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If someone needs 32GB then they need 32GB. The M1 is Apple’s low-end chip, currently available only on their cheapest computers. It’s like complaining that a

by OldHand2018 6y ago

If someone needs 32GB then they need 32GB. The M1 is Apple’s low-end chip, currently available only on their cheapest computers. It’s like complaining that a Corolla can’t keep up with a Ferrari on a race track. The most charitable interpretation is that the person doesn’t understand the market position of the two items.

skohan 6y ago
I’m just asking what would be a use case where you would actually need this
- OldHand2018 6y ago
  My work desktop is 32GB and it falls over any time I try to create really big R data sets for others. I have to use a cloud machine with 64GB, and I run that out of memory most of the time when trying to optimize the production pipeline. They refuse to give me anything larger, so that's my upper limit. If anyone knows how to create giant .rds files without storing everything in memory first, I'd love to hear it.
- macNchz 6y ago
  I find it easy to sneak up on 16gb of memory when running basic apps (editor, bunch of browser tabs, zoom, spotify) plus a complete environment for a mid sized web app (multiple services, dbs, message queue, caches, js bundler, workers etc), especially if I’m running tests and have mobile device VMs up. Pretty cheap insurance over the life of a machine to get 32gb of RAM and never have to think about it.
  - foldr 6y ago
    Right, but that’s what swap is for. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you need more than 16GB.
    - macNchz 6y ago
      Perhaps you're correct that I don't need it in the sense that I only very occasionally find myself with a dataset or something that doesn't fit in memory, and could just run a high memory cloud instance for a bit to process it. Even still, my experience of desktop Linux under memory pressure has been frustrating, even with fast SSDs, and overspeccing the memory is an inexpensive guarantee that my system will never start thrashing during an important screenshare demo or something, so it's an obvious choice if I'm shopping for a new computer. When I built this computer last year the cost difference between 16 and 32GB was like $40...easy to justify a 2-3% premium on the overall cost of the machine to never have to give a second thought to conserving memory. That said, Apple charges $400 for the same upgrade (in their machines that support 32GB), so the calculus there is a bit different.
      - foldr 6y ago
        Desktop Linux tends to be a bit of a memory hog compared to MacOS. I think a lot of Linux users would be surprised how usable even the 8GB macs are for most tasks.
- emilecantin 6y ago
  I never close Chrome tabs.
  - stjohnswarts 6y ago
    That's fine, it's not like it keeps them all open, i've had a couple hundred tabs open in Firefox while researching a project using tree style tab to organize them. Modern browsers cache pages to disk after a certain high water mark. People actually seem to think all those tabs stay in memory.
    - emilecantin 6y ago
      It was meant slightly in jest; but looking at Activity Monitor on my 32GB RAM Macbook Pro, it looks like I'm currently using ~28GB. I have Docker & a few Node.js processes (webpack builds, typescript compiler, language server, etc) taking about ~10GB between them, and then a sea of "Google Chrome Helper (Renderer)" processes each taking between 100 and 900MB. There are at least 20 of these, and then also the usual suspects with Slack, Skype (yes), Finder, etc. Honestly, I could probably do with 16GB right now, but I'm planning on keeping this machine for at least 5 years; it was worth the few hundred bucks extra to future-proof it.
      - foldr 6y ago
        Browsers will quickly eat up all of your available RAM if you open enough tabs. The thing is, if you had less RAM, they'd be keeping fewer tabs alive in RAM. So you can't really infer from "I'm using X amount of RAM now" to "I need at least X amount of RAM". If you upgraded to 64GB you'd probably end up 'using' a lot more than 28GB for the exact same workflow.
        emilecantin 6y ago
        Oh yeah, definitely! I was just RAM-constrained on my previous machine (8GB) when running Docker workloads, so I made sure to future-proof this one.
        6y ago
- brokenmachine 6y ago
  Virtual Machines. Or a web browser with a lot of tabs.
GongOfFour 6y ago
Was this entire comment generated by the GPT-2 Tautology Engine?
kllrnohj 6y ago
Apple brands one of these machines as a "Pro" system and previously offered 32Gb in that model's option range. The person isn't the one that's failing to understand the market position of the two items, Apple is the one that failed to brand it appropriately. It should have been a Macbook Air & Macbook, not a Macbook Pro. Although realistically at this point "Pro" has lost nearly all meaning in Apple's lineup. It's like an R badge on a car. Used to mean something specific, now just means a generically higher premium option.
- deergomoo 6y ago
  > Apple brands one of these machines as a "Pro" system and previously offered 32Gb in that model's option range. They still do. The Intel, 4-port, 13” MacBook Pro is still available, and can be configured with 32GB of RAM. I don’t think it would be a sensible purchase at this point though. That 2-port Pro has no reason to exist IMO. Even on Intel it used a chip with a TDP closer to the Air than the 4-port models; now on ARM they’re using the exact same part. Yeah it has a fan but most workloads will never turn the thing on.

skohan 6y ago

I’m just asking what would be a use case where you would actually need this

OldHand2018 6y ago
My work desktop is 32GB and it falls over any time I try to create really big R data sets for others. I have to use a cloud machine with 64GB, and I run that out of memory most of the time when trying to optimize the production pipeline. They refuse to give me anything larger, so that's my upper limit. If anyone knows how to create giant .rds files without storing everything in memory first, I'd love to hear it.
macNchz 6y ago
I find it easy to sneak up on 16gb of memory when running basic apps (editor, bunch of browser tabs, zoom, spotify) plus a complete environment for a mid sized web app (multiple services, dbs, message queue, caches, js bundler, workers etc), especially if I’m running tests and have mobile device VMs up. Pretty cheap insurance over the life of a machine to get 32gb of RAM and never have to think about it.
- foldr 6y ago
  Right, but that’s what swap is for. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you need more than 16GB.
  - macNchz 6y ago
    Perhaps you're correct that I don't need it in the sense that I only very occasionally find myself with a dataset or something that doesn't fit in memory, and could just run a high memory cloud instance for a bit to process it. Even still, my experience of desktop Linux under memory pressure has been frustrating, even with fast SSDs, and overspeccing the memory is an inexpensive guarantee that my system will never start thrashing during an important screenshare demo or something, so it's an obvious choice if I'm shopping for a new computer. When I built this computer last year the cost difference between 16 and 32GB was like $40...easy to justify a 2-3% premium on the overall cost of the machine to never have to give a second thought to conserving memory. That said, Apple charges $400 for the same upgrade (in their machines that support 32GB), so the calculus there is a bit different.
    - foldr 6y ago
      Desktop Linux tends to be a bit of a memory hog compared to MacOS. I think a lot of Linux users would be surprised how usable even the 8GB macs are for most tasks.
emilecantin 6y ago
I never close Chrome tabs.
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  That's fine, it's not like it keeps them all open, i've had a couple hundred tabs open in Firefox while researching a project using tree style tab to organize them. Modern browsers cache pages to disk after a certain high water mark. People actually seem to think all those tabs stay in memory.
  - emilecantin 6y ago
    It was meant slightly in jest; but looking at Activity Monitor on my 32GB RAM Macbook Pro, it looks like I'm currently using ~28GB. I have Docker & a few Node.js processes (webpack builds, typescript compiler, language server, etc) taking about ~10GB between them, and then a sea of "Google Chrome Helper (Renderer)" processes each taking between 100 and 900MB. There are at least 20 of these, and then also the usual suspects with Slack, Skype (yes), Finder, etc. Honestly, I could probably do with 16GB right now, but I'm planning on keeping this machine for at least 5 years; it was worth the few hundred bucks extra to future-proof it.
    - foldr 6y ago
      Browsers will quickly eat up all of your available RAM if you open enough tabs. The thing is, if you had less RAM, they'd be keeping fewer tabs alive in RAM. So you can't really infer from "I'm using X amount of RAM now" to "I need at least X amount of RAM". If you upgraded to 64GB you'd probably end up 'using' a lot more than 28GB for the exact same workflow.
      - emilecantin 6y ago
        Oh yeah, definitely! I was just RAM-constrained on my previous machine (8GB) when running Docker workloads, so I made sure to future-proof this one.
      - 6y ago
brokenmachine 6y ago
Virtual Machines. Or a web browser with a lot of tabs.

GongOfFour 6y ago

Was this entire comment generated by the GPT-2 Tautology Engine?

kllrnohj 6y ago

Apple brands one of these machines as a "Pro" system and previously offered 32Gb in that model's option range. The person isn't the one that's failing to understand the market position of the two items, Apple is the one that failed to brand it appropriately. It should have been a Macbook Air & Macbook, not a Macbook Pro. Although realistically at this point "Pro" has lost nearly all meaning in Apple's lineup. It's like an R badge on a car. Used to mean something specific, now just means a generically higher premium option.

deergomoo 6y ago
> Apple brands one of these machines as a "Pro" system and previously offered 32Gb in that model's option range. They still do. The Intel, 4-port, 13” MacBook Pro is still available, and can be configured with 32GB of RAM. I don’t think it would be a sensible purchase at this point though. That 2-port Pro has no reason to exist IMO. Even on Intel it used a chip with a TDP closer to the Air than the 4-port models; now on ARM they’re using the exact same part. Yeah it has a fan but most workloads will never turn the thing on.