2019 "13 MacBook Pro - do you have one?
Discussion
Evolved said:
8gb is a waste of time, even 16gb on a pro machine is rubbish! I’ve been hovering over the 15” for ages, but the cost to spec it where it’s useful to me holds me back.
What are you basing that on?OP... unless any specific requirements for lots of ram are needed then 8GB will be fine.
No don’t have the 13”, I have 15” touchbars, but some of my team have 13”
Your question though is about memory
8GB: enough for most usage profiles: web browsing, Office and light photo editing. Mac OS memory management is clever and compresses before paging to disk, much more efficient than most other operating systems. My real concern would be this: MacBook Pro’s have a useful life of 5 years+ unlike most Windows laptops. If you want to upgrade, I would worry about resale value, as 16GB will become the base spec at some point.
16GB: enough for all but a few usage profiles. Great for software development, photo and video editing, running a single VM as well as the above
32GB: only needed if you have really unusual needs, like running several VMs concurrently or compositing multiple streams of 4K video. I have dozens of software engineers with 16GB machines - the few times I’ve been asked for upgrades it turns out they are trying to run something on their machine that belongs on a cloud server
fwiw I have 128GB on my home Mac, historically used for some pretty demanding software, These days it’s overkill (and actually slows down performance according to Geekbench 5). More than 16GB is for boasting rights, 99.99% of users don’t need it
hth
Your question though is about memory
8GB: enough for most usage profiles: web browsing, Office and light photo editing. Mac OS memory management is clever and compresses before paging to disk, much more efficient than most other operating systems. My real concern would be this: MacBook Pro’s have a useful life of 5 years+ unlike most Windows laptops. If you want to upgrade, I would worry about resale value, as 16GB will become the base spec at some point.
16GB: enough for all but a few usage profiles. Great for software development, photo and video editing, running a single VM as well as the above
32GB: only needed if you have really unusual needs, like running several VMs concurrently or compositing multiple streams of 4K video. I have dozens of software engineers with 16GB machines - the few times I’ve been asked for upgrades it turns out they are trying to run something on their machine that belongs on a cloud server
fwiw I have 128GB on my home Mac, historically used for some pretty demanding software, These days it’s overkill (and actually slows down performance according to Geekbench 5). More than 16GB is for boasting rights, 99.99% of users don’t need it
hth
Given that it can’t be upgraded in the future I’d go with 16gb just to future proof it, whether needed or not.
I’ve just decided to replace my 2013 Haswell rMBP which has served me incredibly well, with a windows laptop, though a high spec mobile workstation which should last as long. The Mac is still going perfectly strong and will he given to my kids for homework, I’d be surprised if it’s still not in daily use when it’s 10 years old. Flawless piece of kit.
I’ve just decided to replace my 2013 Haswell rMBP which has served me incredibly well, with a windows laptop, though a high spec mobile workstation which should last as long. The Mac is still going perfectly strong and will he given to my kids for homework, I’d be surprised if it’s still not in daily use when it’s 10 years old. Flawless piece of kit.
Cheers Mike, great feedback there.
I'm definitely in the first category of users. My main concern, as others have pointed out, is future-proofing.
What's giving me pause is that I can get the 8GB for just over £1100 whereas 16GB sees me into £1300 odd.
Hmm. Makes sense to just go with the 16GB, I reckon.
I'm definitely in the first category of users. My main concern, as others have pointed out, is future-proofing.
What's giving me pause is that I can get the 8GB for just over £1100 whereas 16GB sees me into £1300 odd.
Hmm. Makes sense to just go with the 16GB, I reckon.
Edited by TheJimi on Thursday 10th October 08:12
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