Before you buy a new Mac with just 8GB RAM, know this.

[CalMin]

Nothing sums up these multiple discussions in this forum – and elsewhere in the web – than this sentence.

If your base M1 Air runs fine with its 8GB of AM, then it runs fine. Why care about the memory swap if it doesn't influence the experience you have with your device? Apple Silicon is designed to work that way.

If it runs fine, who cares what Activity Monitor says? I never open it unless I've got a problem.

So long as I'm not seeing beachballs or big pauses when I'm trying to work, I don't know or care how much swap space I'm using right now, or what color my "memory pressure" is.

You know, sometimes, I think that Activity Monitor was designed by Apple marketing versus Apple engineering.

Even though memory pressure can go into the yellow zone, and sometimes even the red zone, the subjective experience of using the machine is what matters to me most. I have an 8 GB machine and a 16 GB machine and for the most part they run almost identically when doing standard productivity type work with lots of tabs and apps open. if I push it, and open stupid numbers of apps and tabs, then I can get 8 GB machine to get a little choppy with its animations, but it still remains very responsive and workable.

Now, if I look at memory pressure all the time, I can see that both machines, depending on what I am doing, go into the yellow or even red. But I don't care as long as the machine stays responsive.

Now some people say that SSD wear becomes an issue if you are using lots of swap, due to memory pressure, going into the yellow or red. That may be true, but I doubt that the overall longevity of the machine will be affected by this. I saw a post on Reddit where someone was using a lot of swap and over the course of two years so just one percent degradation of their SSD. This just won't matter for most people in most situations. I do accept it as a theoretical risk, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it personally and nor should most people. I have also never seen any posts here or Reddit or elsewhere on the Internet, where somebody has demonstrably worn out their SSD due to excessive swap. SSD failures seem pretty rare, overall, so even if we were to believe that the reason for their failure was lack of ram, the overall rate of failures anecdotally seems very low.

If we didn't have a yellow, red memory pressure indicator, then there would be a lot less anxiety about this and, going back to my original statement, that's why I think Activity Monitor is more useful to Apple's marketing department than its engineering department, because all of this concern about yellow or red memory pressure pushes people to buy more memory than they need. Going by the actual performance of the machines in actual use under normal circumstances (not some crazy benchmark torture test) these machines remain snappy and responsive in all but the most extreme situations.

I'm not saying that 16 GB isn't worth getting. If you have the $200 then spend it and sleep soundly. Just know that for many people it would be a complete waste of money because they wouldn't get any additional performance out of the machine for the extra expenditure. It certainly isn't needed for the majority of people today, so if you can't afford more than 8 GB, don't sweat it you will still have a fantastically, powerful and capable laptop.

 

[ignatius345]

Now some people say that SSD wear becomes an issue if you are using lots of swap, due to memory pressure, going into the yellow or red. That may be true, but I doubt that the overall longevity of the machine will be affected by this. I saw a post on Reddit where someone was using a lot of swap and over the course of two years so just one percent degradation of their SSD. This just won't matter for most people in most situations. I do accept it as a theoretical risk, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it personally and nor should most people. I have also never seen any posts here or Reddit or elsewhere on the Internet, where somebody has demonstrably worn out their SSD due to excessive swap. SSD failures seem pretty rare, overall, so even if we were to believe that the reason for their failure was lack of ram, the overall rate of failures anecdotally seems very low.

I got curious about this myself, and checked. Turns out... not such a big deal from what I can tell:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apple-is-not-going-to-stop-starting-at-8gb-anytime-soon-and-thats-good.2410304/page-13?post=32722352#post-32722352

Also, I read a post in one of these threads where someone straight-up said that his Mac was running fine and he didn't see any issues, but then there was a "problem" because he looked at Activity Monitor and his memory pressure was too high. You have to laugh at this.

 

[GuruZac]

Point is RAM is cheap. To charge extra $200 for another 8GB is shameful. Also the SSD is slower than M1. You have to pay extra to get the same speed. I’m fine with 256GB since I can use an external HD to backup stuff. But now the laptop you can buy from $900 goes to $1600.

Is the MacBook Air M3 going to be another downgrade?

I was surprised Apple didn't launch the base 14" M3 MacBook Pro with 12GB of RAM. I'm sure it was product differentiation but it just seems tough to justify the name Pro on a device with 8GB of RAM.

 

[GuruZac]

I agree. I think a lot of people are forgetting that these ARM Macs utilize RAM in a different way than other "traditional" PC setups. The Macs are pretty good at covering up the problems they run into when the memory pool runs low...but there is still an impact. Unless you are only web browsing on a couple of tabs and working on a small project, I think a lot of people are better off with 16 GB of RAM.

I bought a base M1 MacBook Air because I don't need more than 256GB of storage, but I upped the RAM to 16GB. Do I need it, probably not, but I plan to keep this for a while. I still have my 2013 MacBook Pro that I upped to 16GB then and it's still fairly quick. I may upgrade to a base spec M3 Pro 14" MacBook Pro. 18GB of RAM with 512GB SSD is plenty for me.

 

[smirking]

I just bought a MacBook Air 15 base model for $760 from MicroCenter open box and don't know if I should return... It was very cheap!

You should absolutely return it without any doubt. Return it straight to my home address for a complete refund.

Bruh, even heavily discounted, the 15" MBA sells for north of $1000. You got an outstanding deal. Did you read the OP's post? The whole reason he posted this was to report how pleasantly surprised he was that his 8GB MBA just worked and had elbowed out his M1 Pro MBP as his daily driver.

Assuming it meets your needs, the only reason to return it is if it was an impulse purchase that you don't need and it's just going to sit around gathering dust.

 

[adamlbiscuit]

You know, sometimes, I think that Activity Monitor was designed by Apple marketing versus Apple engineering.

I miss when Activity Monitor used to look like this.

Granted, we didn't have memory compression back then, but it was simple and to the point.

How to Monitor Your Mac's Memory Usage | Macinstruct

Learn how to monitor your Mac's memory usage and determine how much free RAM you have left.

www.macinstruct.com

 

[richinaus]

lucky people. My machines have 64gb ram and is running out......

My M1 MacBook Air (8 GB RAM) falls into yellow memory pressure regularly and uses swap on the daily. I mainly just browse the web (here, Reddit, YouTube, Twitter), listen to music and check emails. Most of the time when it starts swapping it's because of sites like Reddit and YouTube taking up over a gig each.

However, I wouldn't even know the system was swapping or that it was struggling at all if I didn't look at Activity Monitor. I guess we all have different expectations from our machines. Wanting to have more headroom is valid IMO.

For me personally, I don't consider lack of RAM to be an issue until you either:

A) Notice slowdown and lack of responsiveness (that you can spot without having to go looking for it e.g. in Activity Monitor)

B) Receive the dreaded 'Your system has ran out of application memory' message

I have experienced A) on only a couple of occasions, mainly using Pixelmator Pro to apply colour adjustments to (very) high resolution images, or do ML upscaling on already high-res / detailed images.

I have only experienced B) once the whole time I've owned the machine, and that was due to a memory leak in an unoptimised app.

Note: the M1 MacBook Air is my secondary Mac. I was burned by a lack of RAM on my old Mac mini which I ended up using for more complex tasks. I've since rectified that by getting a new Mac mini with 24 GB RAM (overcompensating admittedly - I wanted more headroom in this case) but it was an expensive mistake!

yep, used to get 'B' on 32gb ram, now on 64gb. Now an average day it is sat around 55gb [this is all due to heavy 3D and graphic based work].

 

[James Godfrey]

I was surprised Apple didn't launch the base 14" M3 MacBook Pro with 12GB of RAM. I'm sure it was product differentiation but it just seems tough to justify the name Pro on a device with 8GB of RAM.

To be honest it’s tough to justify the pro moniker on any iPad these days but here we are. Let’s be honest Apple like to use the word pro as people like to think themselves as a pro it’s purely marketing… essentially all MacBooks are simply MacBooks but just with different specs.

A novelist is what is classed as a pro but do they need a MacBook Pro for their work, no they could get away with an Intel Air or even the ultra light MacBook or even a type writer for that matter.

 

[ZebedeeG]

I can't believe that it's three years since the first Apple silicon M1 chips were released.

...and we're still discussing this! 🤣

"Dear Tim Cook, Thank you for giving us all something to talk, worry and argue about! 😘"

Meanwhile in other parts of the world... 😬

 

[kp98077]

I have said this on here before…

Do people on here really believe a stock version Mac released in October 2023 at a price of $1599 with 8GB RAM (namely, the base MBP M3) is going to be running like crap in 3 years time…???

I very much doubt it. The fact Apple has released a stock 8GB RAM MacBook now shows that it’s very likely 8GB RAM will be good for at least 5 years still, but as always it all depends on your use case.

We won’t see an upgrade in base stock RAM now until at least mid 2025 when M4 is launched… and that’s ’if’ they do bump it up, but if they don’t which is more likely we won’t see a bump in base RAM until at least the end of 2026 until that time Apple will still be selling 8GB RAM MacBook’s, and if we are going by the predictions on here they will be paper weights straight out of the box… not a good business model for Apple if you ask me.

Always buy according to your use case and as Apple says on their website:

8GB: Great for browsing online, streaming movies, messaging with friends and family, editing photos and personal video, casual gaming, and running everyday productivity apps.

16GB: Great if you will be multitasking across a large number of memory-intensive apps, including professional video editing.

24GB or more: Best if you typically work on advanced projects that require enormous files and content libraries.

Make your decision based off of this… forget about ‘future proofing’ or worrying about what you may need 2-3 years from now… because 99% of us will use our MacBook the same way in 3 years time as we do today, you will know if your going to need more in the near future if you have something coming up in your life which will change that (change of career, big project coming up etc.) and if you do unexpectedly require more performance, guess what, you can easily sell your mac and use that money to put towards what you require at that point. Apple silicon machines generally have a decent resale anyway.

good common sense post! I just wonder how many are buying the 8 RAM unit and enjoying it? Hoppy to hear storeis..

 

[Isamilis]

I'm sure you're correctly reporting on your experience and your use case. My needs do not differ substantially from what you describe. Nonetheless, I intend to purchase a 16/512 or even 16/1 version of the 15" MBA M2. The reason is simple - I tend to keep my computers for a long time, 5+ years at a minimum. In that scenario, while the 8/512 MBA may be perfectly fine for such tasks TODAY, and perhaps the next 2-3 years, I wonder whether that would be true longer term. The OS in not actually the only or biggest issue, since we know that Apple tends to support most hardware for at least 5 years or so, with security updates for some time after. My bigger consideration is with third party applications, what happens with their RAM needs in the future? Also, 5+ years is a long time in internet and computing - there may very likely spring new services that demand more than the rock bottom spec from 2023. And what if it happens that at some point, I may briefly, or not so briefly have a need for much greater power for some unexpected project and the 8GB transpires to be limiting - at that point I'd have to give up on the task or be forced to buy a new more powerful computer, rather dank, but hey if I have 16GB, it gives me that option - it's a bit of peace of mind that if an unexpected need arises, I'm covered.

So, going for the 16/512 or 16/1 is just a bit of insurance and mild future-proofing of a laptop I intend to keep longer term. In that light, the extra $200 spread over many years doesn't seem exorbitant for a bit of insurance, or at least peace of mind. Of course, that's just my opinion and YMMV.

I think OP shared his experience to highlight that 16gb is not as urgent as what have been told by many users in MR. OP experience also same with mine. If you have free money then go ahead, no one said 16gb is worse than 8gb. But the fact is 16gb is nice to have for typical users - even for next few years.

 

[Isamilis]

I think both points of view are correct, though I do not belong to the future insurance camp of 16 and more GB of RAM.
The reason is very simple. IF your current workflow is fine with 8GB of RAM (and mine is), even three years from now it probably won't be altered drastically. If it is, you may need altogether faster CPU, GPU or architecture. Therefore, it makes sense to 1. Use a basic configuration since it is fine for your needs. 2. THe basic configuration is also easier to resell and loses less value (I know because I had to sell MBA m1 16/512). 3. When software and OS require faster computing hardware, instead of relying on 4-5 year old CPU, easier to upgrade to the current basic configuration. 4. Back to the point 1. This has been my routine for last 12 years or so with Macs and in each case, I believe I had most efficient setup in terms of money spent on MOBILE computing (Read: always had basic configurations). For more challenging needs, I usually assemble a PC to serve for 3-5 years, right now since 2021 I have 32GB of RAM and Intel i9 10500 desktop with Sapphire RX6600XT for cases I need more power, but generally Macs, especially Apple silicon macs, are now rivaling or exceeding in performance the PCs in everything, maybe except games and apps where you have to use Nvidia's newest GPUs and CUDA. I guess from M4 or M5 the basic configuration may have 16GB of RAM, so that will be even more efficient to buy that basic configuration then.

This!

 

[Isamilis]

If in your case opening up iMovie or Final Cut is something you actually do (i.e; it isn't something you're doing just to try to tax the system), and it doesn't run fine, then it doesn't run fine. If it does run fine, then it's fine.

My 2017 MBP touchbar came with 8GB (base memory configuration). It's 2023. It still runs just fine for what I use it for. In fact, in previous years I even ran VMWare emulating Windows 10 while also running Mac stuff and it was fine.

There is significant improvement in speed and memory usage in silicone Mac. Since OP is asking on M1, Intel based experience is hard to relate.

 

[msackey]

There is significant improvement in speed and memory usage in silicone Mac. Since OP is asking on M1, Intel based experience is hard to relate.

I’m not exactly trying to compare Intel with M-based chips.

I’m saying base configurations can be fine.

 

[teh_hunterer]

RAM is cheap. Apple makes pure profit off giving such a paltry base amount and charging so much to upgrade. It is what it is, but it always makes me chuckle when people spend their valuable time coming to places like here to show us the mental gymnastics they've performed to justify it. For free.

 

[msackey]

RAM is cheap. Apple makes pure profit off giving such a paltry base amount and charging so much to upgrade. It is what it is, but it always makes me chuckle when people spend their valuable time coming to places like here to show us the mental gymnastics they've performed to justify it. For free.

What are they justifying?

Justifying that a base configuration might be adequate in order to not upgrade because Apple charges so much to upgrade? Or you are saying that people are more inclined at base configuration because Apple charges so much to upgrade?

I don’t get it.

Those are separate things.

One is about whether base configuration can be adequate. Yes it can.

The other is about whether Apple charges too much for configuration upgrade. Yes, I agree they do charge probably too much. Base configurations themselves already isn’t cheap either.

 

[Agincourt]

I don't use much in terms of RAM or SSD, but I favor spending more than I need for the sake of knowing I can be liberal with just about everything. That plus the option being there to expand my horizons if I see a game I want to try or simply having both Apple and Windows running at same time.

Beyond that it future proofs your computer and increases its resale value, otherwise that extra 8 GB or 256 GB reserve is simply always there. When you spend ~$1300 on an Apple computer I'm perfectly good throwing an extra $200 into the mix to simply always have it on the back of my mind.

 

[Agincourt]

I got an intel 16 MBP after M1 was introduced because I wanted the larger screen but not willing to fork ~$2500 for base model. This one happened to have 16 GB with the mix and I saved $500 going with intel. Still don't regret it, as it suits my needs and is a very generous screen. I guess one could say I only got what I needed, so the argument for ext5ra RAM not being worth $200 for some people makes perfect sense to me.

 

[CalMin]

When you spend ~$1300 on an Apple computer I'm perfectly good throwing an extra $200 into the mix to simply always have it on the back of my mind.

This is probably the most rational reason for getting 16GB RAM. Peace of mind. If you don't get it, you will always wonder if you should have (even if the machine performs perfectly well). The first stutter, or dropped frame, or choppy animation will have you lamenting over why you didn't just spend the extra money. You might get the same symptom with 16GB, but you won't attribute it to lack of RAM....

I was listening to the Macbreak Weekly Podcast, and Leo Laporte was cursing that he didn't spend an additional $800 to get 128GB on his $4-5K M3 Max! He got a 64GB spec. thinking it would be plenty, but he's seeing the system use all 64GB RAM and it made him think he needs more! I had to laugh. Anxiety about RAM has us all wanting to spend more than we might actually need.

 

[Shirasaki]

If your base M1 Air runs fine with its 8GB of AM, then it runs fine. Why care about the memory swap if it doesn't influence the experience you have with your device?

Somehow curiosity is a sin today?

if it runs fine, why you need to open Activity monitor?

Why not?

Always buy according to your use case and as Apple says on their website:

8GB: Great for browsing online, streaming movies, messaging with friends and family, editing photos and personal video, casual gaming, and running everyday productivity apps.

16GB: Great if you will be multitasking across a large number of memory-intensive apps, including professional video editing.

24GB or more: Best if you typically work on advanced projects that require enormous files and content libraries.

Make your decision based off of this… forget about ‘future proofing’ or worrying about what you may need 2-3 years from now… because 99% of us will use our MacBook the same way in 3 years time as we do today, you will know if your going to need more in the near future if you have something coming up in your life which will change that (change of career, big project coming up etc.) and if you do unexpectedly require more performance, guess what, you can easily sell your mac and use that money to put towards what you require at that point. Apple silicon machines generally have a decent resale anyway.

Yeah let’s believe Apple’s marketing even more and ignore what truly matters, and completely forget about this: even if your demand remains the same, the software supporting your demand will become heavier overtime, slowly chipping away whatever horsepower your machine has today. As a matter of fact, my Apple Watch Series 4 still runs watchos 10 fine, but I have to keep airplane mode on all the time to let it last a whole working day. Not to mention all of those animations being noticeably choppier Than in previous versions.

Apple Wants you to buy new shiny things instead of using the same thing for years or even decades. App developers want more features and better features to be included in their applications, which will inevitably make apps more bloated than before, whether you use such features or not. I don’t care how Apple touts their RAM management magic in their presentation. 8GB of RAM Is still 8GB of RAM, and it can only store so many electrons. Compression can only do so much as its effectiveness varies greatly from data type to data type.

I am not saying everyone must buy 16GB of RAM. If you know what you are doing, by all means. What I do judge is all similar claims saying 8GB of RAM is enough for most people in 2-3 years, which incentivises frequent upgrade when it could've been avoided, and let Apple further justify their insidious actions.

 

[russell_314]

if it runs fine, why you need to open Activity monitor?

The same reason why posts saying 8 GB of RAM is enough for light tasks gets angry reactions. Tech nerds being tech nerds. Nothing wrong with being a tech nerd because I feel like that describes me but in the same sense I think it’s bad advice to tell regular users to spend hundreds of dollars on upgrades that only provide bragging rights about how little swap they use.

 

[Saturn007]

Almost every test you seen with 16 vs 8Gb just shows how (dramatically) slower 8GB can be.

Even for using nothing more than Word, Thunderbird email, Excel, and Safari with a handful of tabs?! Doubtful!

Note: My proof that 8GB is more than enough comes from my 2015 13” i5 MacBook Air. I have routinely run Word with a 400-page document, Thunderbird, Excel with several spreadsheets open including a multi-sheet financial one with multiple cross-references, Photos and Preview with dozens of photos and PDFs open, and Safari with a score of tabs open, and never had a problem.

Given that the M-series chips handle RAM even better, don't see where there'd be an issue with 8GB— for that scenario!

And this somewhat sums it up. Too bad Apple charges an arm (pun intended) and a leg for the upgrade.

LOL! Wins the Funniest Comment of the Morning award! 🏆🥇

(Of course, I pun a lot and, even if that one is shopworn, it's still chuckle-worthy!)

That pun captures something important. As someone noted earlier in the thread, two things can be true. 8GB is more than enough for many, if not most, users, and Apple is a highway bandit for its greedy price-gouging on the RAM and SSD upgrades.

(I get the argument that Apple makes preconfigured or preassembled units, but it could still reduce its markup a fair bit. I'm sure its market research lets them know how many of each configuration to make and that they do some just-in-time assembly to meet changing demands. So, the $200 upgrades remain steep.)

 

[6749974]

if it runs fine, why you need to open Activity monitor?

• Because swap means the CPU is running slower (maybe half speed); using more energy and battery; and if swapping, then the user isn't benefiting from as much cache memory as they would be with some headroom.
• Then keep in mind that wired memory is usually hovering 2 GB so there's really only 6 GB of flexible RAM for applications—applications do not have access to all 8 GB—things are tighter than people realize. While an 8GB user might not be suffering feelings of slowness, Activity Monitor may prove they have a bottleneck running.

Shouldn't they know all this before coming on MacRumors to preach that 8 GB leaves no issues?

For instance, cache memory benefits means for me that Adobe InDesign takes 24 seconds to open the first time, but 5 seconds to open each subsequent time. The more you use your Mac, the faster and more energy efficient it gets because that data is now in cache memory which has 1000x lower latency than an SSD.

How computer systems theory translates to experience is up to the user, I agree, but let's not say 8 GB is optimal and not look at Activity Monitor.

 

[Shirasaki]

You know, sometimes, I think that Activity Monitor was designed by Apple marketing versus Apple engineering.

Might as well go extra mile to only show startup green memory pressure on higher end RAM models. For example, 32GB and above. Lower than that, activity monitor will always show yellow or red memory pressure no matter what.

 

[6749974]

I love your characterization of it.

It's like data trumps actual lived experience, when actually it DOESN'T! Like you said, if the base M1 runs fine for someone's experience, then that's what it is: it runs fine. No amount of data quantification or whatnot should be able to tell that person, who says their experience is fine, that their experience isn't fine!

Why should data trump lived experience in this case?

A video editor with an 8GB Air was "fine" but then revealed they were swapping by 25 GB. The performance of their Mac was cut in half by low RAM and they didn't even know it—just assumed "this is the speed of the CPU." Naturally they were coming from an Intel MacBook Pro so they didn't know their M1 Air was capable of double the performance.

The point is how do you know your money manager isn't swindling you until you look at the numbers? You live in a nice house, drive a nice car, bills seem to be paid—so why look? You're going to get mad at your money manager now that you looked at the data? Your experience was just fine a moment ago...