Buying a new Mac, How important is the Chip or having >16GB ram
I saw theo's recent tweet about definitely not getting a mac pro and getting a mac studio instead, and it reminded me how bad my current personal computer is. I would like to upgrade to an m1 / m2 era computer but am not sure how hard to go on it. My needs are as follows:
• Probably would prefer a laptop as I work outside all the time
• Audio Production
• Rarely / Occasionally Video Production
• Lot's of coding, lately typescript + VSCode for me has been way slower than Logic Pro for example
• Live Streaming + Making Music at the same time
• Live Streaming + Coding at the same time
I'm thinking I'm going to buy a refurbished laptop, but I'm trying to decide whether or not it's worth the extra grand to get a macbook pro. My constraints that I know for sure I want is
• at least 2TB HD
• at least 16gb ream
but then after that I'm not sure how valuable the actual chip changing is, and if it will yield important performance gains for me.
• More than 16GB ram
• M2 vs M1 (any Max / Pro model included in that)
Do any of y'all have good insight as to whether or not shelling out the extra money for more RAM or for a better chip than M2 or M1 Base model would be worth the extra grande that it would probably cost?
I'm beginning to get the sense that with the silicon chips those upgrades might be overkill for the kind of work I do (No gaming for me).
15 Replies
For context, my work computer is currently an 8GB M2, and it already feels extremely snappy and has suited me extremely well, but I can't run massive compiled apps on it, and I can't make music or stream on it.
i have not regretted my M1 Max. it was expensive, but i got some money off cause i have a friend who works at apple
you might not need the Max. i use 2 4k screens at work and wanted to make sure i had the video buffer to support it
the M2 is really new. dont know anything about it
i also use my computer like 14 hours a day (work + personal) so for me its a good investment
Honestly same I might wind up splurging a bit
bro hell nuh
I have M1 Pro + 16GB
• Lots of coding (projects with +5K lines of TS)
• VS Code + ~5 other apps at all times
I really wish I'd upgraded to 32GB. It's not really slow, but usage is always super high, and I have to occasionally wait 1~3s to load a file or switch apps/projects.
M1/M2 Max may make a noticeable difference, but the real bottleneck is memory for things like VS Code and streaming
pro vs max has identical cpu performance. only difference is gpu which of the stuff you listed basically only matters for encoding heavy duty 4k video
id suggest M1 Pro / 32GB / 2TB
m1 vs m2 isnt a huge difference
and you can save a bunch if you're willing to get a refurb M1 from apple
i saved like 800 by getting an M1 Pro instead of an M2 Pro
I would say it depends on how you work in regards to 16 vs 32GB.
I have 16GB and regret it, but it's also not uncommon for me to have 30 Chrome Tabs, VSCode, and Photoshop open at the same time. If you're like a 1-5 Tab kinda person, and just VSCode, then 16GB would be fine.
I think if you aren't editing video, you'll be perfectly happy with the M1 chipset and don't need an M2
honestly this main reason i havent gone with mac for laptop. i currently have 40gb on my laptop and run near 90% alot of the time. but i do alot of photoshop too.
If i was going for mac, my minium would be 32gb but i dont think would be enough in my case
Just depends how tab hungry you are. I know people who manage to keep everything down to like 5 tabs, I think that helps a lot. If I'm feeling particularly lazy, I can have like 50+ tabs open which just really eats into RAM
if you're using 40gb on windows, 32 on mac will almost certainly be plenty
windows is hilariously bad at memory management
and the mac ssds are so fast that even if you need to page chances are you won't notice
using m2 pro 16gb ram:
i run - vs code, postgres, insomnia, browser usually 10+ tabs and spotify
with no lag
i have an m2 air and it's perfect for programming (full stack web apps) and other work, it has 8gb ram which tends to get used up (while programming) but macos is amazing at ram management and thanks to memory swapping it's never been an issue for me, no lag or any issues like that. if you multi task a lot as well as have a much heavier workload then it would be better to get more ram since you can't upgrade later and if you can future proof yourself why not. and if you're doing music and audio production, as well as compiling large apps, i'm not sure if 16gb will be enough (from what i know, i haven't personally done any of that)
I have 64GB with an extremely lightweight Linux distro, and I still manage to overflow it occasionally as I'm a heavy user.
So keeping your workload in mind, you should pick more/less RAM based on how heavily are you going to be using (tab count, programs running simultaneously, any VMs etc.). 16 if you're okay with making compromises during work/are a minimalist, or 32-96 if you're a power user/ need to have simultaneous things running ( also running ML models and stuff requires a hefty amount of RAM, and if for some forsaken reason you decide to train models on your Mac, then at least 32GB )
I wound up going with the 24gb RAM m2 with 2tb SSD HD
The difference between it and my last is already night and day
I'll have to wait a few weeks till I try:
Code + Streaming
or
Music + Streaming
or
Video Editing
But when I do I'll provide an update
