They added 'Pro' because they were tired of 'Power' (And switched from PowerPC). Just a marketing term. If it were the 80s, it'd be the MacBook Turbo...
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Can We Put the 16GB "Pro" Myth to Rest?
- Thread starter aevan
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
They added 'Pro' because they were tired of 'Power' (And switched from PowerPC). Just a marketing term. If it were the 80s, it'd be the MacBook Turbo...
That's right, i remember that, almost every car with a Turbo, has it written on it.
At least as it applied to cars, they actually had turbo chargers... that's where it started... but where it lead was to "turbo" vacuum cleaners, "turbo" hair dryers, "turbo" dishwashers, and so on, LOL.
MacBook Turbo is sooo much better of a name. I always thought Ultrabooks should be called Turbobooks. Ultra just sounds so slow and crappy. Turbo is way faster than Ultra.
LOL this reminded me of the first eMachine PC I bought back in mid-late nineties, it had a special button called "Turbo" for a performance boost, basically overclocking the CPU...
turbo switch died with 486, as i dont remember seeing any pentium with the switch... but... c64 and turbo was the real thing 
And there I was thinking this thread had died on a nice light note
There seems to be people talking about managing rsession RAM consumption, is there nothing you can do in that app? I use RAM heavy software and just adjust my workflow when using a notebook, like not having everything embedded within a single model and linking stuff out, otherwise I'd soon consume 32GB RAM and it's just not good practice!
So is there absolutely no way of optimising your software or better practices to reduce RAM usage?
Not as an end user, The developers are the ones that need to write tight code that is the most memory effecient, and while many do, sometimes the app itself just requires more memory.
Virtual machines are a prime example where if you need to run multiple VMs at once, its not really feasible with a machine within only 16GB, especially if the system is going to incur a high volume of swapping.
To be fair you have a lot of programs open and you don't need all those open at the same time
Thanks for explaining. I'll be honest I have no experience running multiple VMs, I am not a developer. My colleague (developer) scoffed at the idea of using a notebook as a development rig, suggesting that you just wouldn't use as many VMs. So I guess from what you're saying, you'll always need a desktop for development, as it's always going to be more powerful? Can you not use a notebook for light testing and then do the grunt work back at the office when it comes to developing?
Not trying to open a can of worms here... I've heard the arguments that people need to travel all over the world and desktops aren't practical etc. I'm more curious in understanding what has changed in the last month that has made 32GB of RAM on a notebook critical for development, as all the developers I've heard are coming from previous generation MBPs, which also had 16GB RAM.
That's just one area that I'm personally aware of. There's also video editting with 4k that requires a lot of resourcse and again a machine with more then 16GB will be something the person wants. While the app may run with 16GB or less, it will be an issue of how well it will run - time is money as they say
NO. Apparently, people here are wanting a laptop capable of producing the next Pixar movie at 8K resolution. If you do not do that kind of work, you are not a professional it seems.
Look again. The number of programs is not the problem. The top 2 are the problem. Rsession and kernel are over 50GB between them. This all resulted from a single R command by the way. Rsession is making use of kernel so they both spiked. I'm surprised it didn't hard crash in fact - the machine slowed down but I could still do stuff.
So you asked above: "So is there absolutely no way of optimising your software or better practices to reduce RAM usage?", and maflynn gave a great answer. To expand: R and programs like it, are designed for analysts to focus on data and modelling, and the memory handling stuff is generally in the background. R doesn't really deal with models that dont' fit in memory. Normally it would crash and in fact I did have to kill this process. The other point - this was an accident - I didn't realise the command I was running would take up that much space - I only knew something was up when it didn't return to the command prompt. So in this case, I will just have to think of a smarter way to do what I'm trying to do. Of course that is effort. It is extra programming and work for me - i.e. it takes up my time. Its not achieving any objectives I have - its simply a waste of my time - but I need to deal with it. If I'm lucky someone has a more efficient algorithm already. But ok this is solvable. But the point is - I'm not a programmer - I'm a data analyst. If I can buy a 32GB machine it directly translates into increased productivity because I don't have to deal with things like this as often. There are other models I might make - complex Bayesian models with thousands of variables that simply won't fit in 16GB of RAM. There is nothing I can do about that because the underlying math algorithms and programming is hardcore C++ and way beyond me.
As to what has changed in the last month. I wanted a 32GB laptop 2 years ago when I bought my current one. At the time there was no mainstream manufacturer 32GB laptop available - so I stuck with MBP. NOW - with the new MBP's, they are in direct competition with Dell's and HP's and in the same class of machine that DO offer 32GB. For now I have a Dell workstation that I got second hand and put 32GB in - but its underused and I want to sell it befor eit fully depreciates.
yeah but in reality they're just worried it's not pro enough to get 90fps in Overwatch
That is absolute nonsense as it is perfectly feasible as well as not feasible at all. You can have 20 VMs running within 8GB of memory and you can have 1 VM that doesn't run within 16GB because it requires more. As with physical computers it really depends on what you are doing in the VM, there is no 1 recipe fits all and thus your statement is absolute nonsense. Just the defaults when you create a VM should have been a huge hint (note: a Windows VM gets about 2GB of memory).
Do not underestimate the memory management of hypervisors, even level 2 ones. They are very capable at managing their memory especially when running multiple VMs (if they are the same there is a lot of things that can be shared which is what they'll do).
It's the same nonsense as defining that your way of working applies to everyone and your definition of "pro" is the and only definition of that world in the entire universe.
Last edited:
There is no such thing as a "today's Mac Pro." You're comparing the new MBP to a machine from late 2013, which was not particularly cutting-edge at the time, and has not been improved or upgraded in three years.
8K is so 2015, You not a Pro unless your shooting and editing 16K...
Im about to take my iPhone back as i can't use it to Edit my 16K, i need a Pro iPhone as well
Nobody said it would. My slightly smarter approach to that problem reduced it to 21GB. My even smarter approach was to do something totally different. Luckily I have the option here to do something differnet - but as I said in my above post, sometimes I don't have that option, and have to use a 32GB machine (for example when I'm using code written by someone else in C++ that I can call on - but cannot reprogram myself).
But the point is this. I'm not a programmer, I'm a data analyst. Having to programme around memory constraints is a waste of my time because it is hard for me and time consuming. I would like the option to buy 32GB because it directly translates to me getting more done in less time. This is true for many people doing data analysis. A fairly large and increasing chunk of the ***cough** "pro" market. Those people will go to makes of laptops that do offer 32GB options.
Is it necessary to be crunching data on a machine which has portability as its main selling point?
I mean, the benefits of a laptop are all about being able to take it somewhere else. With a laptop, you can bring the office home and telework, or have all your documents available when traveling, etc etc.
When I think of analyzing lots of data, I may be thinking of years ago when it was normal to leave a computer working on the data for hours, or days, at a time. No matter how portable a computer could be, then, it shouldn't be transported at all while it's doing its work.
Is a portable computer really the best tool for this job? Nobody sells a laptop with 128GB of RAM, after all, right?
I mean, the benefits of a laptop are all about being able to take it somewhere else. With a laptop, you can bring the office home and telework, or have all your documents available when traveling, etc etc.
When I think of analyzing lots of data, I may be thinking of years ago when it was normal to leave a computer working on the data for hours, or days, at a time. No matter how portable a computer could be, then, it shouldn't be transported at all while it's doing its work.
Is a portable computer really the best tool for this job? Nobody sells a laptop with 128GB of RAM, after all, right?