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> The number of people who need 16GB of RAM? Very large. The number who need 32GB is at least an order of magnitude smaller. The number who need 64GB another or

> The number of people who need 16GB of RAM? Very large. The number who need 32GB is at least an order of magnitude smaller. The number who need 64GB another order of magnitude smaller. The number who need 256GB of RAM or more is likely in the low thousands or even hundreds. "need" can be a combination of objective and subjective takes, but I would posit that the amount who would at least purport to need 256GB+ is radically, radically higher than the low thousands.

gameswithgo 6y ago
In a laptop, low thousands might be about right. And for RAM, need captures it pretty well. Either you will once in your life need to do something that uses 256GB ram, in which case you need it, or you don't.
- astrostl 6y ago
  Where was the discussion scoped to laptops? As for need, as alluded to in my previous reply generally I agree in an objective sense (although uses 256GB does not necessarily mean it needs it either). On the subjective side, I have long-observed that people will blindly assert that more memory is better even when they don't profile their peak physical usage and may easily never make use of the amount they have outside of disk caching. Even if folks don't need incredible amounts of memory, that doesn't necessarily stopping them from wanting it even if it provides little to no benefit.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
ogre_codes 6y ago
I have no idea, but I suspect the number of people willing spend $5000 to upgrade a desktop Mac from 32GB to 256GB is quite low. The process to provision 8 or 16GB of memory spread over millions of units doesn't seem like it would work well at smaller scales. Whether that's low 1000s or tens of thousands isn't really important.
- astrostl 6y ago
  It's less than $2000 to upgrade an iMac Pro to 256GB: https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DID2627DS256/ https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DID2627DS256/ (and that's a branded kit with a lifetime warranty)
Czarcasm 6y ago
Nearly every engineer I know would benefit from =>32GB of RAM as opposed to 16GB. On the consumer side, if more of the market has 32GB available, you can bet that applications will expand to utilize the available space.
Aperocky 6y ago
Where I work I have a cloud instance with more than 256GB of RAM. But I don't need that on my laptop.
- astrostl 6y ago
  Where was the discussion scoped to laptops?

gameswithgo 6y ago

In a laptop, low thousands might be about right. And for RAM, need captures it pretty well. Either you will once in your life need to do something that uses 256GB ram, in which case you need it, or you don't.

astrostl 6y ago
Where was the discussion scoped to laptops? As for need, as alluded to in my previous reply generally I agree in an objective sense (although uses 256GB does not necessarily mean it needs it either). On the subjective side, I have long-observed that people will blindly assert that more memory is better even when they don't profile their peak physical usage and may easily never make use of the amount they have outside of disk caching. Even if folks don't need incredible amounts of memory, that doesn't necessarily stopping them from wanting it even if it provides little to no benefit.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

ogre_codes 6y ago

I have no idea, but I suspect the number of people willing spend $5000 to upgrade a desktop Mac from 32GB to 256GB is quite low. The process to provision 8 or 16GB of memory spread over millions of units doesn't seem like it would work well at smaller scales. Whether that's low 1000s or tens of thousands isn't really important.

astrostl 6y ago
It's less than $2000 to upgrade an iMac Pro to 256GB: https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DID2627DS256/ https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DID2627DS256/ (and that's a branded kit with a lifetime warranty)

Czarcasm 6y ago

Nearly every engineer I know would benefit from =>32GB of RAM as opposed to 16GB. On the consumer side, if more of the market has 32GB available, you can bet that applications will expand to utilize the available space.

Aperocky 6y ago

Where I work I have a cloud instance with more than 256GB of RAM. But I don't need that on my laptop.

astrostl 6y ago
Where was the discussion scoped to laptops?