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Is 8GB of RAM Enough for a Mac in 2024?
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More like the M8. Apple will wait until PCs are at 64GB or 96GB as their standard configuration first.
8GB is not enough anymore. If you don't want the system to start disk swapping then 16GB needs to be the bare minimum.
Even crappy celeron based retail store till tablets we have use 8GB RAM and that's just running Windows 10 with a few apps.
For a basic PC in 2024 16GB RAM is the bare minimum, 32GB for a gaming PC and if you want to be very comfortable and be a little overkill then 64GB. RAM is not that expensive these days, but no way in hell should 8GB be on a new PC in 2024 let alone a Mac at Apples ripoff prices. Just doing a quick search for 16GB RAM that can be had for £65 and under and in the quantities Apple will be buying they can probably get this a lot cheaper so price certainly isn't an excuse.
Even crappy celeron based retail store till tablets we have use 8GB RAM and that's just running Windows 10 with a few apps.
For a basic PC in 2024 16GB RAM is the bare minimum, 32GB for a gaming PC and if you want to be very comfortable and be a little overkill then 64GB. RAM is not that expensive these days, but no way in hell should 8GB be on a new PC in 2024 let alone a Mac at Apples ripoff prices. Just doing a quick search for 16GB RAM that can be had for £65 and under and in the quantities Apple will be buying they can probably get this a lot cheaper so price certainly isn't an excuse.
Well we have around 1200 iMacs, around 700 Mac mini's in the field so real world experience so I don't concur with your experience and where the Gb RAM mentioned were for how many applications? System and Safari? Not many customers want machines to only utilise those?
Its also a matter of perception, and that is important to Apple otherwise they would not have reverted back to 2 x 128Gb chips for the SSD where ironically performance issues were to all intensive purposes irrelevant, but where it just didn't look great for a machine's performance in any area to drop back to lower than previous generation. So if Apple can do that based on a perception, where customers at least have the opportunity of raising SSD storage by cheap external storage, then Apple should grasp the nettle and update the 8Gb RAM which cannot be upgraded at a later date.
My point is that 8GB is too small for 2024, for the prices that Apple charges. $300 extra for a reasonable amount of ram (16gb) isn't reasonable at all.
Given these devices aren't upgradable, it's going to mean poor resale value and a poor environmental outcome as they will be limited by RAM.
Teachers aren't power users at all, and a base MacBook Air shroud suffice, but due to ram, it isn't.
Software has continued to increase in resource hungriness the whole time Apple has stalled on 8GB as the base ram level.
12GB has been rumoured for some time, especially with all the AI stuff coming in macOS 15, 16 etc. I don't see a 8GB base level sticking around for much longer. However, due to Apple's greed you just never know.
You’re changing your goal posts yet again without addressing the presented argument. It was you yourself who gave the example of macOS plus Safari not leaving much free RAM in an 8 GB machine, so that is what I discussed. I said your contention was misleading because of macOS’ use of memory compression. Now you’re saying we shouldn’t discuss that specific scenario despite the fact it was you who brought it up yourself in the first place, and you decided to ignore the memory compression discussion too.
However, I’ll play along. macOS plus Safari with a bunch of tabs, Mail, Messages, Calendar, MS Word, Notes, Calculator, Citrix Workspace, Apple Music, and Activity Monitor works very well on an 8 GB Mac, with only minimal swapping and with Activity Monitor’s memory pressure gauge always in the green.
This is what I have described as relatively light business usage in the past and 8GB is perfectly fine for this, with no significant slowdowns. Memory compression is very effective at dealing with this level of memory usage.
However, if you add say a PowerPoint presentation that is several hundred MB in size plus another Keynote version of that presentation as well as a few Excel files, swap usage goes up on an 8 GB machine, so 16 GB would be preferred.
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I repeat: If you want a 16 gig Mac, just ignore the 8 gig price. You are paying the price for the product you are buying, not the difference to the product you are not buying. It does not matter how much extra or less you pay, compared to a product you don’t want.
Or are you going to argue that the 16 gig is great value because you are saving 300 bucks by getting only 8 gig less than the 24 gig version? It is EXACTLY the same logic, whether you want to accept it or not.
How much RAM is needed for these circles and a knot tying you mention?
That sounds like we might hit some swapping
Where have I ever mentioned compression? So your perception is flawed. Where have I said we shouldn't discuss that scenario? Seriously don't put an agenda on someone else when they've not mentioned it.
In fact I agree with your last paragraph but for me I think it is safer for Apple to go to a higher base, 16Gb preferably to avoid problems with customers and quite possibly increased obsolescence.
I didn't mention compression because its not unique to Apple, so if people use the 8Gb is ok on a Mac because of Compression, it seems to ignore the fact that compression is used on other non Mac systems, so it can be shaky to make an assumption that 8Gb on a Mac is in some way equivalent to 16Gb on another system.
It is worth noting though that insufficient RAM even utilising compression can in some situations impose more overhead on the CPU.
Now you will always have to have the system overhead, and I suspect for most users a browser too, but then there are a myriad of other applications that may be in use, and it should be noted only inactive apps are subject to memory compression, one reason it was not really brought into my comments, because A: its not unique to the Apple platform, B: Only inactive apps are subject to it, and many users don't even shut tabs, let alone applications that are left running, putting even more pressure on RAM.
Even storing documents on the desktop utilises more RAM by virtue of previews etc.
To verify users are well advised to check their Mac activity monitor which can illustrate how memory is performing.
As an example, I'm currently playing around with an 8Gb machine with just system software, Mail and Safari open. So with this very basic set up the stats are:
Physical Memory: 8Gb
Memory Used: 6.81Gb
Cached files: 1.17Gb
Swap used: 1.28Gb
App Memory: 2.6Gb
Wired Memory: 1.52Gb
Compressed: 2.32Gb
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And I repeat, 8GB is not fit for purpose at the price it is currently sold at. Paying the extra for the 16gb of ram pushes the Air into $2K pricing which is simply ridiculous.
I’m not “playing around” with an 8GB Air, looking at system monitor. I bought one, and use it regularly for everyday casual tasks. And it does this better than my 16GB Windows (same age and price). And a whole lot faster than my previous 16GB Intel Mac. End of story. I don’t care what system monitor says, this is how it feels in actual use, for me.
Would it be faster with 16 gig? Sure. Would I care? Probably not. Are there people who should not buy 8GB? Heck yes, probably most users. Most users should not buy the base model of anything.
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I believe Macrumours uses US dollar by default. That’s the problem I initially had as well. Have to mentally convert sing dollar to US and back (1USD ~ $1.5, factoring our 9% goods tax).
It's not your call to make that it's not their right to post their opinion.
This hasn't reached 16gb iPhone or 5gb icloud levels of ridicule yet, they've got at least another 2-3 years of shamelessly milking this.
Interesting. I had two kids recently graduate from college and grad school (Bachelors Business, Masters Public Health). They both used base configuration 8GB MBAs. Zero problems. Great reliable computers that did everything they needed. I suppose if they were running large complex algorithms or doing significant video editing for coursework it would be another story. But for typical college majors, they had no problems. I would venture a bet that the base configuration MBA is the single most popular laptop on college campuses.
At $699 the M1 Air with 8GB is fine for most web surfing users. The $1,600 M3 Pro is a slap in the face.
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