Resolved Recommendation - 16GB, 24GB, 32GB? M2 or M1 Pro

[slooksterPSV]

I currently have the M1 MBA 2020 - which has been amazing. However, I'm finding with everything I run, my memory usage gets quite high. I don't see slowdowns, usually, but lately, my workload is pushing the limits of my MBA with 8GB. I only have about 40GB of space left too due to all the dev software I've installed.

Here's what I generally do:

C# Dev
NodeJS/ReactJS Dev
Email
Safari - YouTube
Music
Excel
Word
Pages
Numbers
Xcode once in a while
UTM sometimes

What would you recommend? I'm thinking either 24GB or 32GB because 8GB is becoming the low-end of everything and 16GB is moderate. My workloads may require more memory for more items open.

Either the MBA M2 with 24GB or the 14" MBP with 32GB. 512GB Storage will be minimum. What would you do?

Thanks!

 

[theluggage]

I only have about 40GB of space left too due to all the dev software I've installed.

...first thing is to not let your hard drive get too much fuller because that will start to slow things down.

As for the RAM - you probably already know this but you need to look at "memory pressure" (in Activity Monitor) rather than memory usage - because MacOS will always try to use spare RAM for file caches etc.

Either the MBA M2 with 24GB or the 14" MBP with 32GB. 512GB Storage will be minimum. What would you do?

Tricky...

The big differences between the M2 and M1 Pro are extra GPU cores, extra Thunderbolt 4, two external displays and the 32GB RAM option. CPU wise is difficult - 6 performance + 2 economy cores in the base M1 Pro vs. 4 faster performance cores + 4 economy in the M2. My gut tells me that the M2 is going to give the base, 8-core M1 Pro a run for its money, especially on your workload which doesn't look too multicore/GPU-heavy... but then we've yet to really see how much the M2 Air is constrained by the fanless design....

...ultimately, you're looking at $1700 for a 16GB/512GB M2 Air vs. $2000 for a 16GB/512GB M1 Pro 14".... I suspect that each would do the job admirably, so honestly I'd wait until you can go into a store and look at the M2 Air alongside the MBP and decide which you like best.

I think I'd probably go for the MBP: the extra inch of display is going to be nice when you're coding - and/or you can hang a pair of external monitors off it for extra real estate, and personally I'd appreciate the extra ports. The main downside of the MBP is that if you need more than 16GB RAM you'd have to go the whole hog to 32 - the 24GB option on the M2 is a nice compromise. If I was getting paid good money to do coding I'd probably say "hang it" and get a 10-core, 32GB MBP just to be sure.

I'm assuming you need a laptop.

 

[slooksterPSV]

...first thing is to not let your hard drive get too much fuller because that will start to slow things down.

As for the RAM - you probably already know this but you need to look at "memory pressure" (in Activity Monitor) rather than memory usage - because MacOS will always try to use spare RAM for file caches etc.


Tricky...

The big differences between the M2 and M1 Pro are extra GPU cores, extra Thunderbolt 4, two external displays and the 32GB RAM option. CPU wise is difficult - 6 performance + 2 economy cores in the base M1 Pro vs. 4 faster performance cores + 4 economy in the M2. My gut tells me that the M2 is going to give the base, 8-core M1 Pro a run for its money, especially on your workload which doesn't look too multicore/GPU-heavy... but then we've yet to really see how much the M2 Air is constrained by the fanless design....

...ultimately, you're looking at $1700 for a 16GB/512GB M2 Air vs. $2000 for a 16GB/512GB M1 Pro 14".... I suspect that each would do the job admirably, so honestly I'd wait until you can go into a store and look at the M2 Air alongside the MBP and decide which you like best.

I think I'd probably go for the MBP: the extra inch of display is going to be nice when you're coding - and/or you can hang a pair of external monitors off it for extra real estate, and personally I'd appreciate the extra ports. The main downside of the MBP is that if you need more than 16GB RAM you'd have to go the whole hog to 32 - the 24GB option on the M2 is a nice compromise. If I was getting paid good money to do coding I'd probably say "hang it" and get a 10-core, 32GB MBP just to be sure.

I'm assuming you need a laptop.

Technically I don't need a laptop. I code more on my Mac than I do my Windows PC. Picked up a Ryzen 5800U with 16GB RAM 14" (lighter than the MBA) 512GB SSD for $700 about 2 months ago. But it's Windows.

 

[kschendel]

I suspect that 24GB would be enough, if you're surviving with 8 now.

 

[QuietOC]

16GB and spend the rest on flash cells.

 

[jav6454]

I currently have the M1 MBA 2020 - which has been amazing. However, I'm finding with everything I run, my memory usage gets quite high. I don't see slowdowns, usually, but lately, my workload is pushing the limits of my MBA with 8GB. I only have about 40GB of space left too due to all the dev software I've installed.

Here's what I generally do:

C# Dev
NodeJS/ReactJS Dev
Email
Safari - YouTube
Music
Excel
Word
Pages
Numbers
Xcode once in a while
UTM sometimes

What would you recommend? I'm thinking either 24GB or 32GB because 8GB is becoming the low-end of everything and 16GB is moderate. My workloads may require more memory for more items open.

Either the MBA M2 with 24GB or the 14" MBP with 32GB. 512GB Storage will be minimum. What would you do?

Thanks!

Get an M1 Pro with 32GB of memory and 1TB storage. The MBA will not work for you as it throttles and the value of it diminishes too much as soon as you add additional capacities.

 

[mi7chy]

+$400 only gets you 24GB on MBA M2 but 32GB on MBP 14". However, total system price benefits the MBA M2 since you get a lot more storage.

$2499
MBA M2 4P+4ECPU 10GPU 24GB RAM 2TB SSD

$2399
14" MBP M1 Pro 6P+2ECPU 14GPU 32GB RAM 512GB SSD

 

[slooksterPSV]

Went with the 16GB 512GB NVME one. Mainly because I could get it today and got it and have yet to hook it up. Now for data transfer