Quote:
Originally Posted by psmith2.0
Are we thinking the 16GB will be as high as the M1, M2, etc. (the non-Pro/Max versions) will go for the foreseeable future?
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Nah.
The M2 might still max out at 16. For the M3, I find that less likely. By the time the M4 hits, I would find that quite surprising (assuming intervals of about a year each).
Quote:
Originally Posted by psmith2.0
Getting 32GB in an iMac would require a future version with at least an M1 Pro (even if the machine itself isn't called "iMac Pro"?
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Right, that's what I'm lamenting. I might have impulse-bought the iMac earlier this year if it weren't for that limitation. Which is not to say that "lol Apple dumb", just that it was this one little thing that made it a bit of a bummer for my needs/wants.
Quote:
Originally Posted by psmith2.0
At some point, as has been the case all these years, 8GB RAM stock is going to be seen as "not enough, out of the box" and 16GB stock will be the new standard (just as 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB used to be). Even on non-pro Macs, won't there be something else to step up to? Maybe not with the M2, but the M3 or later (whenever it's decided that 8GB stock and 16GB max are no longer cutting it)?
At some point, in the coming 3-6 years, even a ~$999 Air (or whatever it's called then) would be able to go to 32GB?
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Exactly. Matter of time.
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Some brief nerdery:
- The M1 has two RAM chips. They're either 4 GB each (for a total of 8), or 8 GB each (for a total of, y'know).
- The M1 Pro also appears to have two RAM chips, and the M1 Max has four of them.
Why does the M1 Max max (har) out at 64 GB, twice as much as the M1 Pro? Because it has twice as many chips. But wait, the M1 Pro seems to have as many chips as the M1?
Yes, but the M1 Pro and Max's RAM is LPDDR5, whereas the M1's is LPDDR4X. So, while most of the M1 Pro and Max was not a modernization (the chips are mostly the same as the M1, just quite a few more of them), the RAM
was.
And I think what's going on here is that LPDDR5 chips are available in higher densities than 4X; in other words, you can fit twice as much RAM in the same chip as before.
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TL;DR: I think we'll see a 32 GB MacBook Air as soon as Apple adds LPDDR5 support to their consumer Mac chip. And I'm guessing that'll happen either in the M2 (next year) or in the M3 (2023).