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0 pointsrunako2mo ago0 comments

> Can it run multiple programs at the same time?

I have used a M1 MacBook Pro, 16 GB, as my dev daily driver for many years. I generally never need to close any application.

Typical sample of apps concurrently in use:

- PostgreSQL (server)

- TablePlus (db client)

- Docker

- Slack

- Chrome

- Safari

- Zed

- Claude native

- ChatGPT native

- Zoom

- Codex

- Numbers

- Calendar

- the whole stack for whatever app I am building (Redis, Node, Rails, etc.)

With that persistent stack running, I can pretty comfortably launch whatever other apps I want to use: Office, Music, etc. I only see a beachball when I launch an Office app (they may not be native yet, I suspect it's emulating from x86).

I was skeptical that 16 GB would be enough. I bought this fully expecting to return it and buy one with more RAM. The Apple Silicon Macs are much more efficient with memory than even the Intel Macs. I believe some tech articles have been written on the why/how, but in practice you just don't need as much RAM as you think on Apple Silicon.

0 comments

alpaca1282mo ago

I have an M1 with 8GB and M2 with 16GB, and they are not comparable. I once ran the M2 smoothly for over 250 days without reboot with a bunch of applications open the whole time (at some point it just force-rebooted, fair enough). On the other hand I regretted the 8GB on my M1 Mini every time I used it.

8GB is perfectly fine for light use, but I'd argue if that's enough then you don't need the power of an M1+ processor either. So 8GB in the Neo and 16GB by default in everything else sounds more sensible than what M1 started with.

ewoodrich2mo ago

I’m confused, you’re talking about 16 GB of RAM but OP said:

  Having only 8 GB sucks unless you're using it as a terminal or media player.

I have the M1 MacBook Pro with 16 GB too and it’s fine for normal web development and multi tasking but that … really isn’t surprising?

I still regularly use a five year old Ideapad 14 Pro with 16 GB of RAM running Windows 11 and it’s also completely fine for dev work running servers/Docker/WSL2 VM/etc locally.

BugsJustFindMe2mo ago

> I’m confused, you’re talking about 16 GB of RAM but OP said: Having only 8 GB

Look at the list of things they said they have open. Divide in half and it's still a lot because that set of running software is very hungry. PostgreSQL, Slack, Docker, Brave, Cursor, and iTerm2 running on my system puts RAM usage at 23.5GB, and yet modern macs have both very good memory compression and also extremely fast swap. Most Mac users will never realize if they've filled RAM entirely with background software.

ewoodrich2mo ago

Thanks, I can see the point being that a smaller subset of that would work on 8 GB, but I don't think you can really just divide by half? (Considering a much larger portion of the 8 GB would be dedicated to base OS/unified GPU needs compared to the 16 GB model).

e.g. using hypothetical numbers: if base MacOS/typical GPU usage requires 4 GB, then the 8GB model would have 4GB available for running apps (but multiplied by memory compression/swap to fast SSD). Whereas the 16GB would have a much more comfortable 12 GB for multi-tasking in that scenario especially with the multiplier effect of compression/fast swap on top.

So it still feels like a bit of an apples to oranges comparison as far as what an 8 GB model could handle in real usage. I have a friend who does light dev work on an M1 Macbook Air so I don't think an average user would have issues on the Neo day to day, but using the 16 GB as a yardstick doesn't seem that useful.

1 more reply

ciupicri2mo ago

Guess what? Both Windows 10+ and Linux have memory compression, too, yet 8 GB are good only for light usage unless you're willing to "destroy" the flash with intensive swapping.

1 more reply

runakoOP2mo ago

Sorry, I should have said that running that same stack on Windows/macOS Intel with 16GB resulted in tons of sluggishness in my experience. I would consider that a 32GB workload on Intel, so I was surprised that 16GB was enough for it.

To the major point of can it (Neo 8GB) run multiple programs at the same time, my experience would say it would have no issues doing so given what one can do in 16GB on lesser Mac hardware. (Maybe I am wrong and MacOS takes all 8GB for itself, but that seems far-fetched.)

ezfe2mo ago

They're giving an example of a very heavy workload on 16GB. It stands to easy reasoning that a casual consumer could be fine on 8GB.

ciupicri2mo ago

> Apple Silicon Macs are much more efficient with memory than even the Intel Macs

So either it has magic fairy dust, or more likely it swaps a lot, but thankfully today's flash is faster than yesterday's hard disk; though this intense usage will shorten its life. By the way I wonder if Apple will use cheap QLC for this.

potwinkle2mo ago

macOS actually does the opposite; to avoid wearing down the drive it will hold 7-10gb of your most commonly used files in memory and release them when the memory gets allocated for something else. In theory you could get away with editing gigabytes of files and using dozens of apps without ever wearing down your drive at all.

ciupicri2mo ago

> it will hold 7-10gb of your most commonly used files in memory

I would love to see how it does this on a system with only 8 GBs of RAM like this Neo :-)

Anyway Linux can also cache files in memory for some time if you tune it a bit.

perardi2mo ago

Office has been ARM/Apple Silicon-native for a while.

It’s just pig slow, even on my M3 Max MacBook Pro with 64GB of RAM.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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alpaca1282mo ago

ewoodrich2mo ago

I’m confused, you’re talking about 16 GB of RAM but OP said:

  Having only 8 GB sucks unless you're using it as a terminal or media player.

I have the M1 MacBook Pro with 16 GB too and it’s fine for normal web development and multi tasking but that … really isn’t surprising?

I still regularly use a five year old Ideapad 14 Pro with 16 GB of RAM running Windows 11 and it’s also completely fine for dev work running servers/Docker/WSL2 VM/etc locally.

BugsJustFindMe2mo ago

> I’m confused, you’re talking about 16 GB of RAM but OP said: Having only 8 GB

ewoodrich2mo ago

1 more reply

ciupicri2mo ago

Guess what? Both Windows 10+ and Linux have memory compression, too, yet 8 GB are good only for light usage unless you're willing to "destroy" the flash with intensive swapping.

1 more reply

runakoOP2mo ago

ezfe2mo ago

They're giving an example of a very heavy workload on 16GB. It stands to easy reasoning that a casual consumer could be fine on 8GB.

ciupicri2mo ago

> Apple Silicon Macs are much more efficient with memory than even the Intel Macs

potwinkle2mo ago

ciupicri2mo ago

> it will hold 7-10gb of your most commonly used files in memory

I would love to see how it does this on a system with only 8 GBs of RAM like this Neo :-)

Anyway Linux can also cache files in memory for some time if you tune it a bit.

perardi2mo ago

Office has been ARM/Apple Silicon-native for a while.

It’s just pig slow, even on my M3 Max MacBook Pro with 64GB of RAM.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse