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Why are tech news websites suddenly bashing 8GB RAM in Apple devices? (links.hackliberty.org)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I’m a web developer but I also do tons of work with large files being transferred across the network, I do some CPU intensive tasks from time to time, run Docker containers, etc. all on a 2020 M1 MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM.

Well it’s 2024 now and the thing still screams. So what I don’t understand is: why are there suddenly so many enraged tech news websites bashing on the 8GB base RAM?

I get it that some people need more than just 8GB, but for the cliche web browsing, email and social media user it’s not adding up to me why anyone is so enraged about this.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

While 8GB can be enough to operate simple stuff, it can slow some other stuff does. I saw someone post a FinalCut benchmark and it took 3 times longer on the 8GB machine.

And because the memory is shared with the gpu, it is limiting games from being ported to the platforms. The only console with less is the 7 year old switch. The Xbox series s has 10 and it is holding back the xbox platform against the ps5 which has 16.

It is really holding back what developers can do on the platforms.

PCs are moving towards 32GB now.

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

PCs are moving towards 32GB now.

Windows PCs.

I'm not going to pretend that more RAM isn't just automagically better, because it is. But 8GB RAM on a 2020 Lenovo Windows build feels and performs much worse than 8GB in a 2020 M1 Macbook Air.

8GB was so unusable in my work* (IT Pro for large corporate) laptop that they eventually agreed that we were "power users" and so could have an upgrade to 16GB RAM. But it still feels a bunch worse than my M1 due to all the additional sludge that gets lumped on top for corp reasons.

*Just to describe what I do, I have browsers open, MS Teams and then spend my day in SSH sessions to linux based servers, so realistically there was nothing "power" user about what I was doing, it was just that our corp Windows build & laptops are that awful. And now we've been 11'd, ugh.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Windows users complaining about low RAM in a UNIX environment make me laugh more than anything

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

It’s definitely not enough for a lot of different use-cases. But whatever, if it works for you, then good.

PS: I am a Unix user, not Windows.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

It is more than a little silly that I need 16GB of RAM to make my work windows laptop functional in order to administer a bunch of 4GB linux VMs ;)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Yeah I understand for things like Final Cut Pro memory is way more important, but that’s not what I was getting at. For day to day activity, 8GB has served me well.