How much RAM do I need ?

V

Vincent Kenis

Logician
Hello

I'm considering the purchase of a MBP Retina, on which it's impossible to add RAM. I thought that the 64bit version would give me access to as much RAM as I wanted, but the guy in the shop, a certfied Logic Pro specialist, tells me that it's not true, that the 64bit version has access to 8 GB RAM max, and thus that instead of ordering a MBP with 16 GB which would come in 3 weeks I might as well get the 8 GB version which is available now. . Who's right ? And are there other reasons for me to get more than 8 GB ?

Thanks !
 
PS and if there's no reason to get 16 GB RAM now, can we predict that they will be needed in the near future because of new developments of Logic ?
 
The guy in the shop is wrong. 64 bit allows access to a (theoretical) maximum of 16 exabytes of memory. Get as much RAM as you can, especially if you are doing heavy sample based work. FWIW, if I were considering the Retina MBP, I would max out the RAM.

kind regards

Mark
 
Like Mark says, the guy in the shop was wrong.

I would get as much ram in the thing as I could, especially since, in this case, Apple isn't screwing the buyer when it comes to the price (they usually charge allot more for extra ram that they are with the latest MBP).

I took a look at one, and thought that, for the extra $500 USB to get the retina display, that the other, regular type monitor and the ability to upgrade the drives, etc, it was a better buy. You might want to take a look at that scenario...
 
Thanks all!

Thank you George. I dont' care much for weight or definition & I did consider buying a 'classic' 15" first, but then I heard that the Retina has unevenly spaced fan blades, supposed to be almost inaudible. No hard disk whirl either of course. This is a very serious argument to me because I usually work without an external monitor and keyboard, which means that the laptop's fans are just under my nose... Don't know how loud a recent MBP is but my 17" from 2009 was extremely loud when pushed hard.
 
If te fans are better when working on the thing right in front, and it's your only system, I can see (hear) why the Retina model would be worth the extra $$$.

Too bad there isn't a way one can review the things in the work environment they are going to live in.

I once remember having a long talk and trying to get the Apple tech to agree that the fans in the old MDD G4's were loud when the thing got going (FYI The MDD Macs had an official fan replacement from Apple, as well as a number of 3d party fan replacement kits.. the thing was as loud as a handvac allot of the time, the worst POS Apple EVER made).

So the onsite test is a very important thing to do if one can before laying down the extra $500. I'd be very interested in this test as well. I have a last gen (pre 17) MBP 3.02 GHZ... never really noticed the thing making too much sound but I also don't use it for music...
 
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