clojure-uk 2021-01-08 | Slack Archive

Whenever I look at laptops, I'm frustrated by how little RAM you get for your money - you can pay quite a lot, and still only get 8GB. They seem happier to give faster processors (etc) on higher end models, than they are to give more RAM. (Although you can get more RAM too, of course)

mccraigmccraig10:01:56

i would happily have swapped a higher-spec processor option for a lower-spec with 32GB on my last machine, but the only refurbs around (i can't face the new-new prices of mbps) had higher-spec processors with 16GB - perhaps the issue is that most users think they want higher-spec processors, so suppliers give them to them @djm_uk ?

djm10:01:44

Yeah, that's possible. Back in the single core days people seemed to make a big thing about processor speeds. I guess these days people are mostly looking for i7/i9s, rather than looking at specific numbers

djm10:01:24

My work laptop has a 9th gen i7, and 32GB, which is nice

mccraigmccraig10:01:35

yeah, i've got an i9 with 16GB, but i think an i7 with 32GB would be much better. it's only £100 more expensive new, and i doubt i would ever notice the i7 vs i9 difference, whereas i notice the 16GB vs 32GB difference all the time

alexlynham10:01:07

my current refurb is an i7 with 32GB and it's great

alexlynham10:01:29

it's nice finally having enough RAM to have chrome and slack open at the same time 😂

djm10:01:47

Slack is especially useful in this cold weather for keeping things warm

djm10:01:03

Saves the effort of installing Gentoo

rickmoynihan11:01:53

Definitely agree about the amounts RAM most machines have these days. It’s been stuck this way for years though. IIRC 4 or 5 years ago I was asking the same questions about “why can’t I get 32gb RAM yet?!” even before that it felt insane. IIRC from the last time the issue was that apple felt the extra RAM meant compromises on battery etc. Also more recently when I saw this discussed folk were saying macs have decent memory bandwidth and with SSDs they can both swap much more quickly, but also macos is supposedly good at knowing what to swap and managing memory. I suspect then that the rest of the industry is partly driven by apple setting expectations. Hopefully after the next round of apple silicon 32gb will become more common.

djm12:01:41

Yeah, it already seemed to be the case 15-20 years ago (suddenly I feel old!)

rickmoynihan12:01:55

yup

rickmoynihan12:01:33

pretty sure I had 8gb RAM back in 2005

rickmoynihan12:01:41

4 or 5 years back was just when I got my current MBP

mccraigmccraig12:01:23

things did get noticeably better when macos introduced memory compression - i was really struggling with 16GB before that, and only occasionally struggling afterwards

mccraigmccraig12:01:44

looks like that was in 10.9 mavericks - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_X_Mavericks

alexlynham14:01:01

yeah my old work mac - which i used back in the swirrl days! - is still doing okay for most non-essential tasks on yosemite

alexlynham14:01:15

and that's 8GB iirc so probably the mem compression as you say craig

alexlynham14:01:36

can run slack AND docker AND youtube (just about lol)

alexlynham14:01:46

that said, def happier with this 32GB machine

alexlynham14:01:29

1.8k as a refurb but it really does pay for itself