Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple to upgrade base Macs to 16GB RAM, starting from Apple M4 models

business-standard.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 105 posts

Re: Apple to upgrade base Macs to 16GB RAM, starting from Apple M4 models

#21

Post by silveira »

replete wrote: post #16
Kalanos wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My 2014 pro is still going strong

I knew I'd get downvoted, but there are known SSD / T2 chip issues with 2016+ macs. Still present in Mx mac laptops. 2012 Macbook Air was my favourite laptop ever. See Louis Rossman etc... if you get lucky you get lucky, but I don't like the odds, so Apple hardware for me is a subscription model...

+1 on 2012 Macbook Air. That thing was the best.

Re: Apple to upgrade base Macs to 16GB RAM, starting from Apple M4 models

#23

Post by ahmeneeroe-v2 »

replete wrote: post #16
Kalanos wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My 2014 pro is still going strong

I knew I'd get downvoted, but there are known SSD / T2 chip issues with 2016+ macs. Still present in Mx mac laptops. 2012 Macbook Air was my favourite laptop ever. See Louis Rossman etc... if you get lucky you get lucky, but I don't like the odds, so Apple hardware for me is a subscription model...

okay I'll bite...

Which hardware are you using that has more longevity than a typical Mac laptop?

I've become increasingly annoyed by the software deterioration, with my laptop losing gobs of power while "sleeping". The only thing stopping me from changing back to windows for my next laptop is (my perception of) the terrible hardware choices on that side.

My mental model for typical windows laptops is that they are worse brand-new (e.g. screen, trackpad, battery life) and have wildly worse longevity.

Re: Apple to upgrade base Macs to 16GB RAM, starting from Apple M4 models

#24

Post by bearjaws »

mjsweet wrote: post #22

Could this be related to their plans for local inference? Maybe the need to load larger models into memory has driven their decision?

Has to be, even a small model is 4gb of RAM. Open up any O365 based product in Chrome and kiss another 2gb goodbye if you only have 8gb you're left with very little after the OS...

Re: Apple to upgrade base Macs to 16GB RAM, starting from Apple M4 models

#25

Post by switch007 »

danielfoster wrote: post #3

I’d love to see an Air with an M4 chip and 64GB RAM.

The non-integer scaling on the Airs puts me off. I want perfect text rendering at a great resolution as that's well over 50% of the reason to get a MacBook. So it's the Pro for me

Re: Apple to upgrade base Macs to 16GB RAM, starting from Apple M4 models

#27

Post by zamadatix »

zarzavat wrote: post #19
ghostpepper wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just compression - also the unified memory architecture.

At the risk that I’ve missed a joke, the unified memory architecture reduces the amount of RAM you have available since “RAM” for any computer with discrete graphics doesn’t include VRAM.

I think they are saying it from the perspective rather than two separate banks which are rarely both full it's one bank which is only ever full when 100% of the hardware is full. That said I think many miss that's how integrated graphics memory management had been working on x86 systems for many many years already. I.e. the "dedicated RAM" slider in the boot firmware is a legacy holdover that should be set to a minimum token value, not something which determines the limit the iGPU has access to. macOS also works this way, there is a token amount of the unified memory reserved for the iGPU still, you just can't adjust that amount higher since there is no legacy holdover for it to make sense to do so.

Re: Apple to upgrade base Macs to 16GB RAM, starting from Apple M4 models

#29

Post by superkuh »

Finally. With 16B the amount of tech support I do for Apple M* products will likely drastically reduce. But unless they also upgrade the storage there'll still be people filling up the internal and then being unable to create the timemachine backups for their octopus of external storage devices.

Re: Apple to upgrade base Macs to 16GB RAM, starting from Apple M4 models

#30

Post by zamadatix »

HumblyTossed wrote: post #11
ComputerGuru wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All modern operating systems compress inactive pages.

What is the effect on battery life vs keeping an actual 32GB or RAM powered?

Generally it's more about the number of chips you need. If you can get to x GB of RAM with the same number of memory chips, just higher capacities, then the power difference is truly quite miniscule. If you have to double up chips to reach the capacity then you start drawing more power (though still on the order of a couple Watts max difference at those sizes). Even then it's not always a constant couple Watts, RAM+memory controllers uses less power when you're not actively writing data.
Post reply on HN