{"id":90648,"date":"2024-03-27T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-27T22:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/?p=90648"},"modified":"2024-06-17T15:38:29","modified_gmt":"2024-06-17T20:38:29","slug":"the-ultimate-mac-buyers-guide-part-4-how-much-memory-does-your-workflow-require","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/90648-the-ultimate-mac-buyers-guide-part-4-how-much-memory-does-your-workflow-require\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ultimate Mac Buyer’s Guide, Part 4: How Much Memory Does Your Workflow Require?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is the 4th in a series of articles from Mac Expert Lloyd Chambers<\/a> examining the many considerations Mac users must make when choosing the best Mac for their needs.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In The Ultimate Mac Buyer’s Guide, Part 1<\/em><\/a>, he outlined how best to choose a Mac for your needs. In Part 2<\/em><\/a>, he discussed the huge value of new vs used Macs. In Part 3<\/em>,<\/a> he discussed high-end configurations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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How to determine the memory your workflow requires<\/strong>? A little sleuthing while you work can zero-in on exactly what you\u2019ll need. Too little memory, and all that CPU and GPU power can be starved of data while the system fetches it from disk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For our purposes here, \u201creal memory\u201d is what counts<\/strong>\u2014memory that is being used in real physical memory. If the system has to use compressed memory or write to disk, then performance drops. And with all current Macs, real memory is not upgradeable<\/strong>. Thus it\u2019s a key determination before buying a new Mac.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A note for beginners<\/strong>: memory<\/strong> aka \u201cRAM\u201d (“random access memory”) refers to extremely fast working space attached to the CPU and GPU. It gets erased when the power goes off or the system restarts. Storage<\/strong> on SSD or a hard drive is much larger and far slower but it is permanent storage: it is what stores all your files and folders when the computer restarts or reboots or shuts down. Here we are talking about RAM<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Activity Monitor shows memory usage<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Activity Monitor<\/strong> is found in \/Applications\/Utilities on your Mac.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are four tabs at top: CPU, Memory, Energy, Disk, Network<\/strong>. For our purposes we are concerned with Memory<\/strong>. You might have to do some minor configuration as follows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n