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my first computer was a tandy sensation which has 4mb of ram and a 100mb hard drive
Oh no! I won’t be able to run Windows on my new MacBook Pro!
I have 16gb on my M2 Air, and 8gb on my 2014 mini. I’m genuinely surprised at how usable that mini still is. Hell, it’s running Sonoma through OCLP, but it’s only when I boot up the Win11 VM I have installed that it really starts to struggle.
I honestly just made a double pun regarding the new MB Pro with 8gb in the basic configuration and the coming Windows with the 16gb requirement - which both seem strange product decisions with lots of negative customer feedback.
New macbook Pro doesnt even have 16GB?? Do they come with a 32GB SSD too?
AFAIK is the basic configuration for the new M3 MacBook Pro a meager 8gb shared RAM with 512gb SSD for 1999 Euros (in Germany so ymmv).
But the base model M3 MBP is almost an entirely different product to the rest of the MBP lineup.
They really should’ve removed the pro moniker from that sku.
I assume it’s entirely marketing bullshit, whether to say “look how cheap a MBP is!” or to make you think “wow, it’s only a little bit more to get the way better model, what a bargain!”
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Meh, Windows itself, even with all the bloat still active, doesn’t need more than 2 Gigs. That’s one of the few issues microsoft isn’t responsible for.
Try using it on a 2 or 4 GB machine. It’s pretty much impossible.
lol how much ram does that need when they’re shipping every bit of data on your computer to their servers to do processing on there?
Why not outsource the power usage and hardware costs to the consumer and just reap the end result?
Anyone an idea or a link what kind of AI they want to run on people’s machines? Will it add something for the user or just annoy you and add more targeted advertising?
Even as far back as XP/Vista Microsoft has wanted to run the file system as more of an adaptive database than a classical hierarchical file system.
The leaked beta for Vista had this included and it ran like absolute shit, mostly because harddrives are slow and ram was at a premium, especially in Vista as it was such a bloated piece or shit.
NTFS has since evolved to include more and more of these “smart” file system components.
Now they want to go full on with this “smart” approach to the filesystem.
It’ll still be slow and shit, just like it was 2 decades ago.
Even further back, the first attempt was around 1990 and Windows NT.
The beta for Vista with WinFS, was not exactly “leaked”, it was given to developers at a MS conference.
NTFS doesn’t have any of that, they’ve shifted the functionality to the Search Indexer… and it’s what most people use when they hit the Win key and start typing the name of some file.
Clippy v.2.
Hehe, pretty sure it’s that. With Microsoft’s history of letting loose racist and unhinged chatbots… I’m eager to get to know Clippy v2.
They’re going to make us miss that clueless little bastard.
The second one.
Wow! I’m surprised that everyone is so surprised. Windows resource requirements - especially the RAM - have always grown exponentially between major versions. Remember that we started with some 16MB RAM. They have consistently demanded hardware that completely obsoletes the hardware in the market that can run the previous generation of Windows.
Windows is the best example of a software that always manages to completely nullify or even negate the Moore’s law.
Another reason to move to Linux ;P
Ubuntu is by far the most popular distro and it is no more efficient than Windows, on the contrary. RAM usage in particular is worse.
Try Linux Mint with XFCE. I don’t see this RAM usage issue at all. I have Firefox open with several other apps in the background again running XFCE with Linux Mint (Based on Ubuntu), it’s using 1.9GB RAM total (thus below the 2GB).
It already does imo
Going to need 32 GB of RAM or more plus a GPU with 48 GB of VRAM just to run Win12 w/ AI subsystem so you have enough headroom to run a program or two
Microsoft are such weirdos. It’s like they’re trying to empower Google, who will lap up all of the users they abandon as they install Chrome OS, because let’s be honest, the average Jo seldom just installs Linux, so they’ll say, “oh I’ve heard of Chrome, let me try that”
And most people just use a web browser apparently. Oh, and HP printers that break every few weeks. “Hey, you’re a programmer, fix my printer.”
😂
Average users aren’t going to be installing an OS.
No, they’re going to buy a Chromebook instead of a Windows laptop
Does anyone outside of some schools buy chromebooks?
Yes :( Unfortunately Chromebooks are really cheap here, and countless people are hooked already to Google products because of their Android phones already, so the choice is easy for them I figure.
That’s crazy, I’ve never seen anyone use them here in Australia.
I think because every business has its own little proprietary windows app they need to use for this or that.
Good for you. Recently I visited a family I’m friendly with, and noticed that the parents and the two young kids exclusively use a few Chromebooks. I think this boils down to do with the popularity of web based email (Google) and other services. And banks are pushing for customers to use phone apps.
It already should have that. 8 GB is the absolute bare fucking minimum for most computers these days, but unless you have 16, it’s a generally unpleasant experience.
8 GB is the absolute bare fucking minimum for most computers these days
I keep seeing this statement all around the web but it is still amazing that we need that much RAM even for today.
Don’t get me wrong, I know 8 GB is becoming the standard even for mobile phones, so it is only logical to assume to bump this number for PCs (why no 12 GBS of RAM? IDK) and I have been using 16 GBs of RAM for 10 years now, it is a MacBook Pro and for me Apple does not make it clear to see how much of that RAM I’m actually using… Regardless RAM has never been a problem for me, with casual usage, and I always thought 8 GBs should work the same for even a lighter usage, why do I say that? Because before moving to such a Mac I used a laptop with 4 GBs of RAM around 2011-2014 and it was a pain in the ass to use (the processor was shit as well) for simple navigation for my thesis… So yeah if you think 8 GBs is bad, try 4 GBs.
Another reason I think 8 GBs is “a high amount for casual usage” is that my work PC had also 4 GBs of RAM, but there was not a reason to hoard tabs and such, so it was very manageable (also the processor wasn’t shit, but it was like a Core i5 or something like that, the usual office PCs you see and know), if we are talking about bottlenecks it would be the shitty HDD speeds LMAO.
What I think you guys all mean with 8 GBs of RAM is the bare minimum for nowadays standard is if you use it for IT related topics or you like to hoard stuff in it (which ain’t bad, unused RAM is wasted RAM after all) or simply depend on heavy programs which ain’t the web browser, for casuals I’d say 6 GBs would be a fair number, although it is not usual, and fuck 4 GBs of RAM in 2024, for any kind of device lol (I bet offices still use that dog shit).
Anyway I’d personally aim for 16 GBs of RAM or more regardless, for any of my future purchases, because I like to keep my stuff for years to come.
I am on the poorer side and living in one of the central European countries (yeah I’m a teen)
I only have a core 2 duo desktop with 3 GB of ram and a laptop with a i5 also with 3gb of ram, both only HDD machines
The desktop now runs Linux, but because it has components even Intel doesn’t want to list on their website (the mobo) it runs it pretty poorly (also I bricked it somehow not run windows or any other usb install media, which is a big problem), the laptop runs windows 7 (it literally refuses to open the update utility I downloaded from MS’s website, so that’s that, two obsolete machines, that are absolutely horrendous to do anything with (not to mention my shitty 350$ phone is more powerful than both of them combined)
why no 12 GBS of RAM?
Because there were no 6 or 12 GB modules. But that changes with DDR5
My Win10 PC with just my default apps open, which is mainly Firefox, Steam, a few other Launchers, Obsidian and Messaging clients - 8GB definitly doesn’t cut it today anymore. Running a newer game smashes the 16GB border easily.
why no 12 GBS of RAM? IDK
Because computing architecture is based around powers of 2, and having memory that follows that pattern is more efficient.
What I think you guys all mean with 8 GBs of RAM is the bare minimum for nowadays standard is if you use it for IT related topics or you like to hoard stuff in it (which ain’t bad, unused RAM is wasted RAM after all) or simply depend on heavy programs which ain’t the web browser,
I would disagree. Even casual usage these days is much more demanding than it once was. Try having Chrome, Spotify, and Discord open all at once. You’re going to start pushing that 8 GB further than you’d imagine. Plus, look at the new apple silicon macbooks. They put 8 GB in as the baseline saying shit like “since we designed it to all work together, it’s more efficient”, and real world test have shown that to be complete nonsense.
4 GB is completely unacceptable for deskop/laptop usage and would be a miserable, if not nearly unusable experience.
16 GB right now is definitely the baseline any new machine should have. I have a MacBook Pro from 2015 that has 16 GB and it still feels reasonably comfortable to use.
I do agree with your central premise here that it’s absurd that we need so much. But it’s just what happens as hardware advances, software developers push the limits of what the hardware can handle. Either that, or they’re just lazy and don’t bother optimizing since they think the machine can handle it (looking at you Chrome devs, and anyone who uses Electron).
Because computing architecture is based around powers of 2, and having memory that follows that pattern is more efficient.
But what about Android phones? I see there are not many issues on that side with that amount.
Try having Chrome, Spotify, and Discord open all at once. You’re going to start pushing that 8 GB further than you’d imagine.
Yeah, I see a pattern here, all of that is Chrome lol.
My former work PC (which I mentioned before) that had 4 GBs of RAM required to be running always Windows 11 with Chrome, Microsoft Dynamics, Outlook, Microsoft Word, Excel, Sumatra PDF and some other few apps, so yeah I agree it was miserable, but I remember I could have Spotify as well, and AFAIK there are still Chromebooks shipped with 4 GBs of RAM? Granted they are more alike to a phone than a PC.
(looking at you Chrome devs, and anyone who uses Electron).
Definitely, my girlfriend uses a lot Notion on my Mac, and while the RAM isn’t an issue there we can see the fans spinning non stop when it is in use lol, I told her to open it on a Firefox tab and it was much much quieter.
For windows, yes. For Linux and OSx, 8gb si still ok for most usecase
While 8GB is typically enough for Linux today, it may not be enough a few years from now. Buying a laptop with 8GB of soldered in RAM would limit the useful life of it.
It will probably depend on distro. Some distros might get more bloated, but I think most won’t do anything that makes them unusable on lower-spec hardware, especially those that specifically have low system requirements as one of their core tenets.
Everything seems to get more bloated over time. An 8GB system probably won’t become unusable soon, but things will certainly begin to run less smoothly to the point that many people would replace the computer. Browsers and electron apps are RAM hogs.
It depends on the use case, but for what it’s worth on a 4GB Android tablet, I can run VSCode + Chromium/Firefox via Termux without too much trouble. ~2GB of memory is taken by Android, so 8GB on a proper Linux system is more like 3x more memory available. It would take a massive amount of bloat to make an impact. My main concern would like with websites being wasteful with both memory and CPU usage via JS, rather than the browser itself becoming bloated.
Just to run the OS sure, but what about the ever enlarging bloated software?
That would depend largely on the use-case and specific software. I’m fairly confident that Lyx isn’t going to become bloated any time soon, but I can see that happening especially with proprietary alternatives like Word (ignoring for a moment Word isn’t on Linux). It all really depends on whether or not a less bloated alternative exists.
With 8G oom killer will kill my Firefox process.
I was evaluating Linux desktop prior to switching my work pc to Linux with an 8G VM and it wasn’t enough for just browsing and general tinkering.
Yep, browsing, developing, listening to music all alright on 8GB, could probably run on even 4.
My memory idles on around 3341MiB with a browser and just a few basic daemons like Syncthing used in mint cinnamaon. 4GB is pretty tight unless you are willing to make some behavioural changes or use a less friendly distro. But 8GB is more than enough.
Different story trying to run VMs on my server, though.
8GB was the bare minimum in 2010. It’s amazing how the increase of memory just stopped.
Didn’t memory get heaps expensive for a while there?
I seem to remember that, for a couple years after DDR4 became the standard, it was significantly more expensive than DDR3.
I have 8 and am able to play 4x games at high settings w/o significant lag until late game lol. People really tend to blow this one out of proportion. Unless you’re an incredibly heavy user you probably don’t need more than 8 and 16 still feels luxurious.
“Incredibly heavy user” here, my Windows 11 boots into 9GB thanks to a few tools and a LibreOffice preloader… then gets close to 16GB the moment I start a few VMs and some dev containers in VSCode.
Fortunately, when I got this laptop on a -50% sale with just 8GB, I made sure that I’d be able to add a 32GB memory stick… so now it keeps running with up to 20GB of cache, and it flies.
Compared to the average person, yes, you are a very heavy user. Most people use their laptop for little more than browsing the internet.
I browse the internet on a phone or a tablet… don’t really get people who use a laptop just for that. Running some office software, is the minimum I see as the need for a laptop, when it isn’t drawing, 2D or 3D design, audio/video, or something programming related. Maybe gaming, but there seem to be better options for that too (either a desktop, a Steam Deck, a console, or a phone/tablet again).
That’s the thing. WHY should it need that? What is the OS doing that could possibly justify that level of memory use?
- The browser
- Electron apps
- Prefetching
- AI shit/telemetry
Other than a browser, I had none of these on my Linux machine and I could comfortably run on 4GB of RAM
Don’t worry! Eventually, they will find a “cure,” such as Windows moving to a cloud-only model where your PC becomes a glorified dumb terminal!
So like Windows 365, but for consumers.
That’s probably not the worst option for most consumers. People are horrible about keeping their shit updated.
Most people only use their computers for web browsing anyways, and many people buy systems that are way more powerful than what they actually need. I’ve had to talk a ton of people out of buying i7 laptops just for Office and the internet.
I’ve built and maintained Citrix VDI environments for a global company, and once people get over the “this is new” hurdle, they love it.
I love to bash MS, but this feels like an industry-wide trend to /never/ care about optimizing beyond the bar of “typical specs of new devices in rich countries”. I’m guessing it’s just to limit labor costs, and computers are less-rapidly-improving than the 90s/00s?
Code optimization has pretty much fallen by the way side since ram prices keep going down and cpu performance keeps improving.
Why spend the time if you don’t have to?
Browsers are some of the worst culprits.
premature optimization is the root of all evil - Donald Knuth
which does not excuse a total lack of optimization, but gotta hit those kpi’s
if it remember it correctly it was said in relation to algorithm optimization > code optimization
Just for the sake of a beautiful audited and blazingly fast codebase that tuns qo good that Raspberry Pi user can run your stuff too.
I love optimisation!
Browser canvas is one of the worst culprits: it has to keep a buffer with an uncompressed bitmap several screens in size.
Old browsers used to keep a single screen worth of canvas buffer, then redraw stuff as you scrolled… which made it a horrible experience. You can still find some of that with “clever” web designs where they replace fonts or move things dynamically as you scroll.
Then you have websites with “infinite scroll” that just keep increasing the canvas buffer size more and more and more, to infinity and beyond… and people wonder why their Facebook or Reddit tabs use so much RAM.
I will have no next windows PC anyways. I’ll go out of my way to get one without a windows license, to put linux onto it :)
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Unfortunately they don’t ship to norway (or have a norwegian layout available). But would really like one if/when they do. Not in a rush to get a new laptop now though. I’ll keep framework in mind when its time for a new one.
Or with Coreboot: https://minifree.org
Even on linux you need 8gb to use to a web browser with ad block
Well you’ll need X GB to use a X GB file whatever the OS, here windows seems to need 16 just to run which is quite ridiculous.
@Fizz true. My PC came with 4 GB originally. It was a pain once I opened the browser or Discord (which I usually do). Upgraded to 12 and no longer have any issue, at least on the current distro.
This goes two ways, everyone with less ram will probably don’t know about Linux and just lose their laptop (not upgradable ones) and: new built laptops will have more ram and better CPUs. And guessing with the windows handheld industry this also boosts them. But it’s gonna be a big shame people just abandoning their tech because of not enough knowledge.
This is like people abandoning a stick shift and rigid frames/chasses for modern automatic/CVT and and unibody with crumple zones. The latter are complicated, expensive, and inefficient - but substantially more forgiving to the average driver who merely wants to get from A to B with the minimum amount of effort. Linux will be there for people who choose to dedicate hundreds of hours a year to the hobby of computers. For everyone else who doesn’t want to open their laptop to replace the keyboard, update their wireless card, and clean or replace the system fans and solder in a new power connector, buying a new laptop with the extra horsepower (to overcome the code creep) will offer them all those things at a price cheaper than even taking them to the corner repair shop to get the mechanical failures fixed.
That’s a bit hyperbolic. You’re talking as if it’s still early 2000s. Many Linux distributions have very good user experience for beginners and better out-of-the-box device driver support than even Windows.
I choose one of those niche distributions since I have advanced requirements. But I have observed a steady decline in hardware-related issues over the years. In fact, Linus Torvalds confirms this in an interview.
Linux distributions are a viable alternative to Windows these days. But what keeps people away from it is misinformation and FUD like these.
Many Linux distributions have very good user experience for beginners
I 100% agree. The issue isn’t beginners, it’s people who already know windows, and only windows. They’d be just as lost switching to OSX. Kids pick up chromebooks easily, but most adults - the ones who have 5-8 year old machines with only 8GB - are completely lost. I tried to get my mother onto LibreOffice (okay, Open Office…it’s been that long) and it lasted less than a week and one panicked old-lady newsletter deadline. She was utterly lost, and no amount of help would get her out. To be fair, she gets lost when her phone updates to the newest major OS revision.
I choose one of those niche distributions since I have advanced requirements.
I chose windows for the same reason - specialized industry where nearly all tools are written for Windows. I have $15k in software, $200k in setup and procedures, and $100-200k in training I would have to redo to switch to linux, and while that was happening I would have zero income, so double those numbers for net losses. That’s assuming I could even find perfect analogs in the linux world, which is unlikely, and that I was willing to receive and send non-standard files to all of my colleagues. I could consider Wine/Proton, but then I’d have to learn it or risk losing $2000/day plus the cost of tracking down repairs if anything (like an update) broke a critical piece of software. It simply not worth the financial risk.
Linux will be there for people who choose to dedicate hundreds of hours a year to the hobby of computers.
And my grandma. She’s been running Linux just fine for the past 3 years. I don’t think she even knows what an OS is.
