
Who's to Blame for the 16 GB RAM Limit on the New MacBook Pros: Apple or Intel? - grzm
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2016/10/31/intel-mbp-ram
======
pcurve
I'm a little bit surprised at this outrage considering there are very few PC
laptops that offer 32GB+ DDR4. XPS15 offers 32GB but its battery life is
rather poor.

Thinkpad P50 offers 64gb with tested battery life of over 8 hours, but it
clocks in at 5.8lbs.

I'm a pretty heavy duty user and I have 3 machines that each has 8GB. (PC, PC,
Mac). What the hell are people doing on their 13.3 - 15inch laptop that
requires 32GB?

~~~
purple-dragon
I have 16GB of RAM in my MBP. As I type this I'm running at 15.25GB used. I'm
not running any VMs, nor am I running any Adobe Products. Chrome, Spotify,
Slack, Visual Studio Code, HipChat, Keynote, Sketch... this is a typical, yet
light application load for me.

~~~
sjtgraham
\- Chrome

\- Spotify (Chromium Embedded Framework)

\- Slack (MacGap (WebKit))/(Electron (Chromium Embedded Framework))

\- Visual Studio Code (Electron (Chromium Embedded Framework))

Notice a pattern? :)

~~~
purple-dragon
Yes, the pattern is not lost on me :-)

------
legohead
After hearing people complain about the new Macbook limit on 16gb RAM, I went
to check out what the Surface Book offers -- which is, also, a max of 16gb
RAM.

~~~
coldtea
And which nobody even thought of raising as an issue...

~~~
dlss
Because in the windows market, surface isn't a laptop targeting video editors,
game programmers, etc. It's a thin and light entry. Contrast with lenovo
portable workstations which got 64gb over a year ago:
[http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/11/9129681/lenovo-skylake-
xeo...](http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/11/9129681/lenovo-skylake-xeon-
notebooks-p50-p70)

Apple produces every osx compatible device. This means it needs to produce at
least one device that can meet the needs of power users.

~~~
codepope2014
Have you not watched MIcrosofts "can't do that in a Mac" campaign? 3D
modelling, video editing, lots of heavy lift graphics apps...

~~~
coldtea
And yet most video editors I know use Macs, same for "heavy lift graphics
apps". Nobody (ie very few) run around with a 8lbs/4hour battery "desktop
replacement" PC to do such things on the go.

------
plinkplonk
I've been checking his site the last few days just to get the pro Apple spin.
This is awesome.

Can Apple ever make a serious mistake in Gruber's eyes?

~~~
grzm
I think it would be a useful project to compile a list of times Gruber has
been critical of Apple. One topic he has called out Apple on been the amount
of memory in entry-level iPhones and iPads.

[http://daringfireball.net/2014/10/ipad_air_2](http://daringfireball.net/2014/10/ipad_air_2)

I don't know if this meets your criteria for "serious", and it's just a single
example. Just a little push-back against "ever" :)

~~~
plinkplonk
that specific article has a pinch of criticism in a gallon of praise ;-)

That said, I'm fine with Gruber being such a fanboy. He fills a niche, makes a
great living, and his readers are happy. All good.

I personally find his writing amusing is all.

~~~
grzm
_" that specific article has a pinch of criticism in a gallon of praise "_

No disagreement here :) Like I said, just a little push back :)

------
kubatyszko
First gen of Intel Mac's had 2GB limit (even though the chipset could address
3 or 4 GB), this got fixed later. My bet it that revision 2 in 6-12 months
with whatever next Intel CPU generation will take 32GB with no issues.

------
fgpwd
I have a 4gb 2012 MacBook air that works fine. I don't face much performance
related issues with it and can compile apps, use VMs(one at a time) fine with
it. It can get slightly laggy at times, but most of it isn't noticeable. I
usually restart when that starts to happen and it gets fine that way.

I am thinking of saving some money and upgrading to the base 1499 model and
donating my air to a friend who really needs it. But it has got only 8GB of
RAM. Ideally I would have gone for the 1799 model with 16gb ram which makes it
$1999. But don't have that much money right now. However, since even the 4GBs
of RAM have seemed satisfactory to me so far, I am thinking of making the
jump. Non-apple is anyways not an option as I use sketch and need to compile
iOS apps.

With my present air I always regret getting 128GB hard disk as it is too less,
and I need to format my laptop every year to get rid of the junk occupying
hard disk space. I hope I don't end up regretting the 8GB for the next few
years.

------
pwinnski
I am currently using a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014), and am
running: a Docker VM, IntelliJ IDEA (two instances, one large and one medium
Java project), Slack, Safari, Chrome, iTerm configured with unlimited screen
buffer, a VPN, Dropbox, Fantastical, Backblaze, 1Password, and a few other
things.

For memory, I've got 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

Activity Monitor is happily green, and shows me that 11.57GB of my 16.00 GB of
memory is used, with 3.18 GB of cache.

I used to run into trouble with "memory pressure," but switching to Safari
instead of Chrome eliminated all of that. I have 21 tabs open in Safari, only
Gmail open in Chrome.

I'm sure I could come up with some combination of things that would strain the
16 GB I currently have. I might have to work at it a bit, though, and I think
by most of the definitions I've seen in this thread, I should be screaming
about the limitation.

If I ever hit the yellow zone with memory again, I'll just quit Chrome.

------
robUx4
The i5-7200U and i7-7500U both have DDR4 and a limit of 32GB. What kind of U
CPU does the MacBook Pro has?

~~~
robUx4
From
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook_Pro](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook_Pro)
the lowest spec CPU is an i5-6360U which supports DDR4 and 32GB of RAM:
[http://ark.intel.com/m/products/91156/Intel-
Core-i5-6360U-Pr...](http://ark.intel.com/m/products/91156/Intel-
Core-i5-6360U-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-3_10-GHz#@product/specifications)

~~~
ac29
And the highest spec is a i7-6920HQ, which supports 64GB DDR4... but Apple
declined to use DDR4.

------
narrowrail
I think the tech bloggers/ industry have had their fill on the latest Apple PC
lineup. We need to stop this madness of giving them attention. We are being
trolled. My non-scientific estimate is that I've seen ~20 threads in some way
related/ essentially having the same discussion in the last 24hrs.

Build your own desktop behemoth that you can use remotely (Xeon+dedicated
GPU(s) and all), and buy an Apple laptop or Dell XPS with what you need. Done.
If you develop for iOS, the choice is clear.

------
segmondy
I have an intel laptop (w520) from 5yrs that can supports more than 16gig of
ram and currently has 20gb of ram (16+4). Yes spec says max is 16gb but that's
not true. I don't know the max. i7 quad core. 5 years old.

~~~
chillacy
Anyone know why Intel isn't able to support > 16GB of LPDDR4? Is it a
limitation of address bus width in the design?

~~~
yuhong
They don't have support for LPDDR4 at all at this point.

------
sliken
Seems like apple's just blowing smoke. The entry level macbook pro has a 10%
(5kwh) larger battery. Seems rather implausible that an extra 5kwh is not
enough to run 16GB ram for 10 hours.

------
tbrock
What 13" laptop of this form factor and size has 32gb of ram as an option?

Answer: none

~~~
zumu
Just bough a 14 inch thinkpad t460p with 32gb of ram for $980. The form factor
isn't quite as sexy, but the specs compare favorably to the macbook pro, and
the price difference is pretty absurd. It's entirely upgradable to boot.

~~~
fgpwd
Where did you get it for 980? I tried configuring one and a base model with
8gb of ram and 256gb ssd turns out to be over $1250. With 32GB ram it goes
above $1500.

~~~
zumu
On the Lenovo site. I found a coupon for 30% just googling around.
Unfortunately, I believe it ended 10/30\. However, Lenovo often has
sales/promotions, esp around the holidays. So I'm sure there will be more
sales soon. Another trick is to just get the HDD option and buy an ssd off
Amazon.

------
marichards
It was annoying, a few years ago, trying to find a non-Apple laptop with
better specifications. Now it's too easy, as a developer, I rarely find CPU
limits my speed (typing is a limitation) but ram does limit how much I can do
at once, or at least how many vms and containers I can run whilst developing,
testing and searching stackoverflow. However, I use Linux laptops, but my
graphic designing partner who loves to have lots of elements of work open at
once as she works out how to aggregate them, is going to find it harder to
cope, especially as graphics resolutions keep getting better and needing more
memory.

------
ppurka
If I am not mistaken, the chipsets on the Intel NUC models are laptop
chipsets. I have the Skylake Core i3 version and that supports up to 32G of
LPDDR4 RAM (dual channel). Since the thin laptops typically have only one RAM
slot, it makes sense why they are limited to only 16G.

With this in mind, my understanding is that it is perhaps a limitation of the
current Intel chips for single RAM slots, combined with the reluctance of the
laptop manufacturer to include dual channel memory in their (thin) laptops.

~~~
rayiner
Even the Macbook has dual-channel memory. They don't have RAM slots--they
solder memory chips directly to the motherboard.

~~~
ppurka
Having RAM slots that are user serviceable and having them soldered directly
into the motherboard is besides the point.

If there is only one RAM slot (whether soldered-on or otherwise), then the
total memory that can be supported is at most 16G.

~~~
rayiner
There are no DIMM slots at all on an MB or MBP motherboard. There are bare
memory chips soldered in a dual channel configuration.

------
feelix
I would say that, strangely enough, the Federal Aviation Administration is to
blame for the 16GB RAM limit. I posted an explanation why here hours ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12841293](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12841293)

~~~
dlss
If the FFA is to blame, how have windows laptops had 64gb of ram for over a
year? [http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/11/9129681/lenovo-skylake-
xeo...](http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/11/9129681/lenovo-skylake-xeon-
notebooks-p50-p70)

~~~
feelix
If you RTA you'll see that it's a forced compromise between battery life and
FFA restrictions

~~~
dlss
I did. The FAA power limit is a red herring. Perhaps an example will help:

High res screens require more power to run, and more power to render for...
which means you could also blame the FAA for Apple not using high res
screens... except Apple does use high resolution screens.

So the situation is not one of forced compromise so much as Apple having
different priorities from its users... which is where we thought we were
before you brought up the FAA.

------
cannonball
My entire company was waiting on 32G, we run a simulation that chokes on 16G.
Now everyone is trying to figure out what is the best non-Mac to do the job.

~~~
Volt
Why not use a desktop?

------
S_A_P
I overrammed my previous MacBook. It was a max of 4 or 8 Gb can't remember but
I ended up going 8/16\. It worked fine until the keyboard failed. I'm going to
replace it eventually.

------
TheLilHipster
Jobs is not a fan of softkeys:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL7X3DTyS2Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL7X3DTyS2Q)

This is pretty much directly relevant to the state of apple right now:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AxZofbMGpM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AxZofbMGpM)

It's quite eery.

------
revelation
Battery is a pure smoke screen. They had no qualms cutting battery life to
make it that little bit thinner and put in a watch with horizontal striped
OLED display.

~~~
grzm
_" They had no qualms cutting battery life"_

I haven't seen where Apple cut battery life in the MacBook Pro. Here's what's
reported now (granted, it's from Apple's website):

15" MacBook Pro

2015 - Up to 9 hours wireless web [http://www.apple.com/macbook-
pro/specs-2015/](http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs-2015/)

2016 - Up to 10 hours wireless web [http://www.apple.com/macbook-
pro/specs/](http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/)

If there are other references out there (particularly if they're independent
of Apple), please share! Or perhaps you're referring to something besides last
week's MacBook Pro updates?

~~~
givinguflac
Yep, battery life is improved but hey don't let that get in the way of Apple
hate lol.

