed to do for college: Presentations. Worksheets. Etc.
I couldn't believe seeing that you only had 122 subs when I finished your video. Very underrated channel! Good luck for the future. Im sure it will be a bright one with production quality and informative content like this 👏
I think so also was considering that configuration but base model M2 pro has only 512 gb. 18 months ago got msi i7 13700h with 4050 for 1/3 of that base model as in geekbench 6 that windows model looks very similar. Upgraded ram to 48 and ssd to 2tb all good this week got m1 pro 16gb 1tb to chane my second computer m2 air base model as i couldn’t do much with 256 gb) so i do mainly adobe premier and i tested this week and i would say my windows computer feels faster m1 pro 16/1tb still powerful but i like huge ssd to keep projects off from external ssds. Check also new apple mini m4 / pro looks very good option for editing. Also after my research if you would not use external monitors go for 16’’ mac pros as they are more powerful
I have relatively modest needs and when I bought an m2 air over the summer, I figured 8gb would be fine.. Long story short, it wasn't. Fast foward 6 months, I find a great deal on an 18gb m3pro and the air is currently up for sale. The Pro has been awesome though! I didn't really need the extra power but the extra ram has been perfect and I definitely appreciate all if the extra upgrades that came with the pro. Would definitely recommend this model for everyday light to heavy use that'll last you for the next several years.
In 2024 no one should be selling a computer with 8 GB of RAM that’s almost criminal. Apple actually should upgrade that to 16 gigs and make the maximum ram on the Air 32 gigs and 64 gigs for the Pro. The problem is they are too Damn greedy. And that’s why I don’t buy a Mac. What is happening is the SSD will be burned out much faster, as it will have to use SSD memory to make up for the short fall in RAM on the system. Then you need a new Mac, so sad. If you’re going to buy a Mac, which I think you shouldn’t, then you need to pay for Apple RAM extortion.
I have a 14” MacBook Pro with the M3 Pro, 18GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. It’s more than enough for anything I’ve had to do in college, and I also edit 4K videos on it, which it can handle effortlessly.
Great video, I appreciate your calm demeanor. So many TH-camrs overhype and clickbait products. I would add that choosing more ram in the purchase configuration is a cost effective way to get a longer life out of your SSD. Unlike ram, SSDs have a finite read/write limit so if you swap a lot of data you can kill your SSD fast. And agreed, Apple, stop selling Macs with 8GB of ram!
For a short while, I had an M3 Pro MacBook Pro. It’s good but I also have an M1 Max Apple Studio. I put them through a test of making a project in Final Cut Pro with a 4K three minute video. I added stabilisation, rolling shutter, and a couple of other basics. They produced the same result in the same time!! So I sent back the MacBook Pro and will just carry on using my M1 Studio. I was shocked that the new machine wasn’t much faster, but I also have an M1 MacBook Air with a broken screen, which I will now get fixed. I was always quite happy with that. Just be careful when hearing the exaggeration of claims by some people and do your own tests.
Great video. I'm an IT person. I like to hear other people explain this process to see if they're doing a better job than I do, and I think he really nailed it with the house analogy. Love the animation as well. I can't stress enough to people how they need to future proof the computer by buying more memory. I do think 8GB does work for some people, but it's a very small group of people. I typically say if you're just going to do light web browsing (no more than 3 or 4 open tabs at a time), or light productivity (no more than a 2--4 standard size documents), then you're probably ok. The thing that I find really annoying about Apple's claims: while unified memory and fast onboard storage does speed of the the process of sharing data between different parts of the system, you're also sharing all of the GPU memory pool with the CPU. So wow this is great in many situations, if you're doing some thing that requires a lot of CPU memory AND GPU memory, you're gonna find that shared memory pool is going to get used up much faster. Overall, the people I mostly see with memory issues, are those who do a lot of different stuff throughout the day (especially lots of browser tabs) and never close anything out. That's honestly the bulk of users that I work with.
3 years, I leave 30 tabs open all day. M1 8Gb, I want this thing to break so I can replace it. I can’t justify replacing it when it does such a good job.
It all depends on how memory friendly your websites are, and what else you’re doing on the computer. I have a Mac Studio, 64GB of RAM, 824MB free right now. About 50 tabs open in Safari, Preview and Photoshop have a new small files open, Apple Mail is ole , QuickTime has 1 file open (but not playing), Music app is open (not paying), Note app open, and I have an icon conversion app open (using almost no space). I also have file sharing and screen sharing running, as this is used half as a server and half as a design and video workstation. According to Activity monitor, the bulk of my meme pet is Safari, Notes, and Mail app.
Wow that’s the best explanation of what Apple’s unified memory is! Thank you for the awesome video! It really helped make my decision about getting more RAM for future proofing!
M1 with 8gb Ram user here. As long as your memory pressure is in yellow territory you are fine. But when you enter red, then it gets nasty. Beachballs and un- responsiveness on levels I haven’t seen since System 8 in the 90s. I thought 8GB would be fine because of the super fast SSD as swapdrive, but I was wrong. Now I manage my open windows (big memory-hogs) and always keep an eye on activity monitor. In conclusion: do yourself a favor and go for 16GB or more.
I am the 63rd Subscriber, I want to see you grow to the millions, Your content is amazing, you'll surely get huge success, 😃 Grow to the millions so that I also can 😉 pride of being 63rd Subscriber.
Thanks! When I bought my M2 MacBook Air, the only upgrade I ordered was the 16GB unified memory. I regularly run Chrome with 50+ tabs open, Microsoft Office Suite (on my device), etc. This appears to have been a wise decision. Checking my activity monitor, I've been showing mostly green, but some yellow (using 13.35GB). For a basic M2 device, the upgraded 16GB of RAM appears to be decent. Any further upgrades, I would have then been better off with a Pro version.
Currently I'm working on an Intel MacBook Pro 2019 with 32GB RAM, but I'm thinking about getting a MacBook Air 15" with 24GB of RAM for price reasons. No matter what I opened, the RAM on my current MacBook was always at around 24GB RAM. So do you think that 24 GB RAM is enough for my work as a programmer? Or even 16GB RAM with unified memory?
Not the first time Apple's done similar things. In 2006 Apple was still selling 512 MB as PC makers had moved on to 1-2 GB, and in 2009 they were still selling 2 GB in their Pro models as even cheaper PCs had moved to 4 GB. Let's also not forget that also in 2009, Apple was charging $1,200 to upgrade the RAM in their 17-inch MacBook Pro from 4 GB to 8 GB - an upgrade you can do on that machine today for just $25. The unified memory architecture not only improves performance, but also guards against future memory depreciation.
@@asianstud7 Yes. If you go to Wayback Machine records from February or March 2009 for the 17-inch MacBook Pro specifically, you'll see that. (15-inch Pros and both white and aluminum standard MacBooks capped off at 4 GB, and the Air at 2 GB.)
Nicely explained. Way back in the day when I was at Uni they explained the differences in RAM in a similar fashion. Though the distances are much greater! (Registers are "in your head", cache is on a notepad next to you, RAM is in a book in the local library, an old fashioned hard disk is in a library in a different town! Unified RAM has brought the library next door & SSD has moved the long term library to your own town, but the access times compared to on chip registers are huge. What Apple should really do here is stop charging $200 for another 8gb of RAM, but that would eat into their profits!
But Apple also need to keep less amount of temporal results, so at the end they need less amount of memory, just because their latency is way smaller, they can still recalculate things (like 1 new frame when you already calculating 120 frames in each sec, is not a big extra time, not worth to keep that data..) And they only can do that becaude their RAM is way faster, like the M3 Max 400GB/s required a 8 channel DDR5 and a PCIe 8.0 x16 slot on the motherboard, so where (or when) will you find a laptop motherboard with 8 RAM slots and PCIe 8.0 x16 slot for the GPU to slot? And the transfer speed between 32GB/s (PCIe 4.0 x16) and 400GB/s is not small. Technically this is the same question like HDD or SSD (the higher max capacity has lower transfer speed, and also cheaper), and we all know what the world choosed in the past 10-15 years of HDD vs SSD wars (after a comfortable capacity treshold, the transfer speed is more valueable)
I had Macbook air M1 basic config ... I sold it after 1 month. It was SWAPPING TO SSD NONSTOP. Then I bought Surface Laptop 4 for 500 Euro (i5, 16GB RAM, 512 SSD, Win 11 Pro SuperLite) and I have never been happier. Btw: I'm an IT admin :)
Would you say the 8GB M3 is sufficient for general office work? Office suite, Teams/Zoom, moderate browser work? Budget wise I have to choose between the 8GB/256GB or 16GB/512GB option for my staff. To my mind storage is more functionally important than RAM. You can always close a few tabs but you can't magic more storage and the battery life on the Macs is stellar. Its either that or roll the dice on compatibility with the ARM offerings.
I plan to buy Macbook M3 Pro 16 inch. I am confused between 18GB and 36GB RAM. It is a bit pricey but I want to keep this laptop for so many years. Maybe even 10 years or till it will not be useful anymore. I am not any programmer, coder, editor. I will just use it for daily use such as browsing Internet, watching movies and occassionally trying to play in games like Star Wars, Minecraft or Arkham series etc. I feel like 18 GB is enough but I am worried about future if maybe 36GB is future proof for any updates or games or anything like that. I will be happy for honest advices
Gr8!!!! How easy to understand! Thanks a lot 😊 What about when I buy a Mac Studio M2 Max for my 100k images Lightroom library? And do photo editing with 130mb raw files. What about ssd speed vs ram in this case?
Great video. Very well done. Here’s my take. I use my home computer for very casual use however it is usually connected to a 1080p monitor for a larger screen. Web browsing, email, some excel, some tinkering here and there. I got a base M1 Air 3 yrs ago on a Black Friday deal for $750. It has been, and still is the best value computer I’ve owned. I had a gaming desktop that was great, but this Mac is incredible. No fan is the icing on the cake. It has 8gb of ram, but I have never noticed any slowdowns in the last 3 years. If I was to buy another Mac today, it would again be the base model Air. It’s just too good for a casual user.
I ran my last recording studio on a dell 7415 ryzen 5 8 gig ram 256 harddrive and i jad zero issues. Now i have a macbook air 15 8 gig ram 512 harddrive. If i could perform similar tasks then im happy!
that's some good quality video production! I came across your video thinking that you prob had a good following, but realised that you only have 3.28k subs and 4 videos released.
The way you explain In this video is seems like you can easily become good Tech Teacher in University So I decided to subscribe you what way you explain Love from Lahore,Pakistan 🇵🇰
I’m genuinely impressed by the accuracy of your content and the appealing visuals. Very well done. As someone who had a small hand in MacOS, iCloud, Maps, and others - me being impressed with videos like this is rare. You’ve earned an instant subscribe & like from me. Looking forward to your next video!
I would just sell and upgrade over the years because the cost of upgrading the ram is not worth it (I only use 16gb with no issues editing audio and Final Cut at a pro level). So if I need 32gb I’ll sell and upgrade but I’ve been using 16gb since 2012 macs and never needed more?
❤ My first time on your channel and I love it! Great job on the editing and the high-quality video :-) I’m currently shopping around for a refurbished MacBook Pro, and this definitely helped! I had been sucked into the Apple 8 GB is totally fine campaign.
Thanks! I just started the channel in January so I am still new and only have a few videos. I’m still trying to find my style and niche, and continue learning, so I hope to keep growing.
I went with the base model M1 Pro MacBook Pro back in September of 2022. That came with 16GB of memory and even that's starting to get a bit strained with 4K video projects with multiple layers, so I couldn't imagine using 8GB.
Hey!! Thank you very much. I’ve lived in the Seattle-area my whole life and love the nature, water, and mountains we have here. It’s beautiful. Hopefully we get through this rainy season soon.
Thank you, thank you for such a clear explanation. I like that you speak slowly and clearly. Your video is so sharp and crisp with lovely lighting! Subscribed. Unfortunately, my Intel iMac just bit the dust and I never knew about the Activity Monitor. I used to always buy top of the line iMac and maxed out the RAM. I work with Lightroom and Photoshop and frequently use files 1-2 TB. My 2017 iMac was starting to struggle a bit with large Photoshop files. Especially if I used the Pattern Preview filter in Photoshop. I also do videos for online classes. I’m looking at the M2 Max Studio Mac with 12 core CPU, 38 core GPU, 16 core Neural Engine. Should I get the 32 GB RAM or upgrade to the 64GB?
I have a M2 Mac Mini with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage. I use this machine for day-to-day work and running a single Windows 11 VM in Parallels 18. I use multiple Chrome tabs, 20 or so, FaceTime, MS Teams, Webex, Spotify etc. I have never once been bottle necked by RAM. I have hit 7GB once or twice but that was it. In the Windows 11 VM I have everything at default and it runs just fine. The machine has not once noticeably slowed down. My use case is exactly what this machine was designed for for 90% of users. Therefore I argue that 8GB is just fine. In a few years once the M4 Mac Mini is released, the M2 will become my new Plex server.
When Apple released the first silicon Macs, I got the 16" M1 Pro MBP (16GB RAM/1TB Storage) and experienced programs crashing or slowing down, when trying to multitask while video editing, listening to music, audio editing, and using Pixelmator Pro. So, last year, I got a gently used 16" M2 Max MBP on eBay with 96GB RAM and 2TB Storage for the price of a tricked out M1 Max MBP. Now, I don't experience those problems anymore and I'm happy. So, if you want to use FCPX and do some multitasking, don't go with 16GB or below of memory on a Mac.
Coming from a 2015 iMac with 32GB of RAM a base Mac Mini Pro M2 (16GB of RAM) has been plenty. I only run the OS and apps off the Mac. Still have about 375GB of disk space on the SSD for the OS to trash as swap. Three 2TB NVME drives act as storage. I have 18 apps open and memory pressure is still green. For couch surfing an M1 8/256 MBA has been all I need.
That’s great! For the purposes of this video, my main reason for arguing for 12 or 16GB as a new baseline standard for Apple is because I had anticipated future common software to utilize RAM more heavily - and based on how AI programs are going - this seems to be a good idea even more so now than when this video was originally published. Apples AI relies on internal RAM and I speculate this will continue in the future.
@TechDeclassified Well anticipated. I just hope I might get by on the base M4 mac mini for light to medium music production. I'm about to find out 😅 ty for your content
Love your new Channel... I have a quick question... I have a new MacBook Air 15" M3. I use it on and off throughout the day.. Should shut it down every evening and restart in the morning or just leave it running all night ?? Can't seem to get good answer from anybody including Apple...
Shutting down/restarting your computer will clear your computers cache. Your computer will then perform reads from your hard drive to reload your caches for many various programs. This is unnecessary work for your computer so ideally you should just put your computer to sleep and only restart periodically when you notice any problems with any programs. I normally notice some applications acting strange after about 2 weeks of no restarts. I'm on a 2016 MacBook pro. I close programs down frequently to not exceed my 8gb of ram. I would upgrade but this still works great with logic pro and light coding. Why buy new computers when you can buy stock and bitcoin? If this 2016 MacBook died tomorrow i'm torn between a 16gb MacBook air (better resell value) or 24 gb air or maybe a m1 MacBook pro (any deal that is under $1600)
Seriously, if 8 gb of RAM is still good enough today, I don't think the memory demand is going to increase in the near future. We are gaining memory efficiencies in the apps themselves.
I have Dell XPS 15, 9560, with 32GB RAM and M1 Macbook Air with 8GB RAM just blows it out of the water. I use it for mixing and mastering music projects and I can 100% say that 8GB RAM in Mac is enough for 99% of population. I switched to M2 Max with 32GB RAM and 4TB only because i needed more storage and performance is the same. SoC is the future.
You also don't want a lot of page or memory swaps because that wears out your SSD faster. Also, that unified memory is also being used by the GPU. So, if you are doing a lot of video editing or effects work or 3D rendering you need enough RAM for the program and caching as well as the graphics processing, so you don't choke and get stuttering or the pinwheel of death.
Thanks for the comment! I decided to omit the GPU aspect of this discussion, purely because even Apple’s lowest-level chip includes 8GB of ram. Compared to many NVIDIA cards, Apple has a lot more ram available to it. In my experience the ram is not the first bottleneck with the GPU. But you are absolutely right - there is a GPU factor here as well!
precisely! I remember that one fucking apple youtuber that keeps insisting that 8gb is fine, as a mac can do memory swaps faster. Never thinking about longevity or how certain workloads need more ram. Total deluded apple cult member.
I got 64gb as a developer. It’s probably overkill but I want it to last until 2030 and not have to worry about running VMs. Also got a pretty good deal on clearance.
I personally own a new 16in M3 Pro with 18gb, and a M1 Air with 8gb of RAM. In my current use, I use the M1 air for all business needs, including writing emails, browsing the web, etc. and have noticed pretty much zero performance difference vs my M3 pro. If you regularly edit video, or use RAM hungry apps like those from Adobe, and want to be able to keep a bunch of tabs or other apps open, consider more than 8gb. But if you don't, it's hard to justify the 20% price increase for something that will decline in usability with age anyway due to coming processor innovations. This base M1 air has really blown my mind in terms of how well it can manage multitasking.
I do heavy work with the same air you have and had zero issue related to ram. Worst I had was orange pressure and 1 GB of swap. also remember that mac seamlessly compress memory.
I will be upgrading RAM for next laptop or MacBook whatever I will be purchasing. The way 8 GB is not up to the mark for Mac, similarly windows Machine also requires minimum 12-16 GB. So either I will buy Mac with 16 GB RAM or Windows laptop with 32 GB RAM, next time when I will purchase; and yes it will be almost 2 years from today. Still I need to see ur other vides, but this one is definitely worth subscribing, esp when I see you have been approaching to 1000 subscribers. So, these are my two cent by subscribing your channel. Best of luck dear.
This is the first video talking about the ideea of future proofing your new Mac. This is exactly my principle to apply for my soon new Mac. Yes, for that I will buy a more expensive processor that I will actually need and I will pay a higher price than it should normally be but having the best RAM that you can afford is apparently the guiding principle in Macs today (in the past it was to by the best processor you can afford). What I dislike the most about this "unified memory" thing is that Apple is actually selling the old cheap idea of shared RAM as something they just invented and at a huge illogical price.
loved the video! Brief and very explanatory! I'm buying my first ever laptop and also my first MacBook Pro. The one I'm thinking of is the M3 Pro Space Black 18GB RAM and 512GB SSD. I'm a filmmaker/photographer/colorist/editor. Do you think it will sufice my needs for 3/4 Years? PS: it's not going to be my main machine, and I'm not gonna edit 8k footage for the time being ahahah
![How much RAM do you ACTUALLY need in your M3 Macbook? [2024]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/9A3pp0qXpjw/mqdefault.jpg)
![How much RAM do you ACTUALLY need in your M3 Macbook? [2024]](/img/tr.png)
![[TH] 2024 PMGC League | Survival Stage วันที่ 1 | PUBG MOBILE Global Championship](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/FVFT-PFwU80/mqdefault.jpg)
4:45 with the cat is peak humor haha! Good job mate.
over 1000 views on your first video is very good. If you keep it up you'll be suprised where you end up by 2025, im sure of it.
Just remember to enjoy the process, you've got to want to fight for it. You've got to want to play the game of youtube in order to succeed.
Good luck!
😂 I’m glad you saw that! Thank you for all the support and being one of my first subscribers!
Hi from France, loved the presentation style and the simplicity of your video. I'm looking to change out from an old MacBook on Intel to an Apple silicone. I've already got a Mac Mini with M1. I'd love to see a video spelling out which chip with how much RAM in different use cases i.e. editing a 3 or 10 or 30 or 60 min vidéo on final cut. Integrating Motion as well as normal uses like MS office or an other business suite. Wish you continuing success.
That’s a good lemming. Obey apple and take it up da butttt.
@@TechDeclassified Dude this is your first video?! Subscribed
Great job very concise information! I’m in the market and trying to decide on a Mac Pro or going with an AMD powered laptop. You took the confusion out of how Apple thinks I’ve always had the phone never had the laptop. Perhaps I should take the plunge. Keep up the good work! Subscribed 👍
I remember updating my 486 from 4MB to 32MB RAM, that was powerful.
I did exactly the same thing back in 1996! 👍 Good times.
4mb is low for a 486 mine came with 16mb from the store and was a ambra so kinda cheap
@@bobmorane2082 we had 8 MB on our 486DX33. My next computer was a PowerBook G3 with 64 MB RAM. Then a few years later back to PC with 256 MB. It always feels so good at first, but before you know it it becomes constricting.
Now both my home Linux PC and work 2012 MBP are core i7s with 16 GB RAM, and honestly I could easily use more.
I went with the 16 M3 Max. Upgraded to 128GB and 8TB. I use it daily for TH-cam, email and some light porn usage on the weekends. Wanted to be safe with over heating and future proofing.
Nah you funny 😂😂😂😂😂😂
@@django3108 Nah, I am but serious. 🧐
Peak comedy
LMAOOOO
All the money for porn
I have 16inch M1 max with 64GB Ram and 2TB storage
I always have 3-4 chrome instances with 50-100 tabs open, docker with 2-4 databases running, 8-10 VS code instances and many more..
Never seen any lag or fan running
Love it
I am sure i can use it for more than a decade
64GB pretty expensive, but looks like a have similar tasks as you :D I'm looking to M3 Max with 36Gb RAM.
Yeah, but what if you wanna analyze large data sets? . I was asking chatGPT and it was saying a lot of economic data sets over long time horizons could easily require over 100 gb of ram
@@sethother8012 when i bought M1 max, 64GB ram was the max you can buy.
Anyways, that 100GB data set problem willbe rare. If its for my work, then i ll be spinning an EC2 on my office's AWS cloud with required memory. If its for myself, which i doubt will happen, i can usr Google cloud, they also gove free GPU and memory for experimental purpose
Hi,
First of all, great production quality, hope your channel grows over time, keep up the good work.
Second: I have the base model M1 air with 8GB. I just got a great price on it and decided to jump, in worst case I sell it and upgrade to a 16GB model. Long story short, still using it. For everyday work, browsing the web, casual family image/video editing (4k60FPS from i13mini), and I have zero complains. Yes, it would be nice to have more, but I have not faced anything that slowed down this little machine, saying this with 8-12 hours of daily use since I have it.
In long term, time will tell, but in the last two years of using it's a great little machine for the price, you just have to know your limits. If you use it as a productivity machine and video rendering times or 3D animation rendering times are important, go for more ram, no question asked, it will pay for itself over time.
If you use it as a "facebook machine" and nothing serious, 8GB will do the job.
Starting off strong with this quality. Instantly impressed by the visual composition of your video from the first few seconds. Clearly spoken, clearly explained, no cruft. Subbed!
I bought the 8gb/512gb M1 two years ago, because that was all that Apple had available here in Australia. It works fine for me, including video editing. Only the storage of 512 is somewhat limiting so I keep all videos and iMovie on a separate pair of HDDs.
I bought my m1 macbook air base model for the price as well. I have not run into any issues whatsoever. Im not a user that needs all that much memory because i dont do anything superr intense. No games, no 3d modeling, no 4k video editing.
I am planning to buy mac mini m2 base with 8 gb ram for video editing. I hope that will be sufficient.
@@MunavverMalikFishing 8gb for video editing isn't very much, especially if you want to work with 4k video. I'd recommend going for at least 16gb
@@hobosnake1 thank you 🙏
This helped me a lot. I Just ordered a M3 18gb of RAM. I’m upgrading from a 2019 i9 16in MacBook Pro.
I support a group of seniors. Almost everyone uses email, web surfing very light photo editing. I am now replacing their old 2015 Mac’s. 8gb on a MB Air or iMac seems to work well.
In this case I agree 8 gigs is probably more than fine. They’re not looking for the latest and greatest, or to future-proof their Mac.
@@TechDeclassified I would not say that considering Apple force you to new MacOS regardless toy like it or not.
I got my Mom a Mini 8gb.. for her use she will not see a RAM issue for the next 8 years :D
she's 68
@fallenleaf24
At that age, I’m hoping to have RAM issues in 8 years time.
@@alexclemence8685 hahaha right!
I have one of the new MacBook Pro models with 18 GB of RAM. I can run the full MS Office suite, Adobe Acrobat with large files, multiple browser tabs, and a Windows VM comfortably. Were more than casual video editing thrown in, I would have upgraded but this setup has been working well since I purchased the computer on launch day last year.
That’s great! I’m glad Apple offers an 18GB option. It’s perfect for those who would normally get 16GB but just want a little extra headroom just incase and don’t need to go all the way up to 24 or 32 gigs.
This is relieving. Same configuration I've chosen for graphic design and hope to use it for a long time.
If your memory pressure is yellow, it just means you may need to upgrade in future. remember as well, the money you keep in your pocket is a kind of future proofing. I was going to go with 128GB of RAM in my current Macbook, but instead I'll leave it at 64 and put that 800 bones towards the next model alongside a trade in. You can't out spec innovation.
You might be right but at the same time the system requirements are also not outpacing innovation. If you spend a little bit extra you very well may have a system that can last you 10 years. Even though in that 10th year there will be far more powerful systems .. ... Your current system will still be able to handle the workload of modern-day applications. I have an 11-year-old MacBook that's still been quite effective up until this point. Regardless you should be good with 64 gigs of ram anyway.
@@KC-lg8qf I have a 10 year old Macbook in my possession. Had it since 2014. It wouldn't be able to handle my regular Cinema 4D and Redshift workflow. My 2021 M1 MBP struggled with it. I realise that's probably an extreme example but I'm only elaborating from my own perspective.
@@theeightytwentyrule you probably didn't aquire the 10 year old laptop with that workflow in mind ......nor did you buy enough computer in 2021. There are 2021 MacBooks that would handle your current workflow...you likely did not get enough ram, or the the max chip.
An m1 max MacBook with enough ram and storage should be relevant for years to come....same with m2 and 3. People often have to replace their machines because they didn't get enough power for what their workflow turned into. Not because capable enough computers were not being made at the time.
@@KC-lg8qf No 10 year old laptop could handle my current workflow. You're right about the M1 Max, that could handle it in theory, but I'd have to wait too long for render previews and it would create a bottleneck in my pipeline. The M3 Max is the first Apple laptop where I've been happy to render on the GPU, it even smokes the M2 Ultra by a comfortable margin. Will it last, probs; will I upgrade in about 2 or 3 years, yes. M1 Pro had enough CPU power to render on the CPU but you have to keep up with modern aesthetic trends and CPU renderers can't cut ti.
@@theeightytwentyrule yeah at this point we are mostly looking at speed improvements for a series workflow. How important saving a minute on a task is I guess is up to the user. You might replace your M3 max but it should still be relevant 5 years on down the line.....I think that's the point of the max line at this point.
Great video, well articulated. I had a M2 13" Air with 8GB RAM for about a week. Ended up taking it back because it crashed a couple of times. Just not enough RAM. Currently have the Pro M3 MBP with 18 GB RAM. I went back and forth between 36 and 18. The decider was a couple of 16 vs 32 comparisons done on M1 Pro's that Created Tech and Max Tech did. Massive stress tests! End of the day the 16 GB using swap faired very well. Opted to upgrade the processor and storage instead. Still happy with the decision. I also practice closing apps that are RAM hungry when not in use. New subscriber. Cheers!
What do you do daily ?
@@marceloriffo1988 Sales and marketing to pay the bills and photographer for fun with some occasional video editing of drone footage.
This TH-cam channel needs to get more hype! Right now we are giving way too much attention to TH-camrs (with couple of M subscribers) with fancy video editing but shallow or next to nothing substance. This guy has real substance, real education and great videos!
Wow thank you that means so much!
About to pull the trigger on the M3 16 GB I’m glad I came across your video
The golden rule has always been spring for more memory if you can. You might not "need" it now, but you will in a few years time.
@@st3v3sm1th Hi, if i plan upgrading every year do i still need upgrading from 8 gb ram?
@@luisnavarro9763 You need the amount of ram you need for the time you intend to use the computer. Most people keep their computer for as long as it's still useful. Having more memory usually means that period is longer.
@@luisnavarro9763with Apple you can’t upgrade every year unless you have bottomless bank account
Instant subscribe. You have a fantastic style of breaking down these things in ways that are easy to understand. I work at the Apple Store and will be using your way of explaining Unified Memory like a studio apartment.
With Mac customers, often times they come to the Apple store before they're ready to buy, but they need to learn more to help inform their decision when they do buy. Before they leave I always recommend a yt channel or two (like MKBHD) for them to do a lil further research. I'll definitely be telling them about you, because these two videos alone are going to be EXTREMELY impactful for helping people make informed decisions. Which is a big deal when you're spending that kind of money. Keep em coming!
Wow thanks! This is such a great compliment.
16Gb of ram are still 16GB of ram BUT... I bought a base M1 MacBook Air and I must confess that it works so much better than a Windows machine with 8GB of ram.
Same.
Do you really have a 8 gigs windows laptop?
Confess why? Smell like a lie.
@@Teluric2 I had one in my job because the company give me that :/ also I’m an IT professional, I use a lot of computers of my clients. I use to have a 8GB of ram gaming PC, the performance was ok with its internal SSD but it’s performance was amazing with 16GB of ram. Macs with M1 works better than an equivalent windows PC but I would recommend to anyone a computer with 16 gb of ram or expandable memory.
Yes I do. It's actually the norm in the U.K now ,8 gb ram, 128gb storage. No kidding.
To me the Air line doesn't convince me, you pay 100-400$ more (depending on different factors) and go with the Pro which is better
Same here, couldn't believe there was an 8GB option even for the MB Pro. I am a UI/UX designer and my setup was a 2017 MacBook 12" with a nice PC I set up myself. I am planning on going for master's abroad, so bringing my PC is not an option. This week I upgraded my MacBook 12" to the base model of 14" M3 Pro. I was torn between 24GB of memory on regular M3 and 18GB on M3 Pro. I decided to trust unified memory and upgraded to M3 Pro for better CPU/GPU specs. I don't think I'll regret it 😁 Great video, keep up the good work!
What ram did you go for?
@@Roots_to_Revenue I got the base M3Pro MBPro with 18GB of unified memory
Surprisingly well produced video for such a small channel. Keep it up and I'm sure you'll find an audience. I was impressed!
One of the best macbook video ever saw
The reason the Apple execs recommend less RAM than you need is for the very fact your computer will crap out on you sooner... forcing you to buy a new one because you didn't think ahead. Why would they want you to "future proof" as Apple's entire business model is based on you upgrading every year or two?
Thanks for the comment! I think you’re right - this may be a possible 3rd reason, but Apple also has built their revenue streams to partly account for this. It’s why their second highest source of income is services, and why they continue to invest further into that arena. Services are a constant revenue stream instead of a customer buy one product and not returning for 5-7 years, they buy into a service and use it year-round.
Apple also knows playing the long-game is smarter than making a quick buck. If customers repeatedly have to come back every few years out of frustration their computer hit its limits, they risk those customers abandoning Apple altogether.
However I do agree - I’m sure Apple also views that if you want more longevity in your computer, you have to pay for it. So you’re absolutely right!
Best comment. 8 gigs will wear SSD sooner. Actually most macs that have dead SSD are 8 gigs macs.
I have a 8GB Mac from 2009 💀
@@Unlockitzthey talk about machines that works.
@@Teluric2 oh ok
It's just a money grab lmao. They overprice all of their products.
I know aye? Its like buying an already overpriced car.. hyundai.. cough cough and charging extra for additional options that should have been included in the overall price
@@chrishong7887 But you get what you pay for. My wife is still using a MBP I bought in 2009, and I will give her my 2018 MBP and get the newest MBP fully loaded. The last time I bought a PC was IBM ThinkPad in 2005 fully loaded for top dollar, it died in 2011 after 6 years. Once you've had Mac you can't go back.
This was my point exactly. People think 8GB of RAM maybe enough today to justify Apple's decision but it's definitely not enough for the future. I have two M1 airs and the upgraded M1 with 16GB performs far better than the base model. I hope the next M4 series solves this problem for good and Apple starts with 16GB on all Macs.
I just updated my Mac, i went with 16GB ram after my last 2013 Mac was 8GB ram. My new M3 Mac is so much faster than my old 2013. After watching this video im glad i went with 16GB ram. Thanks.
I tried with 96 gbs on an m2 pro. It wasn’t enough to multi task and play video games at the same time. Now I
Have 126gbs on an m3 pro max and it works. 126gbs is the winner.
I don't usually comment but: I could not believe you a few hundred subscribers. Fantastic video, quality and production. Just subscribed. Keep up the great work!
If Apple is able to sell 16 GB ram Mac’s for the same price as the current 8 GB models, then i’d be fine with that. Truth is, I bought someone a MacBook and insisted over and over to “torture test” the machine to see if she would need a 16 GB model, because of reasons like this video. As it turns out, after two weeks, she was completely satisfied with it for what she used it for and never had it slow down on her and the battery life was insanely good. That saved me hundreds of dollars and so 8GB was really all she needed, as a college student. So I’m happy for the cheaper, lower ram Mac.
Would you say the 8GB M3 is sufficient for general office work? Office suite, Teams/Zoom, moderate browser work? Budget wise I have to choose between the 8GB/256GB or 16GB/512GB option. To my mind storage is more functionally important than RAM. You can always close a few tabs but you can't magic more storage? It's either that or jump on the Snapdragon X elite train.
@ if it’s on your dime and your work isnt paying for it at all, I’d say the 8GB is sufficient. If work pays for any of it, I’d say get the 16GB.
I’ve checked in on my friend many times to see if it’s still a good computer for them and she tells me it’s fast enough for everything she’s needed to do for college: Presentations. Worksheets. Etc.
i already love the video at 00:30, 100/100, just perfect in any aspect of content, editing and everything else
I couldn't believe seeing that you only had 122 subs when I finished your video.
Very underrated channel! Good luck for the future. Im sure it will be a bright one with production quality and informative content like this 👏
Thank you! I hope to keep getting better and making good content. Thanks for watching.
Yeah, that actually shocked me now that I looked, especially since the quality is comparable to channels with millions of subs. 😮
HOLY I DIDNT EVEN REALIZE. This channel is amazing
it's 894 now. Keep it up. 👍
I’m watching 1 month in the future and damn he really increased his numbers in such a short time!
Thanks for informative video. Is 18gb ram m3 pro enough for Video editing?
I think so also was considering that configuration but base model M2 pro has only 512 gb. 18 months ago got msi i7 13700h with 4050 for 1/3 of that base model as in geekbench 6 that windows model looks very similar. Upgraded ram to 48 and ssd to 2tb all good this week got m1 pro 16gb 1tb to chane my second computer m2 air base model as i couldn’t do much with 256 gb) so i do mainly adobe premier and i tested this week and i would say my windows computer feels faster m1 pro 16/1tb still powerful but i like huge ssd to keep projects off from external ssds. Check also new apple mini m4 / pro looks very good option for editing. Also after my research if you would not use external monitors go for 16’’ mac pros as they are more powerful
I have relatively modest needs and when I bought an m2 air over the summer, I figured 8gb would be fine.. Long story short, it wasn't. Fast foward 6 months, I find a great deal on an 18gb m3pro and the air is currently up for sale. The Pro has been awesome though! I didn't really need the extra power but the extra ram has been perfect and I definitely appreciate all if the extra upgrades that came with the pro. Would definitely recommend this model for everyday light to heavy use that'll last you for the next several years.
In 2024 no one should be selling a computer with 8 GB of RAM that’s almost criminal. Apple actually should upgrade that to 16 gigs and make the maximum ram on the Air 32 gigs and 64 gigs for the Pro. The problem is they are too Damn greedy. And that’s why I don’t buy a Mac. What is happening is the SSD will be burned out much faster, as it will have to use SSD memory to make up for the short fall in RAM on the system. Then you need a new Mac, so sad. If you’re going to buy a Mac, which I think you shouldn’t, then you need to pay for Apple RAM extortion.
I have a 14” MacBook Pro with the M3 Pro, 18GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. It’s more than enough for anything I’ve had to do in college, and I also edit 4K videos on it, which it can handle effortlessly.
This is one of the fewest videos of this topic that holds my attention till the end.
Your videos are of very high quality! I thought you had hundreds of thousands of subscribers, you definitely deserve more attention!
Great video, I appreciate your calm demeanor. So many TH-camrs overhype and clickbait products. I would add that choosing more ram in the purchase configuration is a cost effective way to get a longer life out of your SSD. Unlike ram, SSDs have a finite read/write limit so if you swap a lot of data you can kill your SSD fast. And agreed, Apple, stop selling Macs with 8GB of ram!
What a great explanation about RAM with the room analogy. Thanks for the quality content!
For a short while, I had an M3 Pro MacBook Pro. It’s good but I also have an M1 Max Apple Studio. I put them through a test of making a project in Final Cut Pro with a 4K three minute video. I added stabilisation, rolling shutter, and a couple of other basics. They produced the same result in the same time!! So I sent back the MacBook Pro and will just carry on using my M1 Studio. I was shocked that the new machine wasn’t much faster, but I also have an M1 MacBook Air with a broken screen, which I will now get fixed. I was always quite happy with that. Just be careful when hearing the exaggeration of claims by some people and do your own tests.
You rock and your videos are so clear in providing technological details. You clearly explain the differences in ram. Thank you.
Great video. I'm an IT person. I like to hear other people explain this process to see if they're doing a better job than I do, and I think he really nailed it with the house analogy. Love the animation as well. I can't stress enough to people how they need to future proof the computer by buying more memory. I do think 8GB does work for some people, but it's a very small group of people. I typically say if you're just going to do light web browsing (no more than 3 or 4 open tabs at a time), or light productivity (no more than a 2--4 standard size documents), then you're probably ok.
The thing that I find really annoying about Apple's claims: while unified memory and fast onboard storage does speed of the the process of sharing data between different parts of the system, you're also sharing all of the GPU memory pool with the CPU. So wow this is great in many situations, if you're doing some thing that requires a lot of CPU memory AND GPU memory, you're gonna find that shared memory pool is going to get used up much faster.
Overall, the people I mostly see with memory issues, are those who do a lot of different stuff throughout the day (especially lots of browser tabs) and never close anything out. That's honestly the bulk of users that I work with.
I always have like 50 chrome tabs open on my 8gb M1. No problems so far. Been using it for 2 years now.
3 years, I leave 30 tabs open all day. M1 8Gb, I want this thing to break so I can replace it. I can’t justify replacing it when it does such a good job.
It all depends on how memory friendly your websites are, and what else you’re doing on the computer. I have a Mac Studio, 64GB of RAM, 824MB free right now. About 50 tabs open in Safari, Preview and Photoshop have a new small files open, Apple Mail is ole , QuickTime has 1 file open (but not playing), Music app is open (not paying), Note app open, and I have an icon conversion app open (using almost no space). I also have file sharing and screen sharing running, as this is used half as a server and half as a design and video workstation. According to Activity monitor, the bulk of my meme pet is Safari, Notes, and Mail app.
Wow that’s the best explanation of what Apple’s unified memory is! Thank you for the awesome video! It really helped make my decision about getting more RAM for future proofing!
M1 with 8gb Ram user here. As long as your memory pressure is in yellow territory you are fine. But when you enter red, then it gets nasty. Beachballs and un- responsiveness on levels I haven’t seen since System 8 in the 90s. I thought 8GB would be fine because of the super fast SSD as swapdrive, but I was wrong. Now I manage my open windows (big memory-hogs) and always keep an eye on activity monitor. In conclusion: do yourself a favor and go for 16GB or more.
I am the 63rd Subscriber, I want to see you grow to the millions,
Your content is amazing, you'll surely get huge success,
😃 Grow to the millions so that I also can 😉 pride of being 63rd Subscriber.
Wow thank you! You’re so kind.
Only 2 video and i watched them both fully ... This channel is going to grow Bellow my nose i am telling u
new sub, you are a very intelligent teacher using simple language and visuals for a noob like me. Thanks and love from kenya
Thanks! When I bought my M2 MacBook Air, the only upgrade I ordered was the 16GB unified memory. I regularly run Chrome with 50+ tabs open, Microsoft Office Suite (on my device), etc. This appears to have been a wise decision. Checking my activity monitor, I've been showing mostly green, but some yellow (using 13.35GB). For a basic M2 device, the upgraded 16GB of RAM appears to be decent. Any further upgrades, I would have then been better off with a Pro version.
The problem isn't Apple selling 8 gigs of memory, it's that people keep buying machines with 8 gigs. Why would Apple change under these conditions?
Currently I'm working on an Intel MacBook Pro 2019 with 32GB RAM, but I'm thinking about getting a MacBook Air 15" with 24GB of RAM for price reasons.
No matter what I opened, the RAM on my current MacBook was always at around 24GB RAM.
So do you think that 24 GB RAM is enough for my work as a programmer? Or even 16GB RAM with unified memory?
Not the first time Apple's done similar things. In 2006 Apple was still selling 512 MB as PC makers had moved on to 1-2 GB, and in 2009 they were still selling 2 GB in their Pro models as even cheaper PCs had moved to 4 GB. Let's also not forget that also in 2009, Apple was charging $1,200 to upgrade the RAM in their 17-inch MacBook Pro from 4 GB to 8 GB - an upgrade you can do on that machine today for just $25. The unified memory architecture not only improves performance, but also guards against future memory depreciation.
Wait , you said Apple was charging 1200 bucks to go from 4gb to 8gb? Thats crazy. Are you sure?
@@asianstud7 Yes. If you go to Wayback Machine records from February or March 2009 for the 17-inch MacBook Pro specifically, you'll see that. (15-inch Pros and both white and aluminum standard MacBooks capped off at 4 GB, and the Air at 2 GB.)
Another great video!
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed this one too!
Nicely explained. Way back in the day when I was at Uni they explained the differences in RAM in a similar fashion. Though the distances are much greater! (Registers are "in your head", cache is on a notepad next to you, RAM is in a book in the local library, an old fashioned hard disk is in a library in a different town! Unified RAM has brought the library next door & SSD has moved the long term library to your own town, but the access times compared to on chip registers are huge.
What Apple should really do here is stop charging $200 for another 8gb of RAM, but that would eat into their profits!
But Apple also need to keep less amount of temporal results, so at the end they need less amount of memory, just because their latency is way smaller, they can still recalculate things (like 1 new frame when you already calculating 120 frames in each sec, is not a big extra time, not worth to keep that data..) And they only can do that becaude their RAM is way faster, like the M3 Max 400GB/s required a 8 channel DDR5 and a PCIe 8.0 x16 slot on the motherboard, so where (or when) will you find a laptop motherboard with 8 RAM slots and PCIe 8.0 x16 slot for the GPU to slot? And the transfer speed between 32GB/s (PCIe 4.0 x16) and 400GB/s is not small. Technically this is the same question like HDD or SSD (the higher max capacity has lower transfer speed, and also cheaper), and we all know what the world choosed in the past 10-15 years of HDD vs SSD wars (after a comfortable capacity treshold, the transfer speed is more valueable)
I had Macbook air M1 basic config ... I sold it after 1 month. It was SWAPPING TO SSD NONSTOP. Then I bought Surface Laptop 4 for 500 Euro (i5, 16GB RAM, 512 SSD, Win 11 Pro SuperLite) and I have never been happier. Btw: I'm an IT admin :)
Would you say the 8GB M3 is sufficient for general office work? Office suite, Teams/Zoom, moderate browser work? Budget wise I have to choose between the 8GB/256GB or 16GB/512GB option for my staff. To my mind storage is more functionally important than RAM. You can always close a few tabs but you can't magic more storage and the battery life on the Macs is stellar. Its either that or roll the dice on compatibility with the ARM offerings.
I learned something after this video.
I've watched a lot of these tech videos on mackbooks but this was the only one that was helpful! Thanks man!
🤣🤣🤣 I love the old Mac you’re using for this video. It looks like it’s got firewire 800 and a middle mini display port
Plz reply my question which one is better to buy for m2 air 16gb 1tb ssd or m3 air 16gb 512gb ssd for video editing and programming. Take love❤😊
I plan to buy Macbook M3 Pro 16 inch. I am confused between 18GB and 36GB RAM. It is a bit pricey but I want to keep this laptop for so many years. Maybe even 10 years or till it will not be useful anymore.
I am not any programmer, coder, editor. I will just use it for daily use such as browsing Internet, watching movies and occassionally trying to play in games like Star Wars, Minecraft or Arkham series etc.
I feel like 18 GB is enough but I am worried about future if maybe 36GB is future proof for any updates or games or anything like that. I will be happy for honest advices
Great video, well made and straight to the point. Earned a sub.
Gr8!!!! How easy to understand! Thanks a lot 😊
What about when I buy a Mac Studio M2 Max for my 100k images Lightroom library? And do photo editing with 130mb raw files. What about ssd speed vs ram in this case?
Great video. Very well done. Here’s my take. I use my home computer for very casual use however it is usually connected to a 1080p monitor for a larger screen. Web browsing, email, some excel, some tinkering here and there. I got a base M1 Air 3 yrs ago on a Black Friday deal for $750. It has been, and still is the best value computer I’ve owned. I had a gaming desktop that was great, but this Mac is incredible. No fan is the icing on the cake. It has 8gb of ram, but I have never noticed any slowdowns in the last 3 years. If I was to buy another Mac today, it would again be the base model Air. It’s just too good for a casual user.
I ran my last recording studio on a dell 7415 ryzen 5 8 gig ram 256 harddrive and i jad zero issues. Now i have a macbook air 15 8 gig ram 512 harddrive. If i could perform similar tasks then im happy!
that's some good quality video production! I came across your video thinking that you prob had a good following, but realised that you only have 3.28k subs and 4 videos released.
Your content is Amazing! Keep it up. You should have a million subs
He's new to TH-cam: Joined Nov 25, 2023
He's new to TH-cam: Joined Nov 25, 2023
The way you explain In this video is seems like you can easily become good Tech Teacher in University So I decided to subscribe you what way you explain Love from Lahore,Pakistan 🇵🇰
One of the few videos that seem informative and concise at the same time! Subscribed and looking for more content now. Well done!
I’m genuinely impressed by the accuracy of your content and the appealing visuals. Very well done. As someone who had a small hand in MacOS, iCloud, Maps, and others - me being impressed with videos like this is rare. You’ve earned an instant subscribe & like from me. Looking forward to your next video!
Dang that’s awesome thank you!!
@@TechDeclassified You're welcome!! =) Keep up the great work!
Pleasant way of presenting this kind of content - resulting in more subscriber! Kind regards from Berlin, Germany ;-)
love your explanation of everything, helps me a lot as I plan to get a M3 MAX
Great video production and useful information 😊
I would just sell and upgrade over the years because the cost of upgrading the ram is not worth it (I only use 16gb with no issues editing audio and Final Cut at a pro level). So if I need 32gb I’ll sell and upgrade but I’ve been using 16gb since 2012 macs and never needed more?
Yep I bought the 8 gb air and I’m constantly going into swap memory. But my pressure is still always green. Wish I would have upgraded.
❤ My first time on your channel and I love it! Great job on the editing and the high-quality video :-) I’m currently shopping around for a refurbished MacBook Pro, and this definitely helped! I had been sucked into the Apple 8 GB is totally fine campaign.
THANK YOU. Dear Lord trying to decode RAM and unified memory just to see if I can run one program on a laptop.
Bro… the video shows a M1 Max chip in purple surrounded by unified memory chips. My base M1 from 2020 still runs like butter.
love the diagram in terms of the house and how you get to one side and the other
Great video
Damn bro I didnt notice that you only have less than 3k subs with this video quality!
Thanks! I just started the channel in January so I am still new and only have a few videos. I’m still trying to find my style and niche, and continue learning, so I hope to keep growing.
I went with the base model M1 Pro MacBook Pro back in September of 2022. That came with 16GB of memory and even that's starting to get a bit strained with 4K video projects with multiple layers, so I couldn't imagine using 8GB.
It's not getting strained because of RAM, trust me.
@@rafadydkiemmacha7543 - Then, what's the issue? GPU cores?
@@TheBladedTechShow yeah, I'd say GPU is the bottleneck here.
Great video (from a fellow Seattle-area Apple fan with a non-Apple TH-cam channel)! Good luck! 😄
Hey!! Thank you very much. I’ve lived in the Seattle-area my whole life and love the nature, water, and mountains we have here. It’s beautiful. Hopefully we get through this rainy season soon.
Thank you so much for this. I always start at 16G! Apple is straight trippin'!
New sub!
How do you only have 1.5k subs? Your videos are simple and edited very well
Thank you, thank you for such a clear explanation. I like that you speak slowly and clearly. Your video is so sharp and crisp with lovely lighting! Subscribed. Unfortunately, my Intel iMac just bit the dust and I never knew about the Activity Monitor. I used to always buy top of the line iMac and maxed out the RAM. I work with Lightroom and Photoshop and frequently use files 1-2 TB. My 2017 iMac was starting to struggle a bit with large Photoshop files. Especially if I used the Pattern Preview filter in Photoshop. I also do videos for online classes. I’m looking at the M2 Max Studio Mac with 12 core CPU, 38 core GPU, 16 core Neural Engine. Should I get the 32 GB RAM or upgrade to the 64GB?
underrated channel + 1 subscriber :)
Thanks for subscribing!
I have a M2 Mac Mini with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage. I use this machine for day-to-day work and running a single Windows 11 VM in Parallels 18. I use multiple Chrome tabs, 20 or so, FaceTime, MS Teams, Webex, Spotify etc. I have never once been bottle necked by RAM. I have hit 7GB once or twice but that was it. In the Windows 11 VM I have everything at default and it runs just fine.
The machine has not once noticeably slowed down.
My use case is exactly what this machine was designed for for 90% of users.
Therefore I argue that 8GB is just fine.
In a few years once the M4 Mac Mini is released, the M2 will become my new Plex server.
When Apple released the first silicon Macs, I got the 16" M1 Pro MBP (16GB RAM/1TB Storage) and experienced programs crashing or slowing down, when trying to multitask while video editing, listening to music, audio editing, and using Pixelmator Pro. So, last year, I got a gently used 16" M2 Max MBP on eBay with 96GB RAM and 2TB Storage for the price of a tricked out M1 Max MBP. Now, I don't experience those problems anymore and I'm happy. So, if you want to use FCPX and do some multitasking, don't go with 16GB or below of memory on a Mac.
Coming from a 2015 iMac with 32GB of RAM a base Mac Mini Pro M2 (16GB of RAM) has been plenty. I only run the OS and apps off the Mac. Still have about 375GB of disk space on the SSD for the OS to trash as swap. Three 2TB NVME drives act as storage. I have 18 apps open and memory pressure is still green. For couch surfing an M1 8/256 MBA has been all I need.
That’s great! For the purposes of this video, my main reason for arguing for 12 or 16GB as a new baseline standard for Apple is because I had anticipated future common software to utilize RAM more heavily - and based on how AI programs are going - this seems to be a good idea even more so now than when this video was originally published. Apples AI relies on internal RAM and I speculate this will continue in the future.
@TechDeclassified Well anticipated. I just hope I might get by on the base M4 mac mini for light to medium music production. I'm about to find out 😅 ty for your content
Great video. Good information.
Thanks for watching!
Love your new Channel... I have a quick question... I have a new MacBook Air 15" M3. I use it on and off throughout the day.. Should shut it down every evening and restart in the morning or just leave it running all night ?? Can't seem to get good answer from anybody including Apple...
Dude, come on. Should you leave your car running all night? Pull the head out and think.
Shutting down/restarting your computer will clear your computers cache. Your computer will then perform reads from your hard drive to reload your caches for many various programs. This is unnecessary work for your computer so ideally you should just put your computer to sleep and only restart periodically when you notice any problems with any programs. I normally notice some applications acting strange after about 2 weeks of no restarts. I'm on a 2016 MacBook pro. I close programs down frequently to not exceed my 8gb of ram. I would upgrade but this still works great with logic pro and light coding. Why buy new computers when you can buy stock and bitcoin? If this 2016 MacBook died tomorrow i'm torn between a 16gb MacBook air (better resell value) or 24 gb air or maybe a m1 MacBook pro (any deal that is under $1600)
Seriously, if 8 gb of RAM is still good enough today, I don't think the memory demand is going to increase in the near future. We are gaining memory efficiencies in the apps themselves.
I have Dell XPS 15, 9560, with 32GB RAM and M1 Macbook Air with 8GB RAM just blows it out of the water. I use it for mixing and mastering music projects and I can 100% say that 8GB RAM in Mac is enough for 99% of population.
I switched to M2 Max with 32GB RAM and 4TB only because i needed more storage and performance is the same. SoC is the future.
You also don't want a lot of page or memory swaps because that wears out your SSD faster. Also, that unified memory is also being used by the GPU. So, if you are doing a lot of video editing or effects work or 3D rendering you need enough RAM for the program and caching as well as the graphics processing, so you don't choke and get stuttering or the pinwheel of death.
Thanks for the comment! I decided to omit the GPU aspect of this discussion, purely because even Apple’s lowest-level chip includes 8GB of ram. Compared to many NVIDIA cards, Apple has a lot more ram available to it. In my experience the ram is not the first bottleneck with the GPU.
But you are absolutely right - there is a GPU factor here as well!
precisely! I remember that one fucking apple youtuber that keeps insisting that 8gb is fine, as a mac can do memory swaps faster. Never thinking about longevity or how certain workloads need more ram. Total deluded apple cult member.
Plus, many apps truly do need access to more than 8GB at a time, so even with memory swapping, it’s still not going to be enough.
I got 64gb as a developer. It’s probably overkill but I want it to last until 2030 and not have to worry about running VMs. Also got a pretty good deal on clearance.
This is very helpful as an astrophotographer who needs ram and speed to stack Astro pics. Thank you
I personally own a new 16in M3 Pro with 18gb, and a M1 Air with 8gb of RAM. In my current use, I use the M1 air for all business needs, including writing emails, browsing the web, etc. and have noticed pretty much zero performance difference vs my M3 pro. If you regularly edit video, or use RAM hungry apps like those from Adobe, and want to be able to keep a bunch of tabs or other apps open, consider more than 8gb. But if you don't, it's hard to justify the 20% price increase for something that will decline in usability with age anyway due to coming processor innovations. This base M1 air has really blown my mind in terms of how well it can manage multitasking.
But before M1 MacBook Pro already got no problem on multitasking what do you mean
I do heavy work with the same air you have and had zero issue related to ram. Worst I had was orange pressure and 1 GB of swap. also remember that mac seamlessly compress memory.
Wish I watched this years ago. Bought an M1 MacBook with 16gb. Always overloaded. My Activity Monitor is open 24/7.
this was very helpful, thank you! 😊
I have a 2016 16gb MacBook Pro with a 3.1ghz intel i5… and it couldn’t handle a website where I was shopping for glasses. I need an upgrade 😅
Hello from Moscow! Great job!
My 8gb Mac definitely is like a 16gb machine, esp compare to all my other machines
I will be upgrading RAM for next laptop or MacBook whatever I will be purchasing. The way 8 GB is not up to the mark for Mac, similarly windows Machine also requires minimum 12-16 GB. So either I will buy Mac with 16 GB RAM or Windows laptop with 32 GB RAM, next time when I will purchase; and yes it will be almost 2 years from today.
Still I need to see ur other vides, but this one is definitely worth subscribing, esp when I see you have been approaching to 1000 subscribers. So, these are my two cent by subscribing your channel. Best of luck dear.
This guy seriously needs more subs and views
This is the first video talking about the ideea of future proofing your new Mac. This is exactly my principle to apply for my soon new Mac.
Yes, for that I will buy a more expensive processor that I will actually need and I will pay a higher price than it should normally be but having the best RAM that you can afford is apparently the guiding principle in Macs today (in the past it was to by the best processor you can afford).
What I dislike the most about this "unified memory" thing is that Apple is actually selling the old cheap idea of shared RAM as something they just invented and at a huge illogical price.
loved the video! Brief and very explanatory! I'm buying my first ever laptop and also my first MacBook Pro. The one I'm thinking of is the M3 Pro Space Black 18GB RAM and 512GB SSD. I'm a filmmaker/photographer/colorist/editor. Do you think it will sufice my needs for 3/4 Years? PS: it's not going to be my main machine, and I'm not gonna edit 8k footage for the time being ahahah