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32GB of RAM is becoming the standard
- nothercastle 3y agoMeanwhile your Mac still ships with a shitty 8gb by default
- pxmpxm 3y agoapple silicone doesn't need any memory tho edit: ha I guess people didn't see the /s in the above
- KingLancelot 3y agoSilicon, silicone is fake boob plastic. And that’s a blatant lie from Apple, if anything, the GPU shares memory with the CPU therefore Apple Silicon needs MORE memory, not less.
- lostlogin 3y agoAnd yet the machines are more performant with less memory than their Intel equivalents were (comparing Mac to Mac). Somehow an efficiency has been made.
- gumballindie 3y agoMy non apple linux desktop has a sweet 196 gb of ram 5200 mt/s. Love it.
- YetAnotherNick 3y ago5200 mt/s is 83 GB/s assuming dual channel, which isn't much compared to 100 GB/s for base M2, and 800 GB/s for M2 ultra[1] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_M2#:~:text=The%20SoC%20and%20RAM%20chips,and%20800%20GB%2Fs%20respectively https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_M2#:~:text=The%20SoC%20a....
- gumballindie 3y agoThat’s okay given the size. The mobo can handle 8000 mt/s, and I can swap sticks whenever I want. Even my gpu has a sweet 24gb ram - more than an average m2. And I can do more than one if I need to train anything.
- YetAnotherNick 3y agoYou are comparing one of the highest end RAM and graphics card to average M2. Don't you think it's bit disingenuous?
- gumballindie 3y agoI am not entirely following. The m2 and m3 “scary fast” specs cost way more than my setup.
- justsomehnguy 3y agoDon't you think it's bit disingenuous to compare only things where your favourite piece has the advantage?
- BearOso 3y agoThe higher end M2s just run more chips in parallel. The bandwidth is there to support the GPU. The latency of LPDDR is higher than desktop RAM, so it relies on the cache to get around that, and the cache is about the same as most x86 CPUs. So there isn't much benefit in the real world.
- voidwtf 3y agoThey handle memory management quite differently and the usage patterns on those devices is significantly different. You can get higher memory Apple kit if you need it…
- tredre3 3y ago> They handle memory management quite differently Think different (tm). Snark aside you're right, Macs are much better at memory management than Linux, swap handling in particular. But that's a very low bar. > the usage patterns on those devices is significantly different. You're right, Mac users tend to run more multimedia productivity tools that benefit greatly from more RAM! > You can get higher memory Apple kit if you need it… You can pay the $800 premium yes, just make sure to plan what your future usage will be for the next 10 years because you can't buy it after the fact.
- tiltowait 3y agoWhile I agree Apple’s RAM prices are absurd, there’s no reason to overstate them. It’s $200 to go from 8GB to 16GB, and $400 for 24GB.
- voidwtf 3y agoMost of the people buying an $800 MacBook Air or lower memory variant of an Apple device are not worried about RAM and don’t use it in such a way that it matters. Yes, if you’re a professional using a macOS device you can pay the $400 premium for the highest memory variant. You either have the money to pay it, or the product justifies the amount. They are charging what their customers are willing to pay, it’s also somewhat inflated because the cost of maintaining those less popular SKUs. Last point I’ll make on this topic, you are going to see more CPUs move to have RAM on die because of the physical limitations on latency. Modern storage speeds are also making this a moot point as RAM may become just another caching layer for ultra fast solid state storage.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- eep_social 3y agonon-upgradeable as well.
- wait_a_minute 3y agoyeah they should definitely add more to the lower end models these days. maybe they will in the next models, for onboard LLM support when Siri gets upgraded.
- skybrian 3y agoI was about to say that both my M2 Macs (laptop and mini) run fine with 8gb. Haven't noticed any problems. I don't play high-end games, though.
- wannacboatmovie 3y ago"8GB should be enough for anybody"
- Cheer2171 3y ago640K was enough for anybody when that quote was made.
- justsomehnguy 3y agoIt's always amusing to see how Mx Mac fanbois always forget to add "in my use case".
- pxmpxm 3y agoI can never quite figure out what the use case is - as I sit here with 2 brave tabs open, my 10.13 mac is using up 13.58gb of ram. These conversations usually usually end up at "my 8gb ram machine actually swaps constantly, but it's fine because otherwise I'd have to face the cognitive dissonance of justifying this purchase, so I'd rather repeat the apple marketing line they came up with to BS around their poor silicon yields"
- 6R1M0R4CL3 3y agoyou cannot compare an apple with 8 gb to a windows/linux machine running x86-64. you have two very different CPUs and architectures, and their use of memory is totally different.. those 8 Gb are the equivalent of 16 Gb on the x86-side. and 16 gb is decent for browsing, office work and even programing if you're not playing with kubernetes or some software.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mannyv 3y agoBloat is the new svelte.
- palata 3y agoMore RAM is becoming the standard because software developed with more RAM is less efficient. And developers tend to have powerful computers "because it's their job", which encourages them to write inefficient code. > 16GB RAM is also a practical capacity for general tasks such as web browsing, office work 16GB RAM to read and write text and see images... I think it just says it all.
- bombcar 3y agoMy first computer that was directly permanently connected to the Internet didn’t even have 16GB of disk space.
- midasuni 3y agoI remember buying a ram upgrade to take my internet connected computer to a massive 16MB
- z500 3y agoI remember in the late 90s/early 00s PC Magazine or something had an ad in the back for a "monster" 47 GB hard drive. That's so quaint now.
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- saltcured 3y agoI saw it as a bit of a milestone when people started regularly talking about individual media files that were larger than the whole 80 MB hard drive that held my first Slackware Linux install with X Windows, emacs, and C development tools. First it was audio, then video, and RAW camera images are almost there with the prosumer digital cameras. And those are compressed files. Software that decompresses the whole thing into arrays of regular samples will need much more RAM...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Koshkin 3y agoMy first PC had 8MB of RAM, and it was a real screamer! (I hadn’t tried running emacs on it, though.)
- AniseAbyss 3y agoPhones come with 12 nowadays. But honestly most people don't need high end PCs.
- transfire 3y ago“Modern operating systems such as Windows 11 or macOS use additional RAM very efficiently” Hahahhahahhahhukaufkauf! (Excuse me while I clear my throat) Uh… my 7Mhz 512KB Amiga generally had a better UX.
- snvzz 3y ago>my 7Mhz 512KB Amiga generally had a better UX True, although... on topic, 1MB became very needed by 1990-ish.
- charleslmunger 3y ago>computers with little RAM have to swap this data to the hard drive The hard drive? What machine is sold with a hard drive as swap in 2024?
- Cheer2171 3y agoGo to Walmart.com, desktop computer category, sort by low price. Many have HDDs. My parents do the analog version of this for appliances, and if I gave them the task of buying a desktop computer, they would probably buy one like this with a HDD. The surprising thing is that you can buy a desktop computer (but no monitor) for less than a day of minimum wage in California. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Restored-Dell-Optiplex-790-Desktop-PC-Intel-Core-i5-2400-Processor-4GB-Memory-500GB-Hard-Drive-Windows-10-Pro-Monitor-Not-Included-Refurbished/46605849 https://www.walmart.com/ip/Restored-Dell-Optiplex-790-Deskto...
- Ekaros 3y agoIt is not that surprising when the computer is actually over decade old... i5-2400 released in Q1 2011. What I find more surprising is that there is any margins in selling those sort of computers. Enough to actually reliably profit.
- gorlilla 3y agoIt's because they're off-lease trash that they hobble back together with used HDDs and used RAM. They target low-income; budget conscious/frugal; elderly and those otherwise ignorant of the scam. Backed by a 30-day return policy! I get these types of machines (actually somewhat newer i5/i7 11th gen+) from an Amazon returns auction house for $5-$20/ea and they invariably have mismatched ram in them and HDDs with 50-70K hours on them already. They also typically won't boot because of a faulty ram stick 9r failed HDD. That being said, I also have 4 kids and those machines have served well as 'starter' systems. They get to upgrade the PSU, HDD-->SSD, GPU and max out the ram on a shoestring budget. Between a local MicroCtr and /r/homelabsales ... They get to build out performant systems for $300-$600 total. I also consider this to be a much greater investment than just throwing a console at them. Profits or not for them; we found some profit in their waste stream.
- voidwtf 3y agoSomehow this thread has attracted a large number of the “Apple sucks, look how much they charge for X” crowd. It’s ok to fanboy about your favorite hardware and software, but it’s also ok to have differing opinions. I use Windows, macOS, and Linux. I use macOS because I enjoy the casual experience significantly more, I prefer it for browsing and productivity and 8Gb of ram is plenty for that use case. I use Windows for software development and gaming, I have 128GB of ram in that system because it’s nice for games and running Hyper-V without compromising. I use Linux for self hosting, proxmox, docker, and more and that system is a retired R720 with 192GB of ram. The article is objectively correct, RAM is cheap these days, some apps waste ram, some apps just realize that there no reason not to stretch their legs a bit to offer a better experience. Chrome often gets the short end of the stick, but Chrome does objectively well with RAM considering how inefficient modern web development is. They’re doing the best they can in the modern web dev landscape.
- mikewarot 3y agoWhy wouldn't you spend as much on RAM as you would on your CPU? It seems kind of silly to skimp on RAM or SSD space these days. There will always be some application that comes along and can use the hardware that you didn't imagine. I remember a friend saying that the 48k in his Apple ][ was enough ram for any program... as long as you didn't go filling it up with graphics and that kind of nonsense. It's amazing how small code is compared to the data it operates upon. You need all that RAM to virtualize operating systems, because running native code is dangerous. The observant may wonder why running native code is dangerous. Why doesn't the operating system defend itself?
- 6R1M0R4CL3 3y agomy lenovo has soldered ram, and i went for the maximum which is 64 gb 32 gb would have been more than enough, but since it's soldered, i had to go for the maximum so in 10 years from now, the laptop can still work well. it comes with lddr5 ram which is much, much faster than what so-dimm slots would have gave me. added bonus : ldd5 soldered uses much less power...