2023-11-08 15:33:03
Who follows the Apple You’ve known for some time that every launch by a self-respecting company is accompanied by a good dose of controversy. And this was no different with the new 14-inch MacBook Prowhich, in its simplest configuration (model M3, US$1,600/R$18,500), brings only 8GB of unified memory — something almost inexplicable for a machine classified as “Pro”, let’s face it.
As expected, this specification has generated a lot of criticism from the company’s users in recent weeks, since, to have more memory on the computer, it is necessary to pay at least US$200 (or R$2,000) per 16GB de “RAM”. Another option is to go straight to the model with the M3 Pro chip, which starts with 18GB of unified memory, but costs US$2,000/R$23,000.
Well, yesterday, an Apple executive finally came forward to comment on this situation. In an interview given to the Chinese content creator Lin YilYithe company’s vice president of worldwide product marketing, Bob Borchersdefended the choice of 8GB by saying that this level of memory on Macs is comparable to 16GB of RAM on other systems, thanks to macOS optimization:
Comparing our memory with the memory of other systems is actually not equivalent, due to the fact that we have such efficient use of memory, we use memory compression, and we have a unified memory architecture.
In fact, 8GB on a MacBook Pro M3 is probably analogous to 16GB on other systems. It turns out that we are able to use them much more efficiently. […]
The 14″ MacBook Pro with the M3 chip, it is worth remembering, arrived to replace the already tired 13″ MacBook Pro with the M2 chip, which although it was more affordable (starting at US$1,300), brought an old language, the infamous Touch Bar, a tiny 256GB SSD and a traditional Retina screen of just 60Hz, as well as fewer ports, of course.
Borchers also advocated that people stop just looking at the raw specifications of the 14″ MacBook Pro with the M3 chip, and pay attention to how the laptop has performed in the hands of professional users, even with just 8GB of memory. The executive also highlighted the high integration between the various components of Apple computers, which also helps the memory issue.
A large system-level cache and on-chip and a fast SSD, coupled with some really clever code, means that a Mac with Apple Silicon doesn’t feel as bogged down with 8GB of RAM as, say, a Windows laptop.
What Borchers said, to be fair, is not a lie, since in addition to having good memory management, macOS also has tricks like swap memory to ease the load of data stored in unified memory. Even so, 8GB can still cause some bottlenecks in more demanding workflows, such as when editing a 4K/8K video with various effects and adjustments — a very common task among “professional” users.
Furthermore, it is always necessary to take into account the longevity of these machines, in addition to the fact that the memory is soldered to the logic board. If 8GB is enough for many people today, in 2023, what will these Macs be like in three, five, seven years?…
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14″ and 16″ MacBook Pro
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Cash price: from R$21,599.10
Price in installments: from R$23,999.00 in up to 12 installments
Cores: space black, space gray or silver
Chips: M3 (8 core CPU; 10 core GPU), M3 Pro (11 or 12 core CPU; 14 or 18 core GPU) or M3 Max (14 or 16 core CPU; 30 or 40 core GPU)
Memory: 8GB, 18GB, 36GB, 48GB, 64GB, 96GB ou 128GB
Storage: 512GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB ou 8TB
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via MacRumors
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