If you got a new Mac this Christmas, someone must love you a lot. So we’re sure they’ll understand if you want to exchange it for something better.
No matter what machine you have, I can assure you that it is quite fast. Apple silicon has truly been a game changer and even a 2020 M1 Mac is still fast enough for most people. But you should still consider returning it to the Apple Store and upgrading to something better.
No, I’m not suggesting trading it in for a PC. I’m talking about upgrading to a better Mac, mainly with more unified memory. Even without knowing what Santa brought, I’m going to assume it has 8GB of memory since the only new Macs with 16GB of memory are the M2 Pro Mac mini, M3 Pro, and M3 Max MacBook Pro . The Mac Studio starts at 32GB. Everything else that was more likely to be given as a gift has 8GB of RAM, including the entry-level M3 MacBook Pro.
Even if you don’t use your new Mac for anything other than browsing the web and watching videos, that’s not enough. And it will certainly not be enough in three years.
You’ll want to get as much memory as possible for your MacBook Pro.
Foundry
Muscle memory
Whether you have a new iMac, MacBook, or Mac Pro, you need to decide up front how much memory you need. Apple Silicon uses a unified memory architecture that integrates RAM with the CPU and GPU in a system-on-a-chip, which means system memory can be accessed faster, but also means you can’t upgrade memory afterward. ‘have purchased.
RAM is the only component you can’t upgrade externally, so what you have now is what you’ll have years from now. And if you just got a machine with 8GB of RAM, I can almost guarantee that it won’t be enough. That might be enough for a Chromebook or budget PC running Windows 11 Home, but even the cheapest Mac runs the same version of Sonoma as the most expensive.
I speak from experience, having gone from a 13-inch MacBook Pro M1 with 8 GB of RAM to a 14-inch MacBook Pro M1 Pro with 16 GB of RAM to a 14-inch MacBook Pro M3 Max with 36 GB of RAM. And in each case, the reason I upgraded was memory. You can see this in the image below, which shows the memory usage and pressure for each of my machines. Nothing has changed with my daily use, but with 16 GB my system shuts down regularly, but with 36 GB of RAM I had precisely no problems. Finally.
Foundry
Additionally, I didn’t use a single megabyte of swap space (temporary memory storage on the SSD used to free up physical RAM for other applications), which can degrade the SSD faster than other applications. habit. Even with 16GB of unified memory, a handful of Safari tabs and open apps can quickly eat up available system RAM, making your new Mac feel much slower and older than it looks. ‘East.
36GB of RAM may seem like a lot, but consider the cost. Apple charges $200 for 8GB of RAM, so maxing out the memory (24GB) on a MacBook Air or iMac will cost $400. These aren’t exactly bargain prices, but remember that you can’t just buy cheap RAM on Amazon and add it to your machine later. And in a year or two, the extra money you spend will ensure that your Mac won’t feel as old as it is.
Let’s be real, most people are more concerned about the color of their new MacBook than how much memory it has. And the lowest prices and sales are for these models, so machines with 8GB of RAM make the best gifts. But if you only have one, you should try returning it and getting something with more RAM. If the person who bought it for you really loves you, they will understand.
