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Apple has a memory problem and we're all paying for it (www.macworld.com)
submitted 2 years ago by [M, B] to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Apple has a memory problem and we're all paying for it::Apple still sells expensive "Pro" computers with just 8GB of RAM and charges a fortune for more.

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[–] 27 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Apple's "memory upgrade" is making the claim that you can do with half for the same amount of work on x86. It is 100% untrue.

You tried to delve into speed. But speed won't outpace a 1TB video file you're trying to edit. If you're working with smaller chunks of smaller files that have fast operations ONLY, then make claim as such. This is a ploy for upgrade cash, plain and simple. Nothing about these chips moves the needle on memory usage BY HALF. What a dumbass thing to assert as a company.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago* (3 children)

    Apple's claim isnt 100% untrue tbh. It depends on the operations actually. Arm processors have at least 12 registers to contain data or references to memory. A program does need more ram space on a x86 processor, as it only has like 4 registers afaik ( correct me if im wrong! ) so it needs to push data more often to the stack.

    This means that the m* processors has to generally save less info in memory. However, data is still data and you still need memory to contain the data youre processing so you still need the ram. So like, when doing video work that apple claim is utter bullshit. Raw calculations however might not be so much bullshit

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    For many memory intensive operation, this is incorrect since by that logic, Apple's chip should use far more memory due to having quarter as many registers for those purpose. (32x64 vs. 32x256)

    Most processors have cache memories for reasons you stated.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago*

    Correct, cache exists for that reason. But youre still loosing time and space by saving it to memory ( cache is just faster acccess for the cpu. Its still in ram or in the pipeline to be pushed to ram on next flush ).

    Also true, per thread you would need more memory to save the cpu's state when switching threads. Now i kinda want to do some calculations and tests to see at what point it gets better.
    I always figured that per thread more memory is needed, but that the thread itself needed less memory ( or time to access it ) because it can contain more temp values in the cpu's registers.

    Again though, there claim is bullshit or not totally depends on the kind of work youre doing and for video work i consider it bullshit as well :')

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