6 ms·

The new Macbook Pro supports max of 16GB RAM while Thinkpads support 32GB. This makes it hard to justify getting a Mac.

by mrigor 10y ago

sssilver 10y ago
Factoring in the real world battery performance between those machines helps understand the Thinkpad tradeoff. One I'm not willing to take.
sanswork 10y ago
Unless you don't need more than 16GB for the near term future. My MBP has 16gb and never seems to be near an issue for me even running kube-solo, a few vboxes, and light PS work. I would have liked the option to get 32 just to future proof since I tend to keep my mac laptops for 4-5 years but I'm willing it trade that off for the better screen, trackpad and software.
- alemhnan 10y ago
  My MBP has 16gb as well and no problem whatsoever with that. But it's a 5 years old model and when I bought I had only 4gb. So 4x in 5 years. By extension I would probably need at least 2x 16gb in 3-4 years but instead I will be stuck with 16gb.
  - sanswork 10y ago
    What part of your workflow are you finding increasing dramatically in memory used? I'm just a programmer so most of my stuff is pretty steady except I use a lot more virtual machines these days. But even then I can comfortably run a half dozen on my laptop with no problems and still do other work.
dijit 10y ago
It's a tradeoff someone down the chain is making, LPDDR3 has a max of 16G and LPDDR4 is not supported on skylake/kabylake. LPDDR3 being 30% less power drawing than standard DDR4. So. More ram or more battery.. However I have a personal vendetta against Lenovo for their absolutely abhorrent practices in terms of consumer safety and their declining hardware standard.
- roneythomas6 10y ago
  Apple has reduced the battery from 74.9 to 54.5-watt-hour(27%). This makes the new macbook pro very thin. https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Function+Keys+Late+2016+Teardown/72415 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Function...
yalooze 10y ago
Phil Schiller, their marketing chief said: > To put more than 16GB of fast RAM into a notebook design at this time would require a memory system that consumes much more power and wouldn't be efficient enough for a notebook. ref: http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/28/13460496/apple-macbook-pro-16gb-ram-battery-life-phil-schiller http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/28/13460496/apple-macbook-pr... Nice to get a reply from the top as I was wondering why it was 16GB max too. I can't comment on the veracity. I'm a Windows user, if that makes any difference.
- nostrademons 10y ago
  It'll be interesting to see if & when this starts to influence desktop software design. Since the early 90s, it's largely been considered a waste of time to optimize client programs for speed or memory usage, because a new machine will just come out in a couple years with double the memory and double the processing power. There's a lot of low-hanging fruit in application-level performance, optimizations that could be done but aren't because the user won't perceive a difference. Now that Moore's Law has largely stalled out, I wonder if we'll start seeing innovation in software platforms (languages, frameworks) to optimize for speed & space instead of ease-of-use, to try and recover that performance that the hardware isn't giving us.
  - yalooze 10y ago
    Jumping on the next-big-thing trend, but: Compilers with an AI that give you zero-cost optimisations. Plus IDE plugins for interpreted languages. Actually, I'd guess someone is already working on it :)
  - pmontra 10y ago
    Bill by milliseconds (AWS Lambda and the like) is going to push us into that direction. The 100 ms billing unit could become a benchmark. It will punish languages with a long startup time. Luckily for Java it's introducing ahead of time compilation. Many scripting languages are going to suffer. Too bad because they are usually the ones that make programming easier.
- feelix 10y ago
kwikiel 10y ago
Thinkpads are supporting up to 64GB of ram. 4 slots, 16GB each
- vlozko 10y ago
  Yes, with the more power-hungry DDR4 modules. They take ~1/3 more power than their LPDDR4 counterparts.
paulcole 10y ago
Really? What about for a user who doesn't have a pressing need for 32GB?

The new Macbook Pro supports max of 16GB RAM while Thinkpads support 32GB. This makes it hard to justify getting a Mac.

by mrigor 10y ago

The new Macbook Pro supports max of 16GB RAM while Thinkpads support 32GB. This makes it hard to justify getting a Mac.

Factoring in the real world battery performance between those machines helps understand the Thinkpad tradeoff. One I'm not willing to take.

sanswork 10y ago

Unless you don't need more than 16GB for the near term future. My MBP has 16gb and never seems to be near an issue for me even running kube-solo, a few vboxes, and light PS work. I would have liked the option to get 32 just to future proof since I tend to keep my mac laptops for 4-5 years but I'm willing it trade that off for the better screen, trackpad and software.

alemhnan 10y ago
My MBP has 16gb as well and no problem whatsoever with that. But it's a 5 years old model and when I bought I had only 4gb. So 4x in 5 years. By extension I would probably need at least 2x 16gb in 3-4 years but instead I will be stuck with 16gb.
- sanswork 10y ago
  What part of your workflow are you finding increasing dramatically in memory used? I'm just a programmer so most of my stuff is pretty steady except I use a lot more virtual machines these days. But even then I can comfortably run a half dozen on my laptop with no problems and still do other work.

dijit 10y ago

It's a tradeoff someone down the chain is making, LPDDR3 has a max of 16G and LPDDR4 is not supported on skylake/kabylake. LPDDR3 being 30% less power drawing than standard DDR4. So. More ram or more battery.. However I have a personal vendetta against Lenovo for their absolutely abhorrent practices in terms of consumer safety and their declining hardware standard.

roneythomas6 10y ago
Apple has reduced the battery from 74.9 to 54.5-watt-hour(27%). This makes the new macbook pro very thin. https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Function+Keys+Late+2016+Teardown/72415 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Function...

yalooze 10y ago

Phil Schiller, their marketing chief said: > To put more than 16GB of fast RAM into a notebook design at this time would require a memory system that consumes much more power and wouldn't be efficient enough for a notebook. ref: http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/28/13460496/apple-macbook-pro-16gb-ram-battery-life-phil-schiller http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/28/13460496/apple-macbook-pr... Nice to get a reply from the top as I was wondering why it was 16GB max too. I can't comment on the veracity. I'm a Windows user, if that makes any difference.

nostrademons 10y ago
It'll be interesting to see if & when this starts to influence desktop software design. Since the early 90s, it's largely been considered a waste of time to optimize client programs for speed or memory usage, because a new machine will just come out in a couple years with double the memory and double the processing power. There's a lot of low-hanging fruit in application-level performance, optimizations that could be done but aren't because the user won't perceive a difference. Now that Moore's Law has largely stalled out, I wonder if we'll start seeing innovation in software platforms (languages, frameworks) to optimize for speed & space instead of ease-of-use, to try and recover that performance that the hardware isn't giving us.
- yalooze 10y ago
  Jumping on the next-big-thing trend, but: Compilers with an AI that give you zero-cost optimisations. Plus IDE plugins for interpreted languages. Actually, I'd guess someone is already working on it :)
- pmontra 10y ago
  Bill by milliseconds (AWS Lambda and the like) is going to push us into that direction. The 100 ms billing unit could become a benchmark. It will punish languages with a long startup time. Luckily for Java it's introducing ahead of time compilation. Many scripting languages are going to suffer. Too bad because they are usually the ones that make programming easier.
feelix 10y ago

kwikiel 10y ago

Thinkpads are supporting up to 64GB of ram. 4 slots, 16GB each

vlozko 10y ago
Yes, with the more power-hungry DDR4 modules. They take ~1/3 more power than their LPDDR4 counterparts.

paulcole 10y ago

Really? What about for a user who doesn't have a pressing need for 32GB?