RAM for M1 MBP

[Herdfan]

My daughter is graduating from college in a couple of weeks and wants to order a new MBP before she loses her student discount.

She currently has a 2017 MBP and isn't quite sure of what level of RAM to order (16 or 32). I know older Intel models would come with only 8G of Ram, but the minimum on the new M1's is 16.

Is 16 enough? She lives in Adobe Studio, so that is what we need to configure for.

And as an FYI, they are 2 months out for orders today.

 

[mollyc]

You should check B&H. Although I guess you might not get the student discount there, but they do have some machines in stock. I ordered on Saturday and received it yesterday.

I'd say 32 for Adobe stuff.

 

[Eric]

You should check B&H. Although I guess you might not get the student discount there, but they do have some machines in stock. I ordered on Saturday and received it yesterday.

I'd say 32 for Adobe stuff.

Agreed, Adobe is RAM hungry but with the M1 she could still probably get away with 16 ok, it's super fast.

 

[cloudflare420]

You always get the most RAM you can afford, since it can't be upgraded. Plus if you plan to keep it for another 5 years or so, the extra RAM will come in handy for newer versions of MacOS

 

[Herdfan]

You should check B&H. Although I guess you might not get the student discount there, but they do have some machines in stock. I ordered on Saturday and received it yesterday.

I'd say 32 for Adobe stuff.

They do, but the only 32's have the 1TB drive and that jacks the price way up. Plus as you noted, no student discount.

Costco also has them for $200 Off, but the only 32's are the M1 Max, which is out of stock.

She has saved and is wanting to buy it on her own, so price is very important to her.

 

[Nycturne]

How much RAM does she have now? What does memory pressure look like while she's working?

Especially if price is a concern, I think it makes sense to measure her workflow and decide based on that.

 

[Herdfan]

How much RAM does she have now? What does memory pressure look like while she's working?

Especially if price is a concern, I think it makes sense to measure her workflow and decide based on that.

She has 16 on both her 2017 MBP and her 2021 M1 iMac. I guess I should get the bad dad award since I configured the iMac.

She says she has no issue with running Adobe on her iMac.

 

[Citysnaps]

She has 16 on both her 2017 MBP and her 2021 M1 iMac. I guess I should get the bad dad award since I configured the iMac.

She says she has no issue with running Adobe on her iMac.

And I have no issue running Lightroom on my 16GB M1 MBA.

 

[Herdfan]

And I have no issue running Lightroom on my 16GB M1 MBA.

I Lightroom native? I know there was one program she has to run on Rosetta.

 

[mollyc]

I Lightroom native? I know there was one program she has to run on Rosetta.

having just upgraded to an M1 machine today, LR and PS are both native, but Bridge is still Intel. I don't use any other Adobe products.

 

[Citysnaps]

I Lightroom native? I know there was one program she has to run on Rosetta.

Yes it is. IIRC, that happened mid/late last year with version 10.3. It's up to 11.3.1 now. Some things are somewhat faster, like importing/exporting.

Regular editing feels about the same. It really never felt slow. I think that really speaks to how well Rosetta works. And that internal M1 SSDs are blazing fast. Just a guess.

 

[NT1440]

I’ve been buying our creative team at work the base 16”. So far the reviews are that it’s got insane battery life and never slows down. Granted this is entirely Adobe usage of photoshop, XD, Lightroom, etc.

For what it’s worth.

 

[Nycturne]

She has 16 on both her 2017 MBP and her 2021 M1 iMac. I guess I should get the bad dad award since I configured the iMac.

She says she has no issue with running Adobe on her iMac.

Honestly, it sounds like 16GB will be fine. If Activity Monitor isn't showing something like red memory pressure, I would probably pass on the 32GB model.

 

[Colstan]

I purchased a base model 2018 Intel Mac mini as a "stopgap" before Apple Silicon Macs were announced, because rumors of the transition to ARM were strong at the time. This was a mistake, because since then I've decided to keep it until the M3 generation are released, thus I'm stuck with an anemic 128GB internal SSD and 8GB of system memory. I supplemented it with an external 500GB SSD, added an eGPU, and looked to upgrade the RAM. At this point, my Mac is held together with sticks and bubble gum. With Apple Silicon, it's best to purchase what you think you will need, plus room to spare, since you can't upgrade later.

Still, it's possible to go too far. I got a great price on used laptop SO-DIMMs to bring my Mac mini up from 8GB to 64GB. I rarely make a luxury purchase, but this was certainly one, considering I'm using a low-end i3 model. If I had to do it over, I would have been fine with much less than 64GB; what I do doesn't quite touch 16GB. While you can never have too much RAM, you can certainly waste money on that extra RAM, so it's important to keep your use case in mind and plan accordingly. If I were to purchase an Apple Silicon Mac today, then I'd go for the middle ground with 32GB, because I know I would never use more, but still would want the spare if needed.

 

[Spike]

I have an M1 Mini with 16GB. I run Photoshop, Lightroom, Portrait Pro, and a few other things, often open at the same time. I have processed real estate photos with 5 image HDR. It runs just fine.