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>32/64GB RAM I'm genuinely curious - why do you need 64 GB of RAM on a laptop? Are there industries where this is a necessity? At that point, wouldn't you be b

by adtac 10y ago

>32/64GB RAM I'm genuinely curious - why do you need 64 GB of RAM on a laptop? Are there industries where this is a necessity? At that point, wouldn't you be better off having remote machines?

csomar 10y ago
Remote machines can't match the local machine in terms of latency. Especially when I'm "remote" from America somewhere in the middle of nowhere where the best connection I can get is a 3G. But back to your 32/64Gb question. I need it to run my Docker containers. I do trading and stuff.
- antisthenes 10y ago
  Your website/blog is down.
Kiro 10y ago
Not OP and I'm no professional but Photoshop alone is the reason I can never have enough RAM.
- intoverflow2 10y ago
  I use Photoshop a ton and currently I'm convinced it doesn't even TRY to use the ram. I open it up and it just seems to use about 2GB and happily chug away on swap rather than taking a bite out of my 32GB
  - floatboth 10y ago
    IIRC it has a configuration setting to tweak how much RAM it is allowed to use
atemerev 10y ago
Yes -- anything related to data science. Or, like in my case, algorithmic trading. I used to keep AWS GPU nodes for that, but those are expensive, and it is infinitely more convenient to keep your data close to your workspace, instead of constantly uploading/downloading work batches.
- mozumder 10y ago
  A better option is to just have your own server at your house on a static IP address that you connect to via your laptop. That way you can have as much space as you want and it's always available to you.
  - Fomite 10y ago
    I'd honestly rather have it on my machine, rather than on a server. I get a lot of work done in places with pretty dubious network connectivity.
  - atemerev 10y ago
    I used to do that. Then I realized I just can attach a nice display and a keyboard to the "server" and make things even more convenient.
GVIrish 10y ago
I have some resource intensive VM's I run, but I also need to be mobile enough to go to different client sites. I could potentially do some of that stuff in the cloud but then the monthly cost starts to get high for just development.
jamespo 10y ago
I agree, the cloud is not expensive. £30/month gets you a beast of a machine with OVH that's always online with masses of bandwidth. Connectivity issues from the client are the main consideration.
umanwizard 10y ago
Xcode will happily consume that much RAM on a big enough project.
veidr 10y ago
> why do you need 64 GB of RAM I see this question often, and I totally don't get it. I do use 64GB for work, and in light of this news that no new Mac Pro will arrive any time soon, I'm considering bumping that to 128GB[1]. But I don't do high-frequency corporate hegemony work, or video editing, or any of that — I'm just a programmer. Moreover, you could delete IDEA and Xcode and my 5 browsers and 7 text editors and my 30 terminal windows and git client and all the other work-related stuff open right now, and I'd still easily use 64GB just fucking around. I wonder: how is it that people don't use 64GB of RAM? Do they reboot their machines every week? Do they fastidiously quit applications even though they'll probably use the app again within a few days? Are they just all like, "modern memory-swapping technology is so awesome compared to 1990s System 7 'Virtual Memory' that I love to watch it work, even though things run an order of magnitude slower in many critical sections"? I really don't get it. Terabytes of RAM? Yeah, that might be hard to make use of today. But 64GB is definitely not too much, not for me and probably not for you, or even for your mom. I don't have 64GB in my laptop, but only because I can't and have to settle for 16GB (unless I switch to a different OS, which is on balance a worse tradeoff currently, and yeah yeah I'm rooting for Linux but come on, one can only maintain hope for a couple decades and that mark is fast approaching...) Cheap RAM is one of the things that keeps hope alive in this increasingly degenerate era. [1]: https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/1333D3Z3M128/ https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/13...
- henshao 10y ago
  Don't browsers generally use more RAM when more is available? I only have 12 GB on my laptop and I've never really noticed anything. It's not like I'm using all 50 tabs and 20 applications at once, and the split second that it takes to reload the app state/data into RAM if it got bumped doesn't bother me.
  - fnj 10y ago
    I would phrase it this way. No matter how much RAM you have, the gosh darn internet browser will easily gobble it all up.
- thomastjeffery 10y ago
fnj 10y ago
> I'm genuinely curious - why do you need 64 GB of RAM on a laptop? How about this? For when you want to run VMs that are non-trivial.

by adtac 10y ago

>32/64GB RAM I'm genuinely curious - why do you need 64 GB of RAM on a laptop? Are there industries where this is a necessity? At that point, wouldn't you be better off having remote machines?

csomar 10y ago

Remote machines can't match the local machine in terms of latency. Especially when I'm "remote" from America somewhere in the middle of nowhere where the best connection I can get is a 3G. But back to your 32/64Gb question. I need it to run my Docker containers. I do trading and stuff.

antisthenes 10y ago
Your website/blog is down.

Kiro 10y ago

Not OP and I'm no professional but Photoshop alone is the reason I can never have enough RAM.

intoverflow2 10y ago
I use Photoshop a ton and currently I'm convinced it doesn't even TRY to use the ram. I open it up and it just seems to use about 2GB and happily chug away on swap rather than taking a bite out of my 32GB
- floatboth 10y ago
  IIRC it has a configuration setting to tweak how much RAM it is allowed to use

atemerev 10y ago

Yes -- anything related to data science. Or, like in my case, algorithmic trading. I used to keep AWS GPU nodes for that, but those are expensive, and it is infinitely more convenient to keep your data close to your workspace, instead of constantly uploading/downloading work batches.

mozumder 10y ago
A better option is to just have your own server at your house on a static IP address that you connect to via your laptop. That way you can have as much space as you want and it's always available to you.
- Fomite 10y ago
  I'd honestly rather have it on my machine, rather than on a server. I get a lot of work done in places with pretty dubious network connectivity.
- atemerev 10y ago
  I used to do that. Then I realized I just can attach a nice display and a keyboard to the "server" and make things even more convenient.

GVIrish 10y ago

I have some resource intensive VM's I run, but I also need to be mobile enough to go to different client sites. I could potentially do some of that stuff in the cloud but then the monthly cost starts to get high for just development.

jamespo 10y ago

I agree, the cloud is not expensive. £30/month gets you a beast of a machine with OVH that's always online with masses of bandwidth. Connectivity issues from the client are the main consideration.

umanwizard 10y ago

Xcode will happily consume that much RAM on a big enough project.

veidr 10y ago

> why do you need 64 GB of RAM I see this question often, and I totally don't get it. I do use 64GB for work, and in light of this news that no new Mac Pro will arrive any time soon, I'm considering bumping that to 128GB[1]. But I don't do high-frequency corporate hegemony work, or video editing, or any of that — I'm just a programmer. Moreover, you could delete IDEA and Xcode and my 5 browsers and 7 text editors and my 30 terminal windows and git client and all the other work-related stuff open right now, and I'd still easily use 64GB just fucking around. I wonder: how is it that people don't use 64GB of RAM? Do they reboot their machines every week? Do they fastidiously quit applications even though they'll probably use the app again within a few days? Are they just all like, "modern memory-swapping technology is so awesome compared to 1990s System 7 'Virtual Memory' that I love to watch it work, even though things run an order of magnitude slower in many critical sections"? I really don't get it. Terabytes of RAM? Yeah, that might be hard to make use of today. But 64GB is definitely not too much, not for me and probably not for you, or even for your mom. I don't have 64GB in my laptop, but only because I can't and have to settle for 16GB (unless I switch to a different OS, which is on balance a worse tradeoff currently, and yeah yeah I'm rooting for Linux but come on, one can only maintain hope for a couple decades and that mark is fast approaching...) Cheap RAM is one of the things that keeps hope alive in this increasingly degenerate era. [1]: https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/1333D3Z3M128/ https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/13...

henshao 10y ago
Don't browsers generally use more RAM when more is available? I only have 12 GB on my laptop and I've never really noticed anything. It's not like I'm using all 50 tabs and 20 applications at once, and the split second that it takes to reload the app state/data into RAM if it got bumped doesn't bother me.
- fnj 10y ago
  I would phrase it this way. No matter how much RAM you have, the gosh darn internet browser will easily gobble it all up.
thomastjeffery 10y ago

fnj 10y ago

> I'm genuinely curious - why do you need 64 GB of RAM on a laptop? How about this? For when you want to run VMs that are non-trivial.