The lifespan of a Macbook Pro will be increased if the RAM is upgraded from 8GB to 16GB, which is very unfriendly to the environment. Ironically, Apple's official website makes a big deal about how low-carbon they are.
Note: Customers cannot upgrade the RAM by themselves.
I have a 2011 Thinkpad T520 which still works fine, upgraded it to 16GB of RAM. There are high quality Windows laptops out there, but of course they cost as much as a Macbook.
I'm okay with laptops being sold with 8GB of RAM, but I'm not okay with artifically shortened lifespan caused by lack of upgradability. Manufacturers should be regulated to force them offer upgradeable RAM. I don't care what new technological innovations that may require to offer same speeds as current soldered RAM does, it's simply the right thing to do.
>Manufacturers should be regulated to force them offer upgradeable RAM.
Disagreed. You can't make RAM upgradeable and have unified memory architecture that makes Apple Silicon good. Let's not regulate technology like this.
There were studies done that showed most people do not upgrade their RAM/storage even though they could. They just bought new computers. I can't find them now but you could probably find them if you dig around.
> You can't make RAM upgradeable and have unified memory architecture
Silicon Graphics did it in the 90s, x86 laptops do something similar but it's not true UMA AFAIU mostly due to software / graphics API limitations.
> that makes Apple Silicon good.
Good interplay between CPU and GPU, the major advantage of UMA, does nothing for raw CPU performance. What I find attractive about Apple silicon is that it has very high performance, high efficiency CPU cores. Nothing to do with UMA.
Soldered RAM can be somewhat higher speed and lower energy than replaceable, I think that's the main real advantage. Still, I wouldn't want it.
>x86 laptops do something similar but it's not true UMA AFAIU mostly due to software / graphics API limitations.
They don't. They pre-allocate a portion of the memory to the iGPU and the CPU can't access that memory. It's not nearly the same unified memory we're talking about.
>Good interplay between CPU and GPU, the major advantage of UMA, does nothing for raw CPU performance. What I find attractive about Apple silicon is that it has very high performance, high efficiency CPU cores. Nothing to do with UMA.
I didn't imply that unified memory is the only thing that makes Apple Silicon good. Of course everything else has to be good too. But unified memory is a big part of Apple Silicon. Furthermore, going forward, UMA has real advantages over non-UMA architectures for LLMs.
> They pre-allocate a portion of the memory to the iGPU and the CPU can't access that memory
I don't recall the details, yes there's a BIOS setting to assign memory to the GPU, but that doesn't actually limit the memory used by the GPU. With any current OS and driver, the actual amount of memory used is set dynamically at runtime. The rest is as I said an API (OpenGL / DirectX pre 12) limitation.
● Memory is really unified – all heaps are equally fast.
Meaning the application can allocate a buffer on such a heap, load/generate some data into it, and "hand it over to" (just means promise not to change it concurrently without notifying) the GPU. No copies, the GPU can now use it.
[In contrast, different memory types on non-UMA systems are best for uploads (to GPU), downloads (from GPU), frequent use, one-time use... of buffers]
So, what's left of Apple's UMA advantage is, I don't know? Maybe a unified cache. Not a big deal, graphics working sets are much larger than any L3 cache. Oh, and marketing language.
> Soldered RAM can be somewhat higher speed and lower energy than replaceable
Can we have one piece of soldered RAM and one slot to add more RAM later on though? (at the cost of possibly unmatched speed and other stuff that happens when you mix and match RAM as you like)
You can. My Thinkpad T14 Gen1 AMD has that. I'd prefer two sticks over soldered + stick. Also, memory bandwidth is usually kind of crap unless you add that memory stick in the slot. Typically 25-40% (GPU) performance difference in games between stick and no stick. At least the 16 GB -> 32 GB factory upgrade was cheap, they can't charge crazy prices because people would just buy the RAM separately.
macOS market share is actually 20% on desktop/laptops despite Macs selling only about ~8-10% of total PCs worldwide.
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So that's older Macs still in use and doesn't mean that the current 8GB Macs is still trending that way.
Yes, there is no guarantee that Macs are trending that way. However, I have a feeling that Apple Silicon Macs, even with 8GB, will last very longer than Intel Macs with the same amount of memory in the past.
Ten years ago, Macbook Pro was equipped with 4GB RAM. Back then, the Macbook Pro hardware led the PC industry. Pro is a real Pro. today, you’re saying that it’s enough.
