With Apple’s new M1 Mac computers, users can choose between 8GB or 16GB of RAM. Now obviously RAM plays a role in determining the performance of a computer, but the question is, is it worth spending that extra $200 to upgrade from 8GB to 16GB? In a video uploaded by Max Tech, he shows the difference between the two RAM configurations on the 13-inch MacBook Pro.
This will hopefully answer questions that potential customers will have and help them decide if maybe paying that extra $200 is worth it. For those who don’t have the time to watch the entire video, basically there are obvious differences between the 8GB and 16GB models, but the differences aren’t exactly night and day to the point where it might be worth shelling out extra money for the extra RAM.
In their XCode benchmarks, the 8GB model took about 136 seconds to compile code, while the 16GB model took 122 seconds. Sure, there is a difference of 14 seconds, but is it enough for you to spend extra money? There are also benchmarks for exporting 8K RAW R3D to 4K which the 8GB model took 13.57 seconds, while the 16GB model took 5.59 seconds, and in this instance, the differences are bigger.
A Lightroom Classic 50 42MP RAW export also saw the 8GB model take 3 minutes to complete, while the 16GB model took 2.43 minutes to complete. Like we said, there are going to be differences between the two models, but unless you’re exporting video/photos or compiling code non-stop everyday, we imagine that 8GB should be more than sufficient, but if you want to squeeze the best performance out of your laptop, then maybe spending $200 for an additional 8GB of RAM could be worth it.