
Why MacBook Pros Don't Need 32GB of RAM - mpweiher
http://www.zdnet.com/article/why-macbook-pros-dont-need-32gb-of-ram/
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ethbro
tl;dr summary: _" Here is what DRAM is. Photoshop, FCPX, and Logic Pro X don't
need 32 GB of DRAM, so you don't either."_

... Thanks, ZDNet.

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mamon
For me the deal breaker with latest MacBook Pros was not RAM, but inclusion of
AMD GPUs.

I have recently got interested in Machine Learning and I wanted machine with
CUDA support in order to play with TensorFlow.Even lower end GPU, like GeForce
1050 would still be a big improvement over Intel CPU for such things.

Now the only options I have is the new Razer Blade (but they don't ship to
Europe yet) and (alleged) Dell XPS 15 refresh. Or go all in and buy big PC
box.

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mesozoic
What is this? A fluff piece sponsored by Apple or something?

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davelnewton
Seems silly since they don't discuss things like multiple VMs etc. which I use
for development sometimes. I'm not always connected and dragging a beefy
rackmount box isn't always possible.

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aphextron
"640K ought to be enough for anybody."

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notadoc
Bingo!

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stuaxo
"Maybe, if you're a heads down video editor, getting paid by the hour, 32GB or
more makes sense. But most people don't need it."

\- it is supposed to be "pro", not for most people.

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xkcd-sucks
The reasons given are RAM compression and SSD paging.

RAM compression has been around since System 7 (Ram Doubler by Connectix), and
it sucked. Maybe Apple has implemented it in super fast hardware or
something...?

SSD speed is given as 2-3gb/s, while LPDDR3 is around 10gb/s

SSD paging is probably going to reduce its lifespan, unless it's way
overprovisioned in which case that storage is wasted for people that don't use
lots of ram. And you can't replace the SSD.

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combatentropy
The article says, "Less DRAM also increases battery life." Can anyone give a
rough guess about the difference in battery life between a new Mac Book Pro
with the base 8 GB and one upgraded to 16 GB?

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hobarrera
Eventually, NAND might just end up replacing volatile RAM, since the speed
difference on consumer hardware will be negligible, and the power/heat
difference will make up for it.

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juliangoldsmith
The problem with NAND is the limited lifetime. With heavy writes, as you'd get
in paging, you'd have a significantly shortened lifetime on your drives.

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notadoc
Wrong.

Yes they do.

Next.

