OV9

Our 2012 and 2014 iMacs need updating now as become too slow (I'm told because they have the older hard drives they can slow down over time) and the hardware they have aren't good enough to run parallels or bootcamp.

When speaking with apple about the new iMac with the M1 chip, they recommended at least 16GB if switching between tasks regularly (nothing technical, just using web based quoting platforms and CRM systems). But the guy at John Lewis said 8GB should be fine as long as I don't leave loads of tasks open.

The correct answer would be to save money and buy a PC, but I just prefer using Macs.

So 8GB or 16GB?

Seems excessive to have 16gb RAM for what are fairly simple requirements.

You've had your previous ones for a good time, 7-9 years, and the new ones are non user serviceable so you can't add RAM modules like you could of old. On that basis future proof and get 16GB.

64gb

Go big or go home.

Holley wrote: ↑Thu May 27, 2021 3:39 pm Our 2012 and 2014 iMacs need updating now as become too slow (I'm told because they have the older hard drives they can slow down over time) and the hardware they have aren't good enough to run parallels or bootcamp.

When speaking with apple about the new iMac with the M1 chip, they recommended at least 16GB if switching between tasks regularly (nothing technical, just using web based quoting platforms and CRM systems). But the guy at John Lewis said 8GB should be fine as long as I don't leave loads of tasks open.

The correct answer would be to save money and buy a PC, but I just prefer using Macs.

So 8GB or 16GB?

The new M1s are incredibly fast and responsive compared to the Intel Macs. Unless you know you need 16GB RAM (VMs; complex audio & video etc) you'll be fine with 8GB.

You can leave loads of tasks open - if it runs out of RAM it will use the SSD which is also blisteringly fast so you won't notice.

You mention Parallels - remember there's no Boot Camp now and there's only the Windows Insider version of ARM at the moment. Also, if you're going to have Parallels running a lot, that's 4GB straight away so might be a good argument to pay the £199 upgrade, although I think Apple are only stocking the 16GB/1TB version in their stores, otherwise you'll have to order online.

IMHO 8GB is enough for now, if buying new I would go with 16GB for a bit of future proofing.

Regardless of what your current usage is, I'd go for 16Gb. A Macbook is a significant investment, you're probably planning on keeping it for a good few years, and software requirements are only going to increase in the coming years, so it makes sense to go for the larger option. Plus, residuals will be higher for the larger memory models.

I used to run Parallels on Mac and it sucked - I said next time I’ll just buy a PC. Fortunately Amazon Lightsail came along fixed all that.

Id spec as much ram as possible. When i ordered my macbook thats exactly what i did (16gb). Still using it 6 years later and its still fast. You dont want to be in a situation after ponying up a stack of cash that you suddenly need a memory hungry app for a new job/purpose and dont have enough ram.

If the ram can't be upgraded after the fact, go for the most your can reasonably afford. If you don't plan to get into serious video editing or photo editing then 16gb would be fine for everything.

Bear in mind over the next few years the OS will bloat and want more resources, you might change workflow to something a bit more demanding, web standards might change causing more resources to be required, etc etc

I'd say go for 16gb over 8.

Thanks for the replies, 16gb it is then!

Really don't want to bother with parallells, but there's just that one annoying software we use that only works on Windows

Mito Man wrote: ↑Fri May 28, 2021 9:39 am I used to run Parallels on Mac and it sucked - I said next time I’ll just buy a PC. Fortunately Amazon Lightsail came along fixed all that.

My M1 Macs run the ARM version of Windows faster and cooler than the PCs do I've used it on, even when doing the 32/64 bit emulation thing.

Ascender wrote: ↑Fri May 28, 2021 2:50 pm

Mito Man wrote: ↑Fri May 28, 2021 9:39 am I used to run Parallels on Mac and it sucked - I said next time I’ll just buy a PC. Fortunately Amazon Lightsail came along fixed all that.

My M1 Macs run the ARM version of Windows faster and cooler than the PCs do I've used it on, even when doing the 32/64 bit emulation thing.

I won't bother with it, I'm used to the convenience of just having everything on the cloud now accessible from any machine.