M2 MacBook Air - How Much RAM Do You REALLY Need?

How much RAM do you really need for your M2 MacBook Air? is 8GB enough? Or should you pay a bit extra to get 16GB? Possibly even 24GB for the hardcore multi-taskers out there? In this video I compare all three models, and tell you which one to go with.

Products featured in this video:

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
00:47 Unified Memory Explained
01:51 Is 8GB of RAM Enough?
03:04 You Might Need 16GB…
03:54 Creative Workflows
05:07 Video Editing
06:50 3D Workflows
07:24 Gaming
08:11 Multitasking
09:11 Who Should Get 24GB of RAM?
11:18 16GB of RAM or 512GB SSD?

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[expiredworthless]

First video I've ever seen that offers a summary beforehand for the "in a rush" crowd. I honestly never comment either, but felt the need to do so to highlight that. Thanks for doing that!

[tejassrivastava]

The quick verdict that you wrote at the beginning of the video is highly appreciated.

[juangomez]

16gb is the sweet spot. Buying a $1200 laptop with 8gb makes no sense. I could not afford 1400 laptop, so I bought an m1 with 16 as the same price as an m2 with 8gb. I am happy. That m1 16Gb is wonderful, I use revit, solid works through parallels and I have no problem.

[GORtubei]

The overview at the beginning is a genius idea, everyone should do it, as a reward I watched all the ads, comment and thumbs up and the 40 second I watch is liquid gold

[nicholasmushi]

In my honesty opinion, I think the 16GB RAM would be the sweet spot for many moderate users (including myself), at least for a MacBook Air. Heavier users of business applications, and university students, and for occasional light photo and video editing. That amount of RAM (16GB) would also provide some future proofing for those who would be planning on keeping their machines for a long time.

[chrisbruce]

I am a full time teacher and part time game dev. I occasionally use Parallels to run Windows, and spend a fair amount of time developing in Unity and Construct 3. I almost always have 17 - 18 GB of RAM in use. 24 GB of system RAM is exactly right for me for right now. 32 would be overkill, and I would be using swap with only 16. I know the video-production-centric users out there might feel they can use more GPU cores of the Macbook Pro for rendering, but for my game dev use the macbook Air with 24 GB is cheaper and more performant than a 16 GB macbook pro. The pro is sub par for my use case in every respect that I care about.

The key here is that for me 24 GB of memory enables me to do everything without constantly relying on swap memory. 16 GB wouldn’t be enough. Assuming the 13” mba I bought lasts for another ten years like the previous one did, even 24 GB is going to get tight in short order.

Bottom line: 24 GB is the best deal around for most people if they are planning to keep their laptop for 5+ years.

[washwaash]

Dude i love that you included the summary at 39 sec, thank you

[brightboxstudio]

2:34 Swap is not the only tool macOS uses to manage memory. You’ll notice in Activity Monitor that it also measures Compressed memory. With the rise in CPU speed and core counts, macOS monitors current memory demands and CPU load, and decides whether it would be faster to compress low priority data in memory instead of swapping it to storage. So if a Mac has a lot of CPU cores and enough unified memory is available, it may be more likely to use memory compression to save time over swapping.

[amazinggameplays]

I’ve been using M1 macbook air for 2 years now. I am a web developer.
20 chrome tabs +
mysql client +
local server +
2 editor +
finder +
apple notes +
terminal +
2-3 other apps always open, and I never faced any issues when I thought I should’ve gone for the 16 gb version… Totally flawless

[sd]

Would be interesting to see the good old M1 Air 8/256 at the side with those numbers.

[foskr]

As a student with a gaming pc already, went for 16gb/512 in silver, cant wait until it arrives

[brucekrisinger]

I've bought and gone through maybe ten different laptops and I find the sweet spot in both MAC and Windows to be 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD.

[lunal]

I have the 8 core 16/512 M2 Air and I would definitely not want less ram. I am not a pro user, literally only use it for school and the sims. When I have like 5 Safari tabs open, Spotify open and Onenote for school, it always uses around 10 gb ram. I am REALLY glad I spent the extra money on upgrading the ram

[juancelop]

Thank you for that summary at the start of the video! It shows your genuineness in conveying your message!

[OscarAbarcaChinchilla]

Well, I'm pretty happy with my 8gb M2 macbook air (base model). I have like 15 tabs on safari + light python coding + Capture One editing on a 1300+ photo catalog. The system makes a wonderful job managing the resources.

[clintmallon]

This video is outstanding!! Thank you. I got the 15” Air in Space Gray with 16GB RAM and the 512GB SSD. It’s spectacular and I never see the spinning beach ball with 30 browser tabs, video editing, photoshop, etc all open and running at the same time. I sold my 16” M1 Pro MacBook Pro because I like this upgraded 15” Air so much more.

[ream_]

If you are a developer I recommend getting 16 gb one. You can live with 8 gb but feel yourself very limited, and pressure on ram rises too.

[pressrepeat]

The beauty of getting 24Gb RAM is that you can run Windows in an virtual machine with 8Gb allocated (using UTM, for free, not the Parallells scam which is $90 per year), and the remaining 16Gb allocated to MacOS, and essentially get 2 ultra-fast laptops in one.

[saturn]

My macbook M2 is 24 GB RAM. I develop apps with vscode and emulators, and consistently consume 16-17 GB of RAM.

[TylerKhan]

So for my 3D modeling i decided to go with the extra 512gb of storage because you get the extra gpu cores. That boost from the cores to me was a no brainer because of thermal throttling. The ram can be useful but in a couple years I’ll be upgrading again and have my main PC for the extra power IF I need it. So far it’s been plenty powerful