14” M2 Macbook pro - better CPU or more RAM?

[Szmorox]

Hi

After 7 years, I’ve decided to upgrade my old HP laptop to a new 14” M2 Macbook Pro.

I am planning on using it for programming/coding university, and for my side work. I work with professional sports team where I record the training,analyse the athletes’ technic and movement, and later I edit those videos together so they can view them and possibly improve.

So my question is, Would I be better of with a 1TB, 32GB of RAM, base M2 Pro chip (10 CPU cores, 16 GPU cores) Macbook Pro, or should I get a Macbook with 1TB, 16GB of RAM, (one tier better) M2 Pro (12 CPU cores, 19 GPU cores)?

There is only a ~$50 difference between the two configurations.

 

I am on keeping it for a long time, just like I did with my old laptop.

Thank you for helping me out.

[adm0n]

It depends a bit on what kind of videos you are editing.

 

Blanket statement, I'd go for more RAM, since the RAM is unified between the GPU and CPU. So you'll need quite a lot of it, if you are working with high resolution video files. Video encoding and processing will hopefully be handled by the encoding engine / GPU, so you won't get that much out the extra CPU cores. The GPU cores could be interesting though.

 

If you are mainly focused on pushing out a lot of encodes, the faster GPU could be worth it. But personally I wouldn't buy any computer with 16GB RAM anymore.

[igormp]

15 minutes ago, Szmorox said:

Hi

After 7 years, I’ve decided to upgrade my old HP laptop to a new 14” M2 Macbook Pro.

I am planning on using it for programming/coding university, and for my side work. I work with professional sports team where I record the training,analyse the athletes’ technic and movement, and later I edit those videos together so they can view them and possibly improve.

So my question is, Would I be better of with a 1TB, 32GB of RAM, base M2 Pro chip (10 CPU cores, 16 GPU cores) Macbook Pro, or should I get a Macbook with 1TB, 16GB of RAM, (one tier better) M2 Pro (12 CPU cores, 19 GPU cores)?

There is only a ~$50 difference between the two configurations.

 

I am on keeping it for a long time, just like I did with my old laptop.

Thank you for helping me out.

I'm a python dev and have the 10-core, 32gb model for work. I'd rather have more ram than the extra cores.

[Crunchy Dragon]

I would take the RAM all day. Apple Silicon is powerful and fast enough that you shouldn't be hurting for CPU power too much.

 

RAM is even more important if you have an integrated GPU(like the M-series MacBooks do), where the total system RAM is divided between the CPU and GPU.

[jaslion]

Ram ram ram ram!!!!!

 

You'll way faster run into ram limits than the cpu

 

Since this is shared memory you really want all you can

[creat0r]

35 minutes ago, Szmorox said:

Hi

After 7 years, I’ve decided to upgrade my old HP laptop to a new 14” M2 Macbook Pro.

I am planning on using it for programming/coding university, and for my side work. I work with professional sports team where I record the training,analyse the athletes’ technic and movement, and later I edit those videos together so they can view them and possibly improve.

So my question is, Would I be better of with a 1TB, 32GB of RAM, base M2 Pro chip (10 CPU cores, 16 GPU cores) Macbook Pro, or should I get a Macbook with 1TB, 16GB of RAM, (one tier better) M2 Pro (12 CPU cores, 19 GPU cores)?

There is only a ~$50 difference between the two configurations.

 

I am on keeping it for a long time, just like I did with my old laptop.

Thank you for helping me out.

I've been a video editor and Mac user for the past 15 years and I can safely say that RAM nowadays is (usually) the least important part when you buy a Mac. macOS is great at using swap memory when it runs out of RAM, which means that it'll write temporarily to the SSD instead. The SSD's in modern MacBooks is insanely fast, and for most workflows you won't notice when it starts swapping over the RAM to the SSD. Remember on this LTT forum there's mostly Windows users, so they'll usually answer Mac questions from the Windows perspective and therefore always tell you to get more RAM (the same way they always want to use ethernet cables instead of Wi-Fi - which also isn't the Apple/Mac way). This might still be useful sometimes, but I'll tell you this from my personal experience with, for example, my current Mac mini M2 with only 8 GB RAM. I can edit 4K (3840x2160) 25 FPS footage on a Adobe Premiere Pro timeline with multiple layers of 4K H.264 footage. A lot of the layers have the "Ultra Key"- and "Lumetri Color"-effects applied. Some also have "Sharpen" and "Gaussian Blur" applied. I can edit, cut and playback in real-time without a problem. If I look in Activity Monitor I see that it writes to the SWAP SSD memory but it's still extremely smooth. I also do some Adobe After Effects compositions with keying and particle effects and it still renders fast and when AE runs out of memory it writes to the disk without a stutter. I can also play "Pacify" (horror game) on Ultra settings on a 4K monitor with 55-60 FPS stable on my Mac mini M2 8 GB. Some Windows/PC users will tell you that writing to SWAP will damage the SSD in the long term, this is true on paper, but I'll tell you this: I've got multiple older MacBooks, for example a 13 year old 17" MacBook Pro with only 2 GB of RAM that I used to edit on and it wrote to the disk all the time, and still works fine. You can also look at iPhone and Android and see the same pattern. There's Android phones that need 16 or more GB of RAM, while iOS is fine at 6 GB or even 4 GB. Windows users will tell me I'm wrong, but I'm talking from my years of experience and RAM is my last priority on a new Mac because of my experience. However, I don't do programming so it might be good to check with macOS programmers what they think about this for coding. But for video editing always go for the faster GPU on Mac.

[mMontana]

better CPU or more RAM?

Both

Apple is not cheap, then considering that as you buy, you throw away, both choices (if viable) help endure longer your next laptop.

 

[BondiBlue]

As a longtime macOS user, get more RAM. You can't upgrade it later, and it's something you'll really wish you had more of if your needs change down the road. 

12 minutes ago, creat0r said:

I've been a video editor and Mac user for the past 15 years and I can safely say that RAM nowadays is (usually) the least important part when you buy a Mac. macOS is great at using swap memory when it runs out of RAM, which means that it'll write temporarily to the SSD instead. The SSD's in modern MacBooks is insanely fast, and for most workflows you won't notice when it starts swapping over the RAM to the SSD. ... Some Windows/PC users will tell you that writing to SWAP will damage the SSD in the long term, this is true on paper, but I'll tell you this: I've got multiple older MacBooks, for example a 13 year old 17" MacBook Pro with only 2 GB of RAM that I used to edit on and it wrote to the disk all the time, and still works fine. 

This is very misleading advice. You're basically saying that it's better to save a bit of money because macOS can use the SSD as swap space if needed. This absolutely can destroy SSDs in the long run. Claiming that excessive swap can damage your SSD is not just true on paper lol, and since the SSD is soldered to the logic board good luck changing it in the future. I'm a Mac user myself and I completely disagree with basically everything you're saying about RAM. 

15 minutes ago, creat0r said:

Remember on this LTT forum there's mostly Windows users, so they'll usually answer Mac questions from the Windows perspective and therefore always tell you to get more RAM (the same way they always want to use ethernet cables instead of Wi-Fi - which also isn't the Apple/Mac way).

Lmao, what are you talking about? Ethernet has very real advantages over Wi-Fi, and using a wireless connection isn't the "Mac way". You should use the best option you have available. The Mac Pro even has dual 10Gb ethernet built-in. 

 

OP, please don't take the advice to skimp out on RAM. You should buy the proper tool for the job, not the slightly cheaper model that just barely meets your needs and gets worn out faster. If I had to choose between those two spec options I'd take the model with 32GB of RAM over one with a slightly faster CPU and GPU. 

[igormp]

31 minutes ago, creat0r said:

However, I don't do programming so it might be good to check with macOS programmers what they think about this for coding.

As a dev, swap won't make any miracles, and I avoid doing anything that resource intensive on my M2 Pro because it'll slow to a crawl when I actually fill up the RAM. No swap can save you when you're actually doing memory intensive work.

 

Your use may be lightweight enough that your unused stuff can go to swap without your feeling it, but assuming this makes more ram less relevant is not really helpful to OP.

 

35 minutes ago, creat0r said:

(the same way they always want to use ethernet cables instead of Wi-Fi - which also isn't the Apple/Mac way).

That's a really dumb take lol

I can do 1GbE without problems on ethernet even on my Mac, why would I be using slower wifi instead when I need to push tons of data around?

[jaslion]

23 hours ago, BondiBlue said:

This is very misleading advice. You're basically saying that it's better to save a bit of money because macOS can use the SSD as swap space if needed. This absolutely can destroy SSDs in the long run

That and the mac m1 and m2 ssds already don't live long lives.

[jaslion]

23 hours ago, creat0r said:

(the same way they always want to use ethernet cables instead of Wi-Fi - which also isn't the Apple/Mac way

This is a bad take.

 

cable is objectively better.

 

Cables ARE the mac way too. How else would you connect anything or charge anything :p?

 

Wifi is always worse thats just how wireless signals are.

23 hours ago, creat0r said:

I've been a video editor and Mac user for the past 15 years and I can safely say that RAM nowadays is (usually) the least important part when you buy a Mac. macOS is great at using swap memory when it runs out of RAM, which means that it'll write temporarily to the SSD instead.

Wrecks the drive I know I go through scratchdisks yearly.

 

Ram is ALWAYS welcome and makes the device live way longer in terms of usefullness