Comment on Apple keeps flogging 8GB of RAM for its Mac computers but it's still a dead horse
pivot_root@lemmy.world 7 months agoThe only memory-utilization-related advantage gained by sharing memory between the CPU and GPU is zero-copy operations between the CPU and GPU. The occasional texture upload and framebuffer access is nowhere near enough to make 8 GiB the functional equivalent of 16 GiB.
If you want to see something “written explicitly to utilize [a unified memory] architecture,” look no further than the Nintendo Switch. The operating system and applications are designed specifically for the hardware, and even first-party titles are choked by the hardware’s memory capacity and bandwidth.
disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 7 months ago
The Tegra is similar being an SoC, however it does not possess nearly as many dedicated independent processing cores designed around specialized processes.
The M1 has 10-core CPU with 8 performance cores and 2 efficiency cores, a 16-core GPU, a 16-core Neural Engine, and all with 200GB/s memory bandwidth.
pivot_root@lemmy.world 7 months ago
The M1-3 is still miles ahead of the Tegra, I don’t disagree. My point was that software designed specifically for a platform can’t make up for the platform’s shortcomings. The SOC itself is excellently designed to meet needs well into the future, but that 8 GiB of total system memory on the base model is unfortunately a shortcoming.
Apple’s use of memory compression stops it from being too noticeable, but it’s going to become a problem as application memory requirements grow (like with the Switch).
disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Sure, but no one is saying 8GB is good enough for everyone. It’s a base model. Grandma can use it to check her Facebook and do online banking. It’s good for plenty of basic users. I have an M1 Mini with 8GB that I use as a home server. It works great, but I need my M2 MBP with 16GB UM to use FCP, PS, and Logic Pro. With that, I can master 4K HDR in FCP from an unmastered source in Logic Pro without high memory pressure, let alone swap. There’s no way I’d have the same performance from a PC with 16GB of RAM in Adobe Premiere and Pro Tools. I’ve been there before.
8GB really is a suitable low-end configuration, and most Mac users would agree. I’m not surprised a magazine dedicated to PC gaming hardware thinks otherwise.