8GB RAM in M3 MacBook Pro Proves the Bottleneck in Real-World Tests

[fenderbass146]

Pathetic. Justifying 8 GB of Ram in 2023 at $1600 is insane. Pro moniker aside. That said, it's Apple job to make money. If people buy it, so be it.

 

[snak-atak]

This again. Apple is not responsible if you buy less RAM then you need for your use case.

Agree! The same people that complain that Apple doesn’t give enough options are the same ones that will complain if they take away the 8gb option. A bunch of complainers. There’s no satisfying them.

 

[MapleBeercules]

No.

1. Keep starting price at $1599, upgrade all 8 GB to 16 GB: Apple loses potential profit of $185/unit.
2. Raise starting price to $1799, remove 8 GB models: Apple loses potential sale due to higher starting price.

Apple has done the market research and knows that starting at 8 GB is the sweet spot. Moving in either direction leads to loss of potential revenue.

Also considering they probably have 2 years worth of 4gb chips in inventory, they arent going to toss them out.. And if you understand how product lines work, yes apple has 2 years worth of inventory on stuff like memory chips. Either in warehouse or in production contracts

 

[boak]

I really admire your relentless defense of the 8GB model, but I have to say, the price (or cost) isn’t a separate issue – it's the main issue. Why not start at 16 or 32 then? Like I said before, Apple could flip it and start with 16 or 32GB. For users who don't need that much memory, they could choose to 'reduce' it. Oh, but sorry, this game might be tough to play because, in Apple's world, 8GB is actually bigger than a WinPC's 16GB – I mean, in terms of price.

What are you on about? The 8 GB model is already at a reduced price compared to the 16 GB model.

 

[pappl]

Tim Apple said 8GB RAM is like 16GB RAM on PC, so stop the discussion!

(....and open your wallets)

 

[jkehaniii]

The 8gb model is being marketed to students and web users who want "Pro" performance in those categories with macOS. There will always be a market for light users who just want a Mac, lightroom and FC users who are in a heavy editing environment hopefully know what hardware requirements are needed.

 

[skottichan]

Even my Mac that only sees office use needs more than 8GB. And as I said above, nobody would complain about the 8GB base models if the upgrade prices were, say, just 2x the normal rate instead of 5x or whatever it is.

Wow, because when I had an entry level M1 iMac, I used Photoshop with large PSD and PSB files daily. I never had issues with slow downs or lag.

Kinda curious, what does your office do, and what kind of files are you dealing with?

 

[mrat93]

Apple has done the market research and knows that starting at 8 GB is the sweet spot.

Sweet spot for ensuring their customers will want to buy a new Mac sooner.

 

[Basic75]

The same people that complain that Apple doesn’t give enough options are the same ones that will complain if they take away the 8gb option. A bunch of complainers. There’s no satisfying them.

Yes, there is satisfying us. Lower the upgrade pricing from "completely ridiculous" to just "somewhat expensive".

 

[JitteryJimmy]

Not everyone should be convinced, as Influencers' workloads are not everyone's workload.

I don't use Photoshop, Final Cut, Blender, or Adobe Lightroom Classic. I don't have them installed, I've never used them, and I'm not worried that I'll someday want to seriously use them.

I primarily use XCode and office apps. I'm doing great with 8.

 

[progx]

Wow... it's basically like the Touch Bar 13-inch MacBook Pro. Never saw that coming... 🙃

 

[WiiDSmoker]

Why are they testing these kind of software on this machine?

If you even know the names of these software and what they do, then you also know this is not the machine to do that work with.

This is clearly a machine aimed squarely at students, writers, office workers, etc. So test it with Chrome, Page, Excel, Keynote (or the M$ equivalents), Zoom, playing Youtube/Netflix, etc.

Not everyone is a YouTube content creator.

It's a Pro laptop. Daddy Apple got your wrapped.

 

[ddhhddhh2]

What an absolute shocker

Continuing to be amazed that some people are defending 8 GB of RAM in a $1600 "pro" laptop.

Don’t say that. Someone’s about to come over and tell you: The real pros know they can choose more than 8GB of memory, so let’s just put the price issue aside for now.

 

[TheRoxyTheatre]

Another low-quality clickbait from that channel, which doesn't know what they're talking about. Every configuration has a bottleneck.

Would you call the base M chip a bottleneck too?

Need more? Buy more. Simple as that. Not everyone needs 16 GB.

Haha. Let’s see your video on the topic. Seems they triggered you by showing how ridiculous 8gb is in this day and age, especially at the price Apple is charging. Keep drinking the kool-aid.

 

[Plutonius]

edit

 

[WiiDSmoker]

Also considering they probably have 2 years worth of 4gb chips in inventory, they arent going to toss them out.. And if you understand how product lines work, yes apple has 2 years worth of inventory on stuff like memory chips. Either in warehouse or in production contracts

I thought Tim Crook was the MASTER of product lines & inventory.

 

[MapleBeercules]

That's not how it works...

You can turn off a CPU or GPU core that doesn't work. If the memory or storage controllers are broken then you just can't use that chip.

This is exactly how it works, 100% ... Open up a web browser and type in CPU binning, and learn something... we can talk after

 

[skottichan]

It's a Pro laptop. Daddy Apple got your wrapped.

But why does a banker, doctor or lawyer need to run Lightroom or FCP? Or are they not professionals?


Hell, 8GB worked fine with Photoshop from my experience.

 

[StellarVixen]

Denying objective reality won’t get you far. 8GB is 8GB. 16GB is 16GB. No matter what “magic” or compression method (compression isn’t free anyway, nor is it magic) you try to sell us, it just doesn’t work.

 

[Biro]

The 8gb market are people who casually browse the web, or watch a video, or check their financials. There’s a lot of those people, and they will not see any performance hiccups doing this.

Anyone else, buy the 16gb or better.

And for these people, Apple offers the MacBook Air or - even more likely - an iPad. Macs labeled Pro should start with 16GB of RAM. Eventually, they probably will. But only after the rest of the computing world moves on to 32GB.

 

[boak]

Haha. Let’s see your video on the topic. Seems they triggered you by showing how ridiculous 8gb is in this day and age, especially at the price Apple is charging. Keep drinking the kool-aid.

I'm an electrical engineer with a PhD. 8 GB is a bottleneck for the tasks they tested on. That doesn't mean it will be one for many other tasks most users will actually be performing.

 

[happy2000hk]

I already knew this. 8GB on MBP M1 just didn't work for my Photos library with 150K+ photos/vides. It just lagged like crazy. I knew the RAM was the bottleneck when I looked at the stats. It just can't handle it.

My Intel iMac 2020 27" i7 with 64GB is cheaper than this ($1049 + $200 ram on sale), but handles this with ease. Currently I have Music App, Chrome, Photos app opened and already using 20GB. I can't imagine how fun it'll be on 8GB. I'm not even 'doing' stuff. Just having things open and casually browsing along.

 

[FasterQuieter]

It is so frustrating that only the base models ever go on sale. It makes the real world cost of that 8GB upgrade $400. I bet that extra RAM module costs Apple about $20.

 

[Kiwamu]

The 8gb market are people who casually browse the web, or watch a video, or check their financials. There’s a lot of those people, and they will not see any performance hiccups doing this.

I doubt that people that casually browse the web will buy a Pro version. If I buy a Proversion I assume the base model will be capable of doing those with ease and not in need of another upgrade on top.

 

[boak]

And for these people, Apple offers the MacBook Air or - even more likely - an iPad. Macs labeled Pro should start with 16GB of RAM. Eventually, they probably will. But only after the rest of the computing world moves on to 32GB.

Some of those people would pay extra to have a nice screen though. And this model is aimed at that market.