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8GB RAM in M3 MacBook Pro Proves the Bottleneck in Real-World Tests
(www.macrumors.com)
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this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2023
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The sheer idea of selling a 8gb machine in 2023 is kinda wild
8 gigs of ram for some shitty laptop is fine. Like the air shipping with 8 gigs of ram is fine (not great, but fine)
But for a "Pro" machine, let alone a 1600 dollar computer is insane.
MacBook Air is a $1000 computer too though :/ I bought a Thinkpad t480s with 8gb of (upgradable) ram for less than that back in 2019. currently running it with 24gb.
Even Lenovo is starting to drop upgradable ram from their machines. T480 was the last T*4 series with dual upgradeable ram slots. T490 and up all have at least 1 soldered stick, and the AMD machines now don't come with any upgradeable ram. Their prices to upgrade are at least reasonable unlike Apples.
Shit I got a T16 gen 3(?) for my mom a few months ago and it came with only 8 gigs of soldered ram. That machine is even worse than Apple because AMD locks away 1.5 gigs of ram for just the APU. Intel at least only hard reserves like 256MB or something. Apple gives you the full 8 gigs of ram to play with, no duplicates in CPU memory and GPU memory, plus their really fast swap.
You can change this allocation from the BIOS if you are so inclined. Not that it makes it any better. Sharing 8 gigs between cpu and iGPU is only acceptable when you are doing nothing but web browsing on the laptop/pc
I looked and it's either 1.5 or auto, and auto only does 1.5
Hmm must be that different manufacturers allow for different allocations. I am on an MSI laptop and I have the options of Auto, 256M, 512M, 768M and 1024M
My kid grabbed an 8/256 M2 Air when they first launched last year, and is still overjoyed with its performance. He has a PS5 for gaming, so the Mac is for uni work and downloading shit. 8gb RAM isn't inherently bad.
It's just as you said though; it's bad for a "Pro" machine.
$1000+ for basic word processing and web is bonkers to me.
Fair. But he likes using it and there’s more to value than the monetary cost of a device. For a start, there’s the build quality, but also the integration with his iPhone.
Oh it's entirely up to him how he spends his money, didn't mean to suggest otherwise.
1000$+ for uni shit is the most astounding thing I've ever heard
Man, you should watch new series of Planet Earth then, because there are some significantly more astounding things on that than someone spending their own money on a computer they wanted.
🚑🚑🚑
No thanks. People making dumb financial decisions will be always more astounding.
Maybe because I didn't grow in rich family but okay carry on, I wasn't judging. It was genuinely fascinating to me
What is someone likely to use a shitty laptop for? Open a web browser to run ~1080p video?
Basically, yeah.
Anything you'd do on a basic Chromebook, I guess.
I have a Chromebook that I put Linux onto. It's got a Celeron and 4gb ram. It's fine for web browsing email, etc on the go. It can play a ton of older games just fine, too; half-life 2 and episodes run surprisingly well. Minecraft with sodium and all settings turned down works okay, too.
My exeperience is lot of people just want an ipad they can type on. The m2 air is basically the same size and weight as an ipad pro, and the screen is more protected if you carry it in a backpack. It's also probably cheaper, especially if you want any of the accessories that make it "pro" ipad.
You'd be surprised by the amount of people who do video processing on laptops.
Maybe you’re not supposed to do any pro stuff with it. Just watch youtube videos and browse FB or whatever it is that grandmas do these days. Many apple products don’t really feel as pro as you’re lead to believe by the marketing team.
Just today I ran into a strange issue with the iMovie on iOS. You literally can’t edit a vertical video in any sensible way. Either you shoot horizontal video or you don’t shoot at all. These are the only options Apple gives for you.
You can't use iMovie for 1:1 video either. You have to edit clips with fat borders at the edges, then export it to Photos in order to crop it square. It's such a weird thing to miss out.
I've been using an 8GB laptop for a few years now and don't feel the need to have more. But if I'm paying that much I'd expect at least 16GB.
That's my problem with the 8GB. I even have the Air with that much memory. It's fine... but I also got it secondhand. For new, I can't pay that much money for entry level RAM specs.
Yeah I have 8GB of RAM on my Macbook Air and it works fine, I just need to manage my browser tabs and restart Chrome sometimes. But if I was paying $1600 or more for a "Pro" laptop......the fuck?
My company computer had 4 GBs of RAM... And an HDD with Windows 11, the worst fucking experience.
HDD in 2023? Why?
Meanwhile my i7 thinkpad with nvme somehow is not compatible with windows 11.
Well neither is my surface pro 4 but I don't want 11 and that machine still works great anyway.
That was the weird thing as well, only my PC was eligible for an upgrade lol.
Based on everything else, price.
Dumb company decisions ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The computers from 1921. As a standard in a corporate environment
I think it's so you can write 1000GB on it and have be cheaper than a 256GB machine. My folks had a 2019 laptop with an HDD, I'm not even being figurative here, they literally could not use it, 10+ minutes to boot it and load a program. Constant 100% I/O usage. Stuck some RAM and and a SATA SSD in it, it's been a daily driver ever since.
I open the two essential Excel tools that we use all day + teams and outlook and I'm at 10gb of memory usage...
Yeah I know, 4 GBs was a fucking nightmare back in the days when I did my colleague homework in 2014... It is even worse now.
No doubt. Even wilder to me is the idea of buying a Mac with 8GB in 2023, speaking as a long time Mac owner. Mine is from several years ago. I wonder if Apple execs ever pull their heads out of their asses. This feels like the late 90s all over again.
Don’t tell that to Nvidia.
I bought a Dell 6core AMD laptop on some sale and it was little 345 after tax and shipping. Then I immediately replaced the nvme with a 1tb one for another 70? I think. Laptop is really nice for the price.
Same with NVIDIA, who are stubbornly refusing to give their overpriced GPUs the VRAM they deserve.