rMBR 13" - 8GB sufficient?

Hi!

I'm looking to purchase a rMBR 13" and was wondering whether 8 GB RAM will be sufficient for my uses over the next 3-4 years. Not planning to run anything intensive - I'm currently using 75%-80% of my 4GB whilst having a few tabs open up in chrome, running football manager and sky go (UK app - live tv streaming) through IE. I may plan to use Logic Pro X and and run a single VM in the future but nothing more. Will 8 GB sufficient for that? I've never used OSX before so I'm not sure about its memory footprint compared to Windows.

Cheers!
J.

 

It's tricky to try to guess what the computing landscape will look like in four years. I don't think anyone can reliably bet that you will *never* need 16GB for anything you want to do in 2018.

8GB will be sufficient now, and get you by for some time for moderate tasks. You know your usage better than we do, do you think your VM usage in 2018 will be more demanding? The 16GB upgrade is $200, if it was me I'd get it just to be safe. If nothing else, you have a little more resale value/desirability.

 

I edit 36mp photos on a Mac with 8gb of ram with no issues and edit video. OSX does not need near the overhead a windows PC does. For standard everyday use of web browsing, email and office type work 4gb is fine. So 8gb should be than enough..

 

OSX memory footprint it definitely lighter than Windows, although Windows 8 made improvements in that department. I think you should be fine unless your use case changes significantly...

 

As previously pointed out, it's hard to determine what you will be doing 3-4 years from now on a computer. There's absolutely no way anyone can ever say "8GB of RAM will be enough to get you through 2018" when we don't know the direction software will move along with Apple's OS. If you look at the past, 4GB used to be a lot but now it's pretty much the bare minimum in systems these days. I have no doubt that 8GB will become that number but no one, including myself, has any idea as to when that will happen.

We can't give you one of those salesman slogans of "this is all the system you will ever need!" I've heard that 5 times when buying systems and it was always a lie. Back in 1997, I purchased a desktop with 32MB of RAM and was told that was all I would ever need. Two years later, I'm upgrading it to 64MB so that Windows 98 could run smoother. I picked up a Dell 17" notebook in 2005 and was told I would never have to buy a new system for at least another 5 years (though I knew better). 1.5 years later, Intel released the Core Duo processors which outperformed the Pentium M in my notebook by 200% (that and the system physically broke just after 3 years).

You are really the only one who can determine how you will currently use a system along with guessing what your use will be 3-4 years from now. 8GB should be a pretty safe bet but having too much RAM will never hurt. That's one of the reasons why I upgraded my system to 16GB of RAM. I would have been fine with 8GB but I'm glad I upgraded to 16GB in the end as it has allowed me to do things that wouldn't have been possible before (like running three Windows VM's for XP, 7, and 8 with XP getting 1GB of RAM, 7 getting 4GB, and 8 getting 4GB while still having enough RAM to comfortably work in OS X). Just some things to think about. The extra $200 investment for your system may not be worth it in the end or it could be the upgrade you need.

 

As what others have previously said,

1) We can't tell how much you'd need in, say, 2018 (however, 8GB should be fine at least until, say, the end of 2015, assuming the same computer use).
2) You need to determine if $200 for 16GB total is worth it to you. IMO, that's a very steep upgrade, but if you need it and want the rMBP 13", you don't have a choice.

For a bit of comparison, I typically have a few Chrome tabs open on various webpages, typically have SSH/VNC connections to a few different servers (my own as well as school computers), (now) playing a lot of WoT, and a few other things in the background perhaps. That's comfortably fitting within 4-6GB for me on my desktop. Adding a VM to it (I typically allocate 2GB for a VM), and I'm typically under 8GB. Same situation with my W520 and a similar use case, though it uses *slightly* more because Windows 7 sees the 12GB of RAM I have in it and makes a slightly bigger pagefile / hybernation file.

 

Many thanks for the replies and advice.

I'm probably going to opt for 16GB due to the safety blanket it offers. I plan to keep the machine for (hopefully) at least 4 years and I suspect my needs will only increase in that time.

Cheers.

 

You can never go wrong adding more memory.

 

Well, it does lower battery life*

...trivially, but still

 

Exactly, ha ha. Adding extra RAM doesn't hurt anything except initial price (for the MBPr anyway). Other than that, the added RAM will only help situations especially a few years down the line. It's still impossible to determine if 8GB or even 16GB will be enough in 2018 but it never hurts to have the extra amount.

 

the only problem with having 8gb ram is virtualization.

If you run windows 7 and mac os plus another os via parallels, you might run into problem.

id go for 16gb ram, its 2014 man!

 

Eh, depends on how much RAM you give each VM. At least with Linux VMs I never feel the need to go above 1-2GB RAM per VM, though I figure a Windows VM should run just fine on 3-4GB RAM. OSX does just fine on 2GB or so of RAM.

 

The amount of RAM allocated to a Windows VM all depends on the version of Windows. XP runs fine for me on 1GB of RAM and a single CPU core, 7 (64-bit, doesn't matter) seems to be happy with 2-3GB of RAM, and 8 (64-bit) takes about the same for what I do (a lot of work in MATLAB and Excel). Of course, that does change from time-to-time depending on how many Windows VMs I run at once. If I'm just using one, I allocate 4GB of RAM and two CPU cores just to appease the OS.

 

Don't get 16GB RAM. 8GB is more than enough for the next 4 years. In 4 years the CPU and GPU are starting to get too old and it doesn't matter how much RAM you have as you need to update the whole system anyways. Even 4GB RAM is enough for 99% of users for the next 4 years, but I would get 8GB.

 

Actually, the CPU would be just fine, and for non-gaming needs the GPU will be more than enough as well. Hell, even the earliest Core 2 Duo and Athlon 64 CPUs are more than enough power for your average user these days and people just aren't buying as many laptops/desktops today because their old hardware is doing them just fine.

 

If the CPU and GPU are enough in the future then is 8GB of RAM too. I would say 4GB RAM will be enough for this user.

 

I'd say that 8GB is enough too. Though it's their money to spend and since the RAM isn't upgradable aftermarket, hell, why not?

 

You can't make those types of comments as they have no bearing. Too many times people have said "you'll be fine for the next 4 years with this" and they turned out to be wrong. There is no way anyone can predict the future or the direction technology will move. For example, people 3 years ago were saying that 2GB of RAM is all you'll ever need and now 4GB is the standard with some people barely getting by with that. Now people are saying the same thing about 4GB of RAM but, if the past gives us any inclination, 8GB will become the standard and OS's and programs will barely be able to get by with that.

Could the OP get away with 8GB of RAM now? Sure, it looks like it. How about 3-4 years from now? Maybe, maybe not. You can't say for certain either way and, if you do, it's nothing more than smoke coming out of a specific orifice. However, you can do something about it now so that the issue likely won't come up in that time period.

 

First of all, I never heard anyone saing 3 years ago that 2GB RAM is all you will ever need. 4GB was the minimum everyone was installing 3 years ago. Most people have installed 8-32GB on their desktops for years. 2GB RAM was the thing of 2004.

Secondly, you didn't understand what I said. 4 years from now the CPU and GPU will be old already and if you play games or use demanding softwares it doesn't matter if you have 128GB of RAM because the CPU and GPU are the bottleneck. If you use your laptop for browsing internet and other non demanding tasks, then your laptop will be fine with todays CPU, GPU and even with 4GB of RAM.

You definitelly don't need more than 8GB of RAM if you don't use very demanding softwares all the time like Adobe stuff and other video and image editing tools. If you do, then you obviously need very good CPU and dedicated GPU too.

This guy is not doing anything demanding. 8GB will be more than enough. I'm 99% sure 4GB would be enough for him for the lifetime of his laptop.

 

Nope. I was there, I experienced it, I remember. 4GB didn't become the minimum, across the board, until rather recently. In 2011, big box retail stores were still pushing out systems with 2GB of RAM and many people were saying that was all anyone would need for a while but maybe you should upgrade to 4GB just to be safe (hmm... That sounds familiar).

You also didn't read what I said. Over time, operating systems require more resources. CPU clock speed is irrelevant these days and there wasn't any issues with GPU requirements except when Vista was released. At this point, the CPUs and graphics (even integrated options) are far surpassing the requirements of OS's to function comfortably. However, if you look at RAM requirements, those have drastically increased over time. We went from 64MB with XP, 512MB for Vista, and then 1GB (32-bit) and 2GB (64-bit) for Windows 7 and 8. MS recommends 4GB of RAM across the board for Windows 7 and 8. Look at Apple, they went from requiring 1GB of RAM (Snow Leopard) to 2GB (Lion) in two years. Mavericks is still fine with 2GB though Apple employees will tell you that 4GB is the minimum recommended. Whose to say that the next big version of Windows (or even Windows 8.2) won't require at least 4GB of RAM with 6GB being the recommended minimum? Apple could very well make the next version of OS X (or OS XI, whatever) require at least 4GB of RAM with 6GB being comfortable. I don't know, it could happen or we might be at a plateau where 4GB is enough for everything. I'm certainly not going to try to predict the market and tell someone that they will be fine with any amount of RAM for a period of time. That's irresponsible and illogical.

That's all just for the operating systems too. Programs, even simple ones, are requiring more and more RAM. Chrome is currently consuming 125MB on my work desktop and that's with no other tabs (or plug-ins) running, there are two other versions of Chrome running (who knows) consuming 150MB each, Drobpox is sitting idle with 160MB, and there's a whole bunch of various other things (that are normal for Windows XP) so that everything is consuming 2.5GB of RAM. Factor that in with an OS that functions comfortably with 4GB and the end user should have at least 8GB installed in their system. That could change though or it might stay the same.

You can upgrade a system's RAM now as an insurance factor that will help with this or you can take a chance. Like I said, no one truly knows anything and to act as such is arrogant and it is irresponsible to give people guidance based on a set time frame. If someone is truly concerned that 8GB of RAM may not be enough, and they can afford the upgrade, why not? Why take a chance that something completely logical (and I'm not even going to throw out numbers like 99% or terms like "definitely don't") could happen thus alienating you from fully experiencing your system in a 3-4 year time frame?

 

You are wrong. Everyone added at least 4GB of RAM (2x2GB) on their PC builds around 2004 or 2005. It was the most used ammount of RAM already back then. Even though people knew their 32bit Win XP couldn't handle more than 3GB. I bought my first consumer level Vaio on 2009 and it had 4GB of RAM too. Some laptop manufacturers have been using 2GB for 32bit OS but I don't remember any 64bit OS laptops having 2GB of RAM in the past 4 years.

I've never used big store PC's. I'm talking about what people who know something about computers were using. People who build their own machines aka most people that I know. Those people you are talking about will say 1MB is enough if someone has told them so.

Os will function correctly with low spec CPU, GPU and RAM, but that has nothing to do what different programs, games etc need. Even the simple tasks will demand more power in the future. Stream 4K videos with a basic 4 yeard old laptop and see how smooth it runs. RAM is not power. CPU and GPU are power. Your 4K videos and demanding softwares will lag like there's no tomorrow no matter how much RAM you have if you have outdated CPU and GPU. I would also like to see how well you edit 1080p/2K/4K videos and play modern games with basic CPU and GPU.

Let me clear things up for you. Here are correct required specs for 32bit versions:

XP = 64MB
Vista = 512MB
Win7 = 1GB
Win8 = 1GB

Here are correct required specs for 64bit versions:

XP = 128MB
Vista = 1GB
Win7 = 2GB
Win8 = 2GB

As you can see there's no change between Win7 and Win8 (past 5 years).

Recommended specs are usually double the ammount of RAM.

Knowing all this, do you seriously think that the required RAM for next OS versions will be four times as much as with WIn8? If you think that Windows 9 or next Mac OS will need 8GB as required RAM and 16GB as recommended, you are truly out of touch.

Also, your laptop will run well as long as the support for that OS will last (2020 for Win7 for example). The OS will not suddenly need more RAM. Only the softwares you use will determine if your CPU, GPU and RAM is enough. When you are only using your laptop for basic stuff it's clear that you are never going to reach even the 8GB.

Quote from you:

And then you say CPU and GPU are irrelevant. Saying that CPU and GPU are irrelevant is very arrogant and irresponsible. You are saying that new softwares need more RAM, how can you be so ignorant that you don't know that new softwares and games need more CPU and GPU power too. Not all of them, but not all of them require more RAM either.

Even the simple tasks will demand more power in the future. Stream 4K videos with a basic 4 yeard old laptop and see how smooth it runs. RAM is not power. CPU and GPU are power. Your 4K videos and demanding softwares will lag like there's no tomorrow no matter how much RAM you have if you have outdated CPU and GPU. I would also like to see how well you edit 1080p/2K/4K videos and play modern games with basic CPU and GPU.

It's just stupid to pay for things like 16GB RAM when it's clear you will not need it in the next 4 years because you are not using your computer to do anything demanding.

 

I'm not going to even bother. It would be nothing but a waste of my time at this point since you are so set in your ways in advising the OP that they will never need more than 8GB of RAM in the next four years. I'm certainly not the one who is out of touch at this point as I've seen the PC industry evolve to what it is today. I've been there, even before the times of a GUI driven OS. I stand by what I said and I don't see how you can tell anyone that the amount of RAM they order on a notebook will be fine for the next four years without fully knowing the person. It's fine to advise your grandparents or relatives that way knowing full well how they would use a system. We don't know the OP, we are only familiar with the few statements they have made. Predicting the limited amount of RAM they would use, over the next 4 years, from those handful of statements (especially given how much technology changes), doesn't seem very wise to me. It's always better to over predict than under.

P.S. It's also nice knowing that you fully read my statements before responding. Where did I ever mention gaming or video editing of any sort? I only mentioned OS requirements along with bringing up some common programs. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm not about to pull 4K video editing from my butt just to prove a wild point. If anything, that only furthers my argument that the OP should go with 16GB of RAM with a modern system like this. Thank you, I'm glad we are finally seeing eye-to-eye.

 

The usual "i'm not going to even bother" when your arguements are proven wrong.

4GB is good prediction for the ammount he really needs. 8GB is over predicting, but good choise "just to be sure" . 16GB is being ignorant.

We know what he does:

I mentioned video editin and gaming. I replied to your ignorant statement that CPU and GPU are irrelevant. You now said yourself that we don't know what the OP is doing. Then why are you saying things like "CPU and GPU are irrelevant" when you in your own words don't even know what he is doing with the laptop. BTW you are not going to edit 4K video with i5 and integrated GPU. So adding more RAM is useless once again, just so you know.

I also mentioned 4K video streaming that is now starting (Netflix etc). It's consired one of those common tasks. You need more power to stream that smoothly than average laptop had 4 years ago. If you had said 4 years ago that CPU and GPU are irrelevant you would have been wrong. Just like you are wrong now. RAM doesn't make the 4K run smoothly, CPU does. We see new softwares and inventions needing more CPU and GPU power all the time. It's not going to stop. Technological evolution is not going to stop.

The cold hard truth is that if he's just using the basic stuff (he said that's what he does) he's not going to need 4 times more RAM in 4 years. RAM requirements haven't changed in the last 5 years. Win8 didn't require any more RAM than Win7. Win 9 or next Mac OS will definitelly not require just suddenly 4 times more RAM when they come next year. Are you kidding me. You seem to have zero business sense or sense of the technology. "Hey I have an idea, lets make 8GB minimum RAM requirement so that everyone has to buy new laptop, even those who bought new machines last year". Most Macbook users would have to throw their machines to the garbage since their RAM can't be updated. This is getting seriously funny.

 

One last response and them I'm out...

You didn't prove anything. Besides, from my viewpoint, telling someone that 8GB of RAM will be good enough for their purposes (without knowing the OP) is ignorant especially since we can't predict what the OP will be doing over the next 4 years or how software, specifically operating systems, will evolve.

Yes you did, quite out of the blue actually.

Again, you aren't comprehending what I am saying. CPU and GPU are irrelevant in modern systems for general OS purposes. I'm not talking about 4K video editing, gaming, Java coding, powering a space shuttle, or anything else like that. Windows 8 runs fine on my old 2005 Dell notebook (which could take a maximum of 2GB of RAM, not 4GB like you keep insisting for systems of that age) and that has a 2GHz Pentium M with 2GB of RAM along with an Nvidia Go 6800 Ultra. It struggles with some HD playback but Metro animations run fine, I can still surf the internet on it, and it's fine for general OS purposes. The only thing is that nearly all the RAM is used when doing these general tasks under the 32-bit version of Windows 8.1. The CPU and GPU are fine but the RAM is limiting.

So, to recap, that's a system that is 8 years old running a modern day OS. The CPU and GPU really have no issues with running Windows 8.1 but the RAM is almost always maxed out when performing general tasks. A notebook made today, with much better specs, will be able to run an OS for a long time. However, it's the RAM that could limit things. Whether or not Apple supports said hardware is a different matter.

But not for general OS operation. 4K video streaming is not a common task though, sorry to burst your bubble. Netflix currently only offers one show at 4K and that's House of Cards. Yes, others will likely come down the line but it is still far from common. Even if you consider that a common task, the current hardware in the 13" MBPr can handle 4K videos fine. Intel Iris graphics have proper 4K video decoding capabilities so that these tasks aren't handled by the CPU.

How do we know that? Operating systems now suggest having 4GB of RAM for a comfortable experience. It's not the minimum requirement but it's what they suggest for things to run smoothly. That could very well increase to 6GB in another couple of years, no one knows. It could also stay the same for 30 years. Again, no one knows. To presume such information is arrogant. The MBPr is a tricky model to configure for as the RAM and SSD can't be upgraded with aftermarket components. You either have to buy a system and hope that it's hardware lasts for 3-4 years or you can add some upgrades now that will better ensure that it's hardware lasts for that long.

Look, I'm not saying that 16GB will become the standard minimum requirement of RAM for computers in 3 years. I'm simply saying that PC usage does change over time and the OP might be conducting more complex tasks down the line. It happens all the time. I am also not saying that Windows 9 and the next Mac OS are going to require 8GB of RAM. I'm just saying that it's a possibility we could get to a point that 8GB is the minimum for things to run comfortably and, if that so happens to occur within a 3-4 year period, the OP might want a little breathing room.

 

Operation systems will evolve, but that doesn't mean they will need 2 or 4 times more RAM. There has been no change in the RAM requirements going from Win7 to Win8.

You didn't seem to understand the point why I mentioned video editing and gaming as an example. If you do demanding tasks like that then you need more RAM but at the same time you also need better CPU and better GPU. If you don't do demanding tasks like that then you are fine with lower grade CPU, GPU and also less RAM.

Oh no they arent irrelevant. Just like they weren't irrelevant 3-4 years ago. The need for better CPU and GPU for common tasks didn't end in 2013.

I'm not talking about them either. I'm talking about common tasks. 4K streaming has becoming a common task. Task that you can't do with 4 year old laptop you bought with an additude "CPU and GU are irrelevant".

Now you are eating your own words again. First you say that your 2005 Dell can run Win8 OS but can't play 1080p video. After that you say the CPU and GPU are fine. How is that fine when you can't even play 1080p video that has been standard format for years.

Like I said, everyone was already using 4GB of RAM in their PC builds in 2004 with 32bit Win XP. Laptop manufacturers sure used 2GB for 32bit OS for a long time but 2GB was already too little for more demanding tasks back then. 2GB was ok for common tasks and it's still ok if you use 32bit OS. The CPU and GPU are not ok for modern common tasks (playing 1080p video) like you said yourself.

So to recap, your 8 year old system can run modern OS but it can't run the general tasks.

4K is common task this year. The current good laptops can obvisouly handle 4K, but if you had bought a laptop 3 years ago thinking "CPU and GPU are irrelevant" you would not be able to play 4K streaming. If you buy a laptop now thinking the same, you can't run the next innovations that come in the upcoming years.

4GB runs basic stuff very well now with 64bit OS. About 1,5-2,5GB is in use most of the time and when using several common tasks at the same time you are running about 3GB. If the requirement for smooth operating increases to 6GB there will be about the same ammount of headroom for play (it's been like that with every OS). If you have 8GB of RAM that would mean you are using 3-5GB most of them time and about 6GB when using several common tasks at the same time AKA the recommended for smooth operating. With 8GB you would have over 2GB of headroom to play with after you are using many general tasks at the same time. Also 8GB is and would be usable even for more demanding tasks.

8GB is the right ammount to choose based on logic, the history of OS and software evolution and the fact that OP said he is not planning to do anything super demanding with the laptop. Demanding tasks would need better CPU and GPU anyways like said many times.

With 8GB he has good ammount of RAM for some more demanding tasks too though he says he will not be doing those. With 8GB he has good ammount of breathing room. You don't need 10GB of breathing room.

 

Wow.. Big argument where no one's mind is changed. That never happens.

Go for 16.. Having more RAM is never a bad thing. If you can afford the extra $200, go for it.

 

8GB will be more than enough. I usually use about 65% of my 4GB, and am probably going to be sticking with 4 if I buy a 13" rMBP this month, though that's a tad risky.

Getting more than 8 GB will likely be extremely wasteful. By the time e.g. 16 GB of RAM becomes useful to you, the machine will probably need to be replaced for other reasons.