M1 with 16 GB of RAM?
I plan on getting an M1 Air this december and I'll be using a Windows VM to use some very light programs (don't worry, they do work with Microsoft's translation layer on Windows on ARM) while using AutoCADon MacOS.
Apparently Windows 11 requires 4 GB of RAM (Even if I install Windows 10, I would be upgrading to Win11 later down the line), which means I would only have 4 GB for MacOS.
My question is, should I spend the extra bucks to upgrade the M1 to 16 GB of RAM when I purchase it?
Posted Nov 16, 2021, 1:08 PM UTC
1022
Yes. I would advise anybody who can reasonably afford the RAM to buy it, even if they’re not running VMs.
This. I would second that. Did the same 16GB / 512. As someone who multi-tasks a lot, it definitely reduced anxiety and improves the overall health of the device. I was seeing a lot of yellow lines in the activity monitor with the base config so ended up exchanging to this.
What is your reasoning? If someone only plans to use their machine for light programs, what would they possibly gain from having 16 > 8?
Longevity
Headroom, with which comes longevity.
The first problem is that self-identified “light” users may not actually end up being so light. The average user’s ideas of what is demanding has sharp limits. Simply using the web in 2021 can be a severe resource hog depending on the websites. Extra RAM will never hurt.
The second thing is that what’s good today is often not so great tomorrow, even if your use case doesn’t really change. My wife’s computer had a very average 4gb of RAM at the time it was purchased and for her use case it was fine. Fast forward four years alter and 4gb of RAM is a bit of a pinch and her model, like all the modern models, does not have upgradable RAM. Meanwhile, my 10-year-old computer with 8gb of RAM for its entire life is now.. simply entry level spec.. and it’d still be doing billable hours if it wasn’t for other age-related problems.
As I said though, my recommendation is with the qualifier, if you can comfortably afford it. If you’re a light user that is pushing your limit to afford. new $1000 computer, then by all means buy what you can afford. But if an extra $200 isn’t a strain, I recommend investing it.
What if you were stuck between only one upgrade. Would you do the 16gb or the 512 ssd
Then you have to consider the realities of your use case.
For most people, the RAM is going to be more of a benefit but there are definitely cases where only 256gb of on board storage is an issue that isn't solved by external storage.
I'd say RAM should be a priority over syorage as you can always connect external storage devices but there's no such thing as external RAM