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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[–] ApeNo1@lemm.ee 185 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think they simply mean analogous in price.

[–] iminahurry@discuss.tchncs.de 13 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.

[–] Gnonpi@lemmy.world 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."

[–] MonkderZweite@feddit.ch 18 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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[–] db2@sopuli.xyz 132 points 1 year ago
[–] raptir@lemdro.id 98 points 1 year ago (17 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.

[–] WallEx@feddit.de 18 points 1 year ago

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

[–] AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee 16 points 1 year ago (20 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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[–] Synthead@lemmy.world 97 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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[–] anon_8675309@lemmy.world 69 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.com 12 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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[–] bulwark@lemmy.world 45 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.

[–] BURN@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago (3 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

[–] jmp242@sopuli.xyz 19 points 1 year ago (14 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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[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 41 points 1 year ago
[–] BURN@lemmy.world 38 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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[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 36 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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[–] WereCat@lemmy.world 34 points 1 year ago

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

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 33 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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[–] iminahurry@discuss.tchncs.de 30 points 1 year ago

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

[–] qwertyqwertyqwerty@lemmy.one 28 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.

[–] Dkarma@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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

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[–] BeigeAgenda@lemmy.ca 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

[–] YurkshireLad@lemmy.ca 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] bobbytables@feddit.de 21 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.

[–] albert180@feddit.de 19 points 1 year ago

I call Bullshit

[–] Vilian@lemmy.ca 17 points 1 year ago (4 children)

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

[–] crandlecan@mander.xyz 9 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Instant ram tar compression. What else?

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[–] ogeist@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago

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

[–] crispy_kilt@feddit.de 13 points 1 year ago
[–] vodkasolution@feddit.it 13 points 11 months ago

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

[–] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months 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

[–] PeterPoopshit@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

Fucking lol

[–] Max_P@lemmy.max-p.me 11 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.

[–] JigglySackles@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months 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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[–] PeachMan@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't disagree that the M processors need less RAM, but the idea that they need half as much is bullshit. My poor little 8GB M1 struggles with more than 20 chrome tabs open, and it especially struggles when running apps that aren't built to be M1 compatible (through Rosetta).

[–] darth_helmet@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 year ago (5 children)

They share ram with gpu, which means they need more of it for equivalent memory space, not less. There’s no magic that makes less memory work like more other than swap, and swap is slow as fuck, even with a high speed ssd (which the m3’s actually have slower ones).

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