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

[TH3D4RKKN1GH7]

8GB for a "Pro" system with a GPU and CPU that share the same RAM pool is a joke. I don't care how fast your SSD is. I don't get the psychology behind those who don't see the value in pushing people and companies they support to be better than they are.

 

[Kal Madda]

8GB for a "Pro" system with a GPU and CPU that share the same RAM pool is a joke. I don't care how fast your SSD is. I don't get the psychology behind those who don't see the value in pushing people and companies they support to be better than they are.

The 8GB M1 configuration performs beautifully for me. I use mine for professional graphic design work, 3D modeling/sculpting, video editing, playing some emulated Windows games, etc. And my Mac has never slowed down, never crashed, and I’ve never seen the beach-ball. It outperforms several 16GB Intel systems I’ve used.

 

[TH3D4RKKN1GH7]

I'm not sure what kinda 3D modeling you're doing as Cycles makes my M1 Pro MBP melt. I live in swap.

 

[Kal Madda]

I'm not sure what kinda 3D modeling you're doing as Cycles makes my M1 Pro MBP melt. I live in swap.

I am doing high quality models for 3D printing. I do most of my sculpting work in Nomad Sculpt, and then import it into Blender to make some adjustments. I have tried Blender for sculpting as well, and it’s run nicely. And I’ve used Blender for the modeling aspect of projects as well. And it’s yet to bog down my Mac, it runs snappy, even when I’m working with more complex projects with pretty high resolutions. And I don’t think most people expect to use a base-spec of anything for 3D modeling/sculpting work. I just happen to have tried it, and it works perfectly fine for me.

 

[chucker23n1]

Looks like the Surface Laptop with Snapdragon X Plus starts at 16 GiB RAM for $999, compared to M2 MacBook Air’s 8 GiB for $999. Both come with a 256 GB SSD.

There are no RAM options for the Plus. For Air, 16 is $1,999, and 24 is $1,399.

If you upgrade to the Snapdragon X Elite, you start out at $1,399, which also includes a 512 GB SSD. The M3 Air starts at $1,099, but to get 16 GiB RAM and a 512 GB SSD, it's $1,499.

To get more RAM on the Elite, you have to go all the way to $1,999, which gives you 32 GiB RAM and a 1 TB SSD. You can't get the Air with that much, but a 24 GiB / 1 TB configuration is, rather similarly, $1,899.

So Microsoft's upgrade options here are less flexible, and overall more expensive, since when you do want a similar config, you end up with similar pricing to Apple. The base, though, offers more RAM.

 

[Kal Madda]

So Microsoft's upgrade options here are less flexible, and overall more expensive, since when you do want a similar config, you end up with similar pricing to Apple. The base, though, offers more RAM.

So, in other words, Apple’s pricing is perfectly reasonable, as I was saying before.

 

[ric22]

The M4 has popped up at a convenient time to take the wind out of the Snapdragon sails.