I always honestly equated Mac nerds with Linux nerds.
Hear me out…
For starters, macOS is certified UNIX, so it can actually be fairly CLI-friendly and has relatively decent interoperability with Linux.
I’ve known several Linux nerds who swore by Macs for audio/video production. They all used Linux primarily but had a decent Mac around for A/V stuff.
Anyway, Linux users (in my experience) are often artsy and weird and different, honestly a lot like the target demographic users for Apple products, except Linux users have less emphasis on the Corporate Memphis aspect of their personalities.
They released the MacBook pro with only 8gb of memory and tried to convince everyone that with memory compression, 8gb on a Mac was equivalent to 16gb on a Windows system.
While also reducing the amount of that 8GB that is available to the system with the “unified memory” bullshit because they’re too cheap to give the GPU dedicated ram.
Unified memory architectures can offer significant performance benefits by reducing latency and increasing efficiency in data transfer between the CPU and GPU.
I do think their statement is a bit off-putting. That’s a terrible way to describe it. However, I can’t really imagine anyone who knows they need more RAM, not buying more RAM.
Unified memory architectures can offer significant performance benefits by reducing latency and increasing efficiency in data transfer between the CPU and GPU.
Eh. Memory bandwidth between CPU and GPU isn’t generally an issue at all on PCIe4 systems with a dGPU. “Unified memory” is just Apple’s way of marketing the lack of a separate pool of memory that the GPU has exclusive access to. It’s not anything special in of itself. It’s how every mobile device is set up, including Android based phones. Intel iGPUs do the same thing and there’s no performance benefit to consuming system ram over giving a GPU its own pool. If anything, it’s a performance limitation.
I’d much rather a dGPU have exclusive access to its own memory over pulling from a system that is already starved with 8GB.
However, I can’t really imagine anyone who knows they need more RAM, not buying more RAM.
Oh, but that’s the fun part. All configurations of Apple hardware short of the Pro towers have fixed, soldered and non-upgradeable Ram and Storage.
So while Apple users get to enjoy being memory starved at 8GB… they can’t increase the amount of ram for anything else short of replacing the entire system. Suppose you bought the base Mac Mini.
The price difference between that with 8GB Ram and 256GB SSD… And the only option with 16GB Ram, albeit with 256GB more storage and 2 additional CPU cores…
You can get 64GB Ram, 2TB PCIe4 NVME Storage and a dedicated GPU with 12GB Ram for $100 less than Apple’s ‘upgrade’ price which… really isn’t an upgrade price since you have to completely replace the system if you want more ram or storage. So rather than spending $700 to upgrade a system you have, you have the luxury of spending $1300 instead. To go from 8 to 16GB ram.
What Apple is doing here is unconscionable… and people eat their marketing bullshit right up.
linux users in question
I use Arch BTW
It’s a mysterious third thing.
I always honestly equated Mac nerds with Linux nerds.
Hear me out…
For starters, macOS is certified UNIX, so it can actually be fairly CLI-friendly and has relatively decent interoperability with Linux.
I’ve known several Linux nerds who swore by Macs for audio/video production. They all used Linux primarily but had a decent Mac around for A/V stuff.
Anyway, Linux users (in my experience) are often artsy and weird and different, honestly a lot like the target demographic users for Apple products, except Linux users have less emphasis on the Corporate Memphis aspect of their personalities.
equating linux nerds to proprietary software created by a trillion dollar conglomerate? does not compute
macOS is good. Mac hardware, not so much. I work at an AASP so I’ll tell you that if your shit is fucked on a Mac your wallet is too.
It really used to be the opposite. Now they’re convincing you 8GB is actually 16GB.
Elaborate
They released the MacBook pro with only 8gb of memory and tried to convince everyone that with memory compression, 8gb on a Mac was equivalent to 16gb on a Windows system.
While also reducing the amount of that 8GB that is available to the system with the “unified memory” bullshit because they’re too cheap to give the GPU dedicated ram.
Unified memory architectures can offer significant performance benefits by reducing latency and increasing efficiency in data transfer between the CPU and GPU.
I do think their statement is a bit off-putting. That’s a terrible way to describe it. However, I can’t really imagine anyone who knows they need more RAM, not buying more RAM.
Eh. Memory bandwidth between CPU and GPU isn’t generally an issue at all on PCIe4 systems with a dGPU. “Unified memory” is just Apple’s way of marketing the lack of a separate pool of memory that the GPU has exclusive access to. It’s not anything special in of itself. It’s how every mobile device is set up, including Android based phones. Intel iGPUs do the same thing and there’s no performance benefit to consuming system ram over giving a GPU its own pool. If anything, it’s a performance limitation.
I’d much rather a dGPU have exclusive access to its own memory over pulling from a system that is already starved with 8GB.
Oh, but that’s the fun part. All configurations of Apple hardware short of the Pro towers have fixed, soldered and non-upgradeable Ram and Storage.
So while Apple users get to enjoy being memory starved at 8GB… they can’t increase the amount of ram for anything else short of replacing the entire system. Suppose you bought the base Mac Mini.
https://i.imgur.com/i7eEeNh.png
The price difference between that with 8GB Ram and 256GB SSD… And the only option with 16GB Ram, albeit with 256GB more storage and 2 additional CPU cores…
is $700.
Meanwhile on the non-Apple side of things…
https://i.imgur.com/lutKPtR.png
You can get 64GB Ram, 2TB PCIe4 NVME Storage and a dedicated GPU with 12GB Ram for $100 less than Apple’s ‘upgrade’ price which… really isn’t an upgrade price since you have to completely replace the system if you want more ram or storage. So rather than spending $700 to upgrade a system you have, you have the luxury of spending $1300 instead. To go from 8 to 16GB ram.
What Apple is doing here is unconscionable… and people eat their marketing bullshit right up.
They probably should t have said that lol. I understand what they’re trying to say, but that sounds way too much like SoftRAM (1995).
https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/11/08/apple-insists-8gb-unified-memory-equals-16gb-regular-ram
Thank you
technical things like CLI is only half of the story, FOSS and techno idealism is also a big part of linux which apple products are antithesis of