Do I Need 16Gb Ram Macbook Pro
If you are a power user who uses intensive applications, or if you plan to use your MacBook Pro for gaming, then you will likely need 16GB of RAM. If you are a casual user who uses basic applications, you may be able to get by with 8GB of RAM.
The 13-inch version, released in 2020, starts with 8GB of RAM, but you can bump that up to 16GB for $200. Apples top-end 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros feature an M1 Pro chip with 16GB of RAM as standard, but you can bump that up to 32GB for $400. As of this writing, Apple is still selling a base model, and yes, 8GB is still the standard RAM configuration.
Just because Apple killed off the 4GB option on MacBooks, that leaves just two options left for buyers, 8GB and 16GB. Choosing between 8GB and 16GB models is really all about personal preference.
You should definitely opt for the 16GB model, just in case you see an opportunity for an upgrade in one year. Get 16GB if you are rendering videos, or using other apps that really need lots of RAM. In all of the reviews I read, and the YouTube videos I watched, the only times that you would actually want more RAM than the 8GB is if an app that you are using actually needs to push as much data as possible onto the RAM.
In reality, average and heavy users are going to eat through the 8GB RAM fairly quickly, but Apples SSDs and SoCs are so effective at creating and using virtual memory that you will likely not even notice running out of RAM. You also need a far more capable CPU, coupled with 8GB or 16GB RAM, for performing demanding tasks. Only tasks that are extremely RAM-saturated, such as rendering 4K video, appear to benefit from 16GB RAM.
The 8GB Air of the M1 is strong enough that spending an additional $200 upgrading to 16GB of RAM is likely to not be worthwhile. I was skeptical going in, as it was obvious to me for years that 8GB of RAM in an Intel MacBook was insufficient. There is been much confusion among prospective buyers of MacBook Pros and Airs about whether to get the 8GB-RAM version of the machines, or to go up to 16GB RAM. I am not even sure whether I should stick with the standard 8GB RAM that the machine comes with or bump it up to 16GB.
I think the clear answer is, for the vast majority of people, even for those that skew toward the professional laptop side of multitasking with a few apps and a dozen browser tabs and several media types playing simultaneously, a basic 8GB ram model of these computers will do. Then, the majority of people are going to be perfectly happy with an 8GB model. The base model would be sufficient for day-to-day use. In short, if you are looking to purchase the MacBook as a general everyday driver, the 8GB version is plenty.
Programmers that are compiling lots of code or doing 3D rendering may want to spring for the 16GB memory option, but outside those use cases, 8GB in the base model is plenty. We would suggest going with Apples 13-inch MacBook Air M1 if you want a Mac that can handle multiple programs at once. Apples 13-inch M1 MacBook Air has been available for a while, and fans are still struggling with whether to opt for an 8GB or 16GB RAM model. YouTube channel Max Tech did their own memory testing, pitting a basic 14-inch MacBook Pro, with its 16GB RAM, against the top-of-the-line 16-inch MacBook Pro, with its 32GB RAM.
Our own memory test is a real-world memory test, so the YouTube channel Max Tech loaded a number of apps you would likely use in your video editing workflow, such as Final Cut Pro, Lightroom, Chrome, Safari, Music, and some others, and neither machine had any performance hitches, and the 16GB MacBook Pro performed just as well as the higher-end model.
| Requirements | |
| Display | Liquid Retina XDR Display |
| Memory | 16GB Memory |
| Storage | 512GB Storage |
In real-world usage scenarios, such as coding compiles in Xcode, exporting RAW photos from Lightroom Classic, the 16GB option was faster than the 8GB option by 20%-30%. In tests that put M1 Macs in a task to export videos from Lightroom Classic, the baseline configuration of its variant took an average of only a couple seconds longer to export the same video as a 32GB MacBook Pro. In one test, a 16GB M1 MacBook Pro finished less than half as long as the base model did to complete the same test (14 minutes versus 6 minutes).
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A comparison between 8GB vs. 16GB M1 Macbook Pros side-by-side on YouTube by Max Tech, an Apple-focused YouTube channel, found the 16GB M1 MacBook Pro was around 10% faster at performing RAM-intensive tasks on software such as Adobe Lightroom and XCode. The cost difference between the 8GB and 16GB in the new M1 Macbook is PS200.
Apple has dropped the 4GB RAM options for MacBook Airs and Pros in an effort to future-proof them, with the demand for software increasing daily. Arguments could be made that the kind of power users that want 32GB RAM are primarily using their MacBooks when docked, so reduced battery life would be an acceptable trade-off, though imagine the backlash Apple got when it announced that the new MacBook Pro had battery life that dropped from 10 hours down to four hours when it had a 64GB RAM option. Even if the Windows and Linux systems need more memory to run smoothly, having 16GB RAM on board might feel overkill to most.
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For those looking for something higher-performance for professional applications, you could even bump up your RAM to 32GB, 64GB, and even 128GB, as long as your PC can handle it. If you are working in Premiere or Final Cut Pro, anywhere from 8GB to 16GB of RAM is sufficient (with 8GB being Adobes recommended amount), but if you are going to be working in Avid Media Composer, then you will want a minimum of 8GB RAM, and if working in UHD, then you will want 24GB minimum. I am not going to do this; if you are anything like me, you can hardly avoid cringing at the thought of spending more than a thousand dollars on a computer that only has 8GB of RAM. It is because of that reason (and screen size) I went back to the 16-inch MacBook Pro for video editing, but seeing that an 8GB M1 MacBook Air topped it in a rendering test got me excited about my Macs upcoming line-up.
Is 8GB RAM MacBook Pro enough for Final Cut Pro?
The minimum amount of RAM that is advised for Final Cut Pro, Motion, and Compressor is 4GB. Apple advises at least 8GB if you intend to work with 4K or 360-degree video. The majority of video editors will require more than what Apple suggests.