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

31–40 of 105 posts

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

#31

Post by talldatethrow »

Kalanos wrote: post #12
replete wrote: post #9

I hope one day they can fix the engineering problems so I can buy a machine and keep it for more than two years without fear of some cheap components exploding. A purchased computer should work for a decade at least. If this sounds over the top, look at what the repair shop guys are saying... Edit: Thanks for the downvotes, its not popular but an unfortunate reality. These issues are related to 2016-present Apple lap…

My 2014 pro is still going strong

There are some people with 300k on their original Chevy Silverado transmission. But there are MANY people that have them blow up every 100k miles. So, would you say the 4l60e is a good transmission because yours went 300k?

Im in the Central valley and have helped at least 5 friends replace or rebuild theirs. If you visit a transmission shop, this is the transmission that keeps them in business because it's one of the few cars where someone will still spend $3k to fix a 20 year old car.

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

#33

Post by bitwize »

zamadatix wrote: post #27
zarzavat wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 minim…

They are saying it from the perspective of the RAM being on the same die as the CPU. This is one of the innovations of the Apple Silicon architecture as it SIGNIFICANTLY reduces memory access latency.

It's not just TSMC's 3nm process. It's also Apple engineering.

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

#35

Post by surfingdino »

bearjaws wrote: post #24
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...

So no actual increase in available RAM and no improvement in performance then. That'll be an extra £999, sir.

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

#37

Post by Night_Thastus »

throwthrowuknow wrote: post #26

Still pretty puny for RAM these days

Depends a lot on what you do. For casual browsing, even 8GB can be fine. For gaming, 16GB is often more than enough, though rarely 32 has minor benefits. For productivity, 32 is fine. Only really heavy stuff needs more.

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

#38

Post by usefulcat »

silveira wrote: post #21
replete wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I still have a 2012 Air. It's on its second battery, which is shot, but until recently everything else worked. Unfortunately the mic has mostly stopped working as of late. Still, we got a lot of use out of that thing, and my kids still use it--just can't use it for video conf any more.
Post reply on HN