petercbrandt Loc: New York City, Manhattan

I'm planning on buying a 15" Macbook Air w/ M2 chip. It is supposed to be 'scary fast'.

There is the option to buy a 8gb Ram (Unified Memory and not upgradable) or buy a 16gb Ram.
My old MBPro 2015 has 16gb ram.

With the super fast M2, will the 8gb ram work well enough with the new Photoshop or a new Affinity Photo ?

Does the fast M2 make up the functionality and I won't need the 16gb?

Any thoghts ?

delder Loc: Maryland

IN the Wintel world, 16 is the new 8, 32 is the new 16.
AS you CANNOT go back & change this, [Typical as well with Wintel Laptops] I would opt for the 16 to futureproof.

fredpnm Loc: Corrales, NM

Apple swears that the Unified Memory of the M2, 8Gb is the same as and as good as 16Gb of old. I have the M1 Macbook Pro with 8Gb for LR and PS and have not encountered any issues. BUT...if budget allows go with 16Gb.

petercbrandt Loc: New York City, Manhattan

Thank you for your insight !
Peter

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

I think the problem with that is that the 16gB of old can get overwhelmed pretty quickly in today's world.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Get 16 for heavy lifting tasks such as Lightroom Classic and Photoshop. And get 512 GB or more internal SSD storage. The 256 GB model has lousy input/output speed.

therwol Loc: USA

I've added RAM and upgraded hard drives in every Wintel Laptop I've owned, including one that's only four years old. Has something changed in four years with them? I do understand the issue with Macs. Personally, I'd opt for the greater RAM.

coolhanduke Loc: Redondo Beach, CA

Go for the larger one if you can afford it.

MJPerini

While it is certainly true that Apple's new M series is a big upgrade from Intel Chips and that Unified memory DOES perform better than legacy memory, BUT , since it is not upgradable after sale 16GB & 512 ought to be your minimum configuration if you can afford it. The lowest spec of anything is generally built down to a price, so I view it as good insurance. Especially since the computers really last a long time.
That's my opinion anyway.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

When I got my M1 MacBook Air, I got 1 TB SSD storage and 16 GB memory (and the un-binned 8/8/16 core processor). It was well worth the extra cost, but I did save by buying Apple Refurbished stock (same warranty, same Mac, white box).

I have found that keeping half the SSD empty, the Mac runs at FULL speed ahead. When the memory fills up and it pages data to the SSD, there is plenty of space for the OS and applications to BREATHE. I have stressed this little gem as hard as I can, and it just hasn't quit. I attribute that to having adequate resources, especially 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD space. I'll keep this Mac until the M5 or M6 generation.

And FYI, the guys at MaxTech YouTube channel did a comparison of a 16GB M3 14" MacBook Pro with an 8GB copy of the same machine. The 16GB was MUCH faster on many tests. Max did a comparison of an M3 Pro with an M2 Pro with as similar specs as possible, today. He found the M3 Pro to be much faster on most tests, but actually slower on a couple of the video editing benchmarks. But the tests showed that the pundits on the Internet were largely wrong about their prejudices and worries. It's a good performer and a good value.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I would go for 16. While 8 may be enough for current applications, the trend is upwards. Future applications may well benefit from more or even require more and since it’s not upgradable if you need it later you have to get it now.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Bill, the Mac guru, is correct - another vote for 16GB

delder Loc: Maryland

This is primarily a reference to the $399 "SPECIALS", not the heavy duty models.
I actually have an ACER "Desktop" that is actually a Laptop Motherboard in a metal box.
E/W 8 GB RAM which is ALL that can be installed. A lot of "Promotional" Laptops have soldered in memory chips.

lwerthe1mer Loc: Birmingham, Alabama

I am beginning my search for a new MacBook Pro because my current MBP with an M1 chip and only 8 GB OF RAM is much too slow using ON1 photo Raw 2024. I’m advised by B&H that 16 GB may be fine but that 32 GB would be preferable for larger tasks like photo editing.

NCMtnMan Loc: N. Fork New River, Ashe Co., NC

Well, if you are familiar with virtual memory on a computer then you know that the operating system uses a portion of the hard drive as if it is memory. It swaps files/data in and out of the virtual memory into the real memory as it is needed. When you turn your system off anything in virtual memory is lost unless it is program files or data that has been saved to the hard drive. In its simplest explanation, unified memory is basically the same thing except that the data in the virtual memory on the hard drive is not lost. To do this the system has the real memory and the virtual memory tied together through the design of the electronics. This is why you can't upgrade it. It is part of the system design and manufacture.