4 ms·

I think it’s worth mentioning also- 8 GB ram on a Mac is not the same as 8 GB on a windows OS machine, given the poor state of windows as an OS as of the past f

by bobbob1921 6mo ago

I think it’s worth mentioning also- 8 GB ram on a Mac is not the same as 8 GB on a windows OS machine, given the poor state of windows as an OS as of the past few years.

longislandguido 6mo ago
I forgot about magical Mac memory. Just keep it under one browser tab, bro.
- aurareturn 6mo ago
  It actually is magic Mac memory. No joke. 8GB on macOS is good enough for 80% of people.
  - lukeschlather 6mo ago
    Do browsers and Electron apps magically take up less memory on Macs? What is "good enough?" I never notice problems on my 16GB Windows laptop, so just for fun I closed all of my 6 always-on Electron-type apps, all of the 10 browser windows I had open, a couple other ever-present apps, and it looks like without anything else Windows 10 takes about 4GB, which I think is in the same ballpark as OS X. And I probably have some stuff running that I didn't close, this is very unscientific. Anecdotally also, my one laptop that I've upgraded to Windows 11 is a lot snappier. As a rule I haven't noticed memory pressure on any device I've owned ever as a "regular user," it only really applies to gaming and heavy development with lots of VMs, especially these days.
    - aurareturn 6mo ago
      Swap on macOS is incredibly good. Not sure how Apple does it. Maybe hardware compression?
      - longislandguido 6mo ago
        > Not sure how Apple does it. They do it by prematurely wearing down the soldered SSD just in time for you to buy a new laptop.
        aurareturn 6mo ago
        As far as I know, there is no M1 8GB SSD wear down complaints in 2026.
        spicySpy 6mo ago
        There are - people are complaining about SSD health
        aurareturn 6mo ago
        Source? Is it SSDs breaking down or people are just looking at SSD usage and then get scared?
      - p_ing 6mo ago
        It's no different from NT in that respect. macOS is significantly worse at handling OOM events than NT (even NT4, for that matter).

I think it’s worth mentioning also- 8 GB ram on a Mac is not the same as 8 GB on a windows OS machine, given the poor state of windows as an OS as of the past few years.

longislandguido 6mo ago

I forgot about magical Mac memory. Just keep it under one browser tab, bro.

aurareturn 6mo ago
It actually is magic Mac memory. No joke. 8GB on macOS is good enough for 80% of people.
- lukeschlather 6mo ago
  Do browsers and Electron apps magically take up less memory on Macs? What is "good enough?" I never notice problems on my 16GB Windows laptop, so just for fun I closed all of my 6 always-on Electron-type apps, all of the 10 browser windows I had open, a couple other ever-present apps, and it looks like without anything else Windows 10 takes about 4GB, which I think is in the same ballpark as OS X. And I probably have some stuff running that I didn't close, this is very unscientific. Anecdotally also, my one laptop that I've upgraded to Windows 11 is a lot snappier. As a rule I haven't noticed memory pressure on any device I've owned ever as a "regular user," it only really applies to gaming and heavy development with lots of VMs, especially these days.
  - aurareturn 6mo ago
    Swap on macOS is incredibly good. Not sure how Apple does it. Maybe hardware compression?
    - longislandguido 6mo ago
      > Not sure how Apple does it. They do it by prematurely wearing down the soldered SSD just in time for you to buy a new laptop.
      - aurareturn 6mo ago
        As far as I know, there is no M1 8GB SSD wear down complaints in 2026.
        spicySpy 6mo ago
        There are - people are complaining about SSD health
        aurareturn 6mo ago
        Source? Is it SSDs breaking down or people are just looking at SSD usage and then get scared?
    - p_ing 6mo ago
      It's no different from NT in that respect. macOS is significantly worse at handling OOM events than NT (even NT4, for that matter).