this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2023
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8GB RAM on M3 MacBook Pro 'Analogous to 16GB' on PCs, Claims Apple::Following the unveiling of new MacBook Pro models last week, Apple surprised some with the introduction of a base 14-inch MacBook Pro with M3 chip,...

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[–] [email protected] 207 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think they simply mean analogous in price.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

What, no! 8 GB Apple RAM costs 4 times that of 16 GB regular DDR4 RAM module.

Edit: 5 times.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (6 children)

The interviewee seems to be meaning it as memory usage (quote from them): "Comparing our memory to other system's memory actually isn't equivalent, because of the fact that we have such an efficient use of memory, and we use memory compression, and we have a unified memory architecture.

Actually, 8GB on an M3 MacBook Pro is probably analogous to 16GB on other systems. We just happen to be able to use it much more efficiently."

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I mean, i played with memory compression on linux too, but it's not a factor x2 and you trade that with more CPU utilization/less battery life. And even though software is not worse in efficiency on this side, webbrowsers, VMs and games still need the RAM.

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[–] [email protected] 148 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 129 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My dick is 2 inches long. That’s analogous to 10 inches on Mars.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago

Enough with this Martian slander

[–] [email protected] 110 points 1 year ago (18 children)

Holy crap, apple charges $200 to add 8GB of RAM. I just bought 32GB of DDR5 for the Framework I have on order for $95.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago

And now look at the actual chip prices and you'll know, why apple is so fucking rich

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (21 children)

They have so much prestige and influence under their name that their super fans would buy anything from them at 1000% markup all because it's a status symbol.

Hell, they could sell bottles of piss and the super fans would gladly sell off all their sperm/eggs and all unnecessary organs just to get a drop of it because sTaTuS SyMbOl.

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[–] [email protected] 109 points 1 year ago (21 children)

RAM is RAM. If you're able to manage it better, that's nice, but programs will still use whatever RAM they were designed to use. If you need to store 5 GiB of something in memory, what happens with the other 2.5 GiB, if they claim that it's 2x as "efficient?"

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[–] [email protected] 77 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Since 1990.

I remember their CPU cycles were "worth more".

They also always cheapens out on stuff, even when they used "PC" hardware, CPU from 4 years ago etc and RAM & HDD/SSD were so small you basicallyhad to buy a "next tier" machine (much more expensive).

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[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Lol no. My poor linux kernel barely keeps everything stable in 8GB and even then by shoving stuff into swapon zram.

I can just barely run a game and have a ton of FF tabs open + an IDE + discord + multiple desktops

WIndows basically dies once you hit the swap, and it usually starts at like 2GB used.

I'm assuming MacOS lies between Linux and Windows in memory management and performance, so it'll definitely start lagging if you open too much.

And this is all ignoring the fact that this is a scam statement that should be struck down by the FTC. You can't call an 8 gallon gas tank equivalent to a 16 gallon gas tank even if your car has better MPG. In that case you advertise the MPG. And in Apple's case, it would be something like "X% less RAM usage per system process" which we all know doesn't actually exist because its snake ass Apple.

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So are they going to make the software smaller? What about iOS? Physically how does 8GB = 16GB? Can't wait to see Photoshop open a RAW and run out of memory. I will say the M2 CPU was pretty slick and if I got one cheap I'd throw Linux on there.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (5 children)

This ^

Architecture changes can happen as much as they want, but there’s certain tasks that require a fixed amount of memory, and between that and poor developer optimization I doubt these improvements will be seen by the end user.

The CPUs really are great. It’s hard to want any other laptop when the performance/battery life are so great on the M series

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (17 children)

I find it pretty easy to want other laptops because I don't use Apple stuff because I dislike their UX. I know I'm weird but if I never have to get close to OSX or iOS I'm pretty happy.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago (7 children)

I call BS. My 8gb Mac Mini is terrible and constantly running out of memory.

I’m in need of a new laptop, but the lack of upgradeable RAM in these has really made it hard to justify. A minimum of 32gb, preferred 64gb (photographer working with very large files) costs hundreds extra and can’t be done by myself anymore. It’s also hard to find these ones used as the people who buy them have a specific use case and don’t replace them often.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Just waiting for Apple to just start trademarking and "inventing" units...

Our new Mac has the highest amount of "Rapid Storage Blocks (TM)" of any Mac ever! Enough to run 30 "Safari Experiences (TM)".

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago

My 0.7l wine bottle can fit in 3l of water

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Absolutely hilarious. But I've heard MacBoys parrot this exact same line of propaganda for years now.

16GB are totally enough! Apple will manage my 20GB of required RAM in such a way that it'll fit in my 16GB (actually ~15)

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago

Yes, which is why anyone spending anywhere close to this on a laptop gets 32 GB RAM

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

MacOS is pretty decent at memory management. That being said, 8GB of RAM is ridiculous in 2023. Newer and updated applications are tossing memory management out the window. Platforms like Electron wreck memory usage, and many apps popular desktop apps are using Electron now. 12GB is the new 8GB, for Macs. 32GB is the new 16GB for PC's. I wouldn't recommend a computer with less than 12GB of RAM for more than $300.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (4 children)

You can't play games so you won't be able to notice the difference.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Thanks to RAM Doubler and DoubleSpace you won't feel the difference.

Edit: I had forgotten that it was first called Stacker before MS copied/reverse engineered it and sold it as DoubleSpace.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

Downloadmoreram.com is going to get a lot more traffic

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

"lol" said Apple "lmao"

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not if it’s sharing memory with the GPU. Then its 6Gb is analogous to what exactly?

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago

You see, it grows inverted exponentially. 6 GB equals about 22 GB. Your best option will be the 2 GB model which performs like 64 GB. If that still doesn't fit your needs you could always download additional RAM.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago

I call Bullshit

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

Ha! Of course we will see this as a reduction in price, right?... Tim Apple?... Are you there?...

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

*half the ram, double the price! *That sounds catchy...

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (9 children)

and they wanted to bring games to mac??, like how?

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

I bought a 8gig and I’m usually running apps like Photoshop and Illustrator. I really feel the hit.

Work bought me 16gig M1 and it is noticeably faster when swapping around between apps.

Fuck 8gigs

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Fucking apple with the dumb ass marketing again. Can't wait to explain to fanbois you can't shove 16 lbs of shit into an 8 lbs bag...

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

Fucking lol

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I've been on 16GB of ram on all of my machines for so long ... It's really the sweet spot for everything I do (gaming etc. ) I don't do media production or anything like that. All that said I'm currently in the market for a new machine and will probably get 32GB "just to be safe" but since my next laptop will probably be a framework I don't have to make the decision till I actually need the ram and even then I can still decide to get one stick first the other later and the prices scales pretty linearly.

8GB might still be enough for some web browsing and stuff but apple should not put this little RAM in anything they call professional.

And before anyone says "you only need that much ram in Windows" well ... I don't and won't be running Windows ;)

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

I don't even think I've ever even seen my work MacBook using under 8GB of RAM and I'm fairly RAM efficient in my workflow. You'd start Docker on that thing and half your RAM is gone already, add VSCode and Chrome and everything is trashing already.

For the average user? Yeah, compression and swap is probably good enough. For professional use? Hell no.

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