I'm in the situation where I really want to pre-order a 14", but I have no idea if going with the base model would be a mistake.
Would upgrading to 32GB RAM make Xcode faster? Or would it be a waste of $400?
Would upgrading to 32GB RAM make Xcode faster? Or would it be a waste of $400?
I often work with large sparse matrices (which can be compressed well) and I’ve loaded up a 500 GB matrix into 64 GB of memory (although just barely, memory pressure was red in activity monitor)
The integrated nature of the M1 Macs gives them a much better ability to predictively swap unused content to SSD and make the most of the available RAM when things get tight while multitasking, but if you have a single task that needs 17GB and you have 16GB it's going to suffer a lot compared to if you had 32GB.
I wish Apple (and everyone else) would give up on the ultra-thin crap and make a real Pro machine that returns to upgradability at the cost of a few extra millimeters, but for now since you're stuck with what you start with I'd recommend always going at least one level above what you think you might ever need during its expected useful life.
Anecdotal example: I could have several Firefox tabs with active workers in the background (WhatsApp, Slack, etc.), a Zoom meeting with video conferencing on, with audio and video being routed via OBS (native), a Screen Sharing session over SSH going, and a Kubernetes cluster in Docker running, and that won't even make the MacBook hot. Nothing slows down. I could get maybe five hours out of the battery this way. Usually six.
Doing that on a maxed out Intel MacBook Pro will make it sound like a jet engine and reduce my battery life to two or three hours. It will also slow to a crawl.
I'm guessing buying a machine with 32GB of RAM is an investment into the future where workloads on m1 machines are high enough to actually give the memory a run for its money.
I ended up shelling out the extra $400 for 32GB, but didn't feel great about it!
And, if you're spinning on 16GB ram on an M1, you might be eating through the SSD powering your swap space and not know it.
This likely isn't a perfect metric, if I were closer to the limit I think MacOS would get more aggressive about compression and offloading stuff to disk but still.
Which is to say the SSD is much closer to being as fast as RAM, which would explain why is subjectively can make better use of less memory.
/s
If I was sticking with 16GB RAM I think I'd get a M1 Air instead. The smaller screen is the downside, but 300g lighter and substantially cheaper are good points.