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The Apple quandary (minor rant)

wayne_rowley

wayne_rowley

Active Member
I use Macs and PCs and overall I prefer Macs. That's fine, I'm allowed to have preferences. In particular I've been using Macs for music composition since I returned to the hobby over 8 years ago. My current music rig is an Intel Mac Mini i5 with 32GB of RAM. It works fine, but it's starting to struggle at times and I'll likely look to replace it in 2024.

AS based Macs are awesome. Fast, quiet and very power efficient. I have an M1 Air for general computing. It's great! But, Apple, why or why do you assume that ONLY power users want a lot of RAM!

I'm not a professional musician. This is hobby for me, and while I'm not against spending money to pursue it, any spend has to be balanced against my needs and the needs of the household.

But your AS product line forces me to look at high-end professionals models to get the RAM count I need for sample libraries.

I don't need an M1/2/3 Max. I don't do any significant graphics work. Compared with my lowly i5 a base M1/2/3 would be more than adequate for my needs. But I need more than 16/24GB of RAM for my sample libraries. I really do. Why then does Apple have to couple high RAM amounts with top-end processors only?

If I was a PC user I probably wouldn't need more than a 14600K/7700X. But I could pair one of those with 64GB+ of RAM very easily. I could stick 64GB in my current Mini if I wanted... It's very frustrating.

I don't want to switch to PC. I don't want the lottery of compatibility issues with hardware or the risk that a Windows Update I can't prevent will break something. I don't want to spend the time learning a new DAW and then porting all my work across.

So I'll likely end up getting a refurbished M2 Pro Mini with 32GB and make do.

Rant over.

Wayne
Click to read more...
 
Why not both ? A refurb lower-spec mac for the Quality of Life you expect, and a custom PC server - constantly upgradeable - for the power needs, along with VEP or Audiogridder to connect them.

Still not ideal, but more flexible.
 
wayne_rowley said:
I use Macs and PCs and overall I prefer Macs. That's fine, I'm allowed to have preferences. In particular I've been using Macs for music composition since I returned to the hobby over 8 years ago. My current music rig is an Intel Mac Mini i5 with 32GB of RAM. It works fine, but it's starting to struggle at times and I'll likely look to replace it in 2024.

AS based Macs are awesome. Fast, quiet and very power efficient. I have an M1 Air for general computing. It's great! But, Apple, why or why do you assume that ONLY power users want a lot of RAM!

I'm not a professional musician. This is hobby for me, and while I'm not against spending money to pursue it, any spend has to be balanced against my needs and the needs of the household.

But your AS product line forces me to look at high-end professionals models to get the RAM count I need for sample libraries.

I don't need an M1/2/3 Max. I don't do any significant graphics work. Compared with my lowly i5 a base M1/2/3 would be more than adequate for my needs. But I need more than 16/24GB of RAM for my sample libraries. I really do. Why then does Apple have to couple high RAM amounts with top-end processors only?

If I was a PC user I probably wouldn't need more than a 14600K/7700X. But I could pair one of those with 64GB+ of RAM very easily. I could stick 64GB in my current Mini if I wanted... It's very frustrating.

I don't want to switch to PC. I don't want the lottery of compatibility issues with hardware or the risk that a Windows Update I can't prevent will break something. I don't want to spend the time learning a new DAW and then porting all my work across.

So I'll likely end up getting a refurbished M2 Pro Mini with 32GB and make do.

Rant over.

Wayne
Click to expand...
So to be blunt (and as you well know even with your rant): Apple is in business to make money - full stop. They do that in spades by doing exactly what you note above. And the answer of course is either by a refurb like you noted, buy used, or find new "old stock" that is discounted. I totally agree that its annoying. I really wanted a new iMac but those are only M3 with 24GB of RAM max. I wanted more so I ended up buying an M3 Pro-based MacBook Pro with 36GB of RAM. Would have preferred the iMac but that just isn't an option and everything else was way more than I wanted to spend. But there is zero chance I'd move to Windows. Zero.
 
Very subjective decision has to be made. I currently use a trashcan 12 core Mac Pro with 64 GBs of ram as a VE Pro server. I used to use PCs for that. But It was taking to much space and generate a bit too much noise, even though I used very quiet fans in them.
Trash can is now super cheap, especially with D300 GPU. So without going into PC realm this could be the cheapest way for You. Especially because you can get some base model and replace CPU, RAM and SSD to to max it out.


However if using second machine and VE Pro is out of the question. Than I can't see any way around buying some much more powerful modern Mac.
 
If more plugin developers also provided a Linux-compliant VST (and even better adopted CLAP) then it would be of huge benefit to the audio production world, to have dedicated Linux servers for hosting, and 'thin' DAW clients. Technology is absolutely at the point where latency is good enough.

Unfortunately, it would seem that most audio companies also want the 'exclusivity' that brings them money, and not accessibility to the users.
 
To answer your question, the reason for this is that on Apple Silicon the memory is part of the chip, not just ram sticks that can be added, meaning that to increase the memory on the base chips it would also significantly increase the price.

appleinsider.com

Apple Silicon relies on integrated memory, for better and for worse

Apple's Unified Memory Architecture first brought changes to the Mac with Apple Silicon M1 chips. There are clear architectural benefits for the hardware — and it is both good and bad for consumers. Here's why.
appleinsider.com appleinsider.com
 
allen-garvey said:
To answer your question, the reason for this is that on Apple Silicon the memory is part of the chip, not just ram sticks that can be added, meaning that to increase the memory on the base chips it would also significantly increase the price.

appleinsider.com

Apple Silicon relies on integrated memory, for better and for worse

Apple's Unified Memory Architecture first brought changes to the Mac with Apple Silicon M1 chips. There are clear architectural benefits for the hardware — and it is both good and bad for consumers. Here's why.
appleinsider.com appleinsider.com
Click to expand...
But economies of scale, so they make more of the larger capacity and the price would be a lot less - to them. It's still because Apple is a Trillion-dollar company and will keep taking that profit while they can.
 
mobiuscog said:
But economies of scale, so they make more of the larger capacity and the price would be a lot less - to them.
Click to expand...
If economies of scale worked like that, the entry-level Macbook would have infinite memory. :)

Adding more memory to a system-on-a-chip (SoC) means redesigning the chip; that's why you only get a couple of options for each Mx processor. It also means adding more transistors, which are limited by the available technology and by costs that rise exponentially with chip size. Apple silicon is already at the boundary here: the M2 Ultra has the highest transistor count of any commercial processor.

On the OP's original point: I'm sure Apple could produce a chip with, say, the M2 Pro's size (and price), but fewer cores in favour of more memory. I guess they think there wouldn't be the demand; or at least, not enough demand to justify the expense of a new chip.

wayne_rowley said:
But I need more than 16/24GB of RAM for my sample libraries. I really do.
Click to expand...
Really, I suspect this is the problem: you won't need to pre-load anywhere near as much sample data on an M1/2 machine as you do on your current computer.
 
aldous said:
Adding more memory to a system-on-a-chip (SoC) means redesigning the chip; that's why you only get a couple of options for each Mx processor. It also means adding more transistors, which are limited by the available technology and by costs that rise exponentially with chip size. Apple silicon is already at the boundary here: the M2 Ultra has the highest transistor count of any commercial processor.
Click to expand...
But they have the designs, yet keep the majority on low memory. Yes, the cost would be greater, but it's absolutely not the difference that they charge - they're just adding the cost to the 'higher end' models knowing that businesses will likely claim it as expenses.

aldous said:
Really, I suspect this is the problem: you won't need to pre-load anywhere near as much sample data on an M1/2 machine as you do on your current computer.
Click to expand...
As amazing as Apple SoC is, it can't fit 64GB of data on 24GB of RAM. Sure, it can swap it out and stream it 'very quick' but it's not the same and everyone knows that.
 
mobiuscog said:
Why not both ? A refurb lower-spec mac for the Quality of Life you expect, and a custom PC server - constantly upgradeable - for the power needs, along with VEP or Audiogridder to connect them.

Still not ideal, but more flexible.
Click to expand...
No, not for me. Again I can see that value of a slave if your a pro, but I want a simple setup.
 
aldous said:
Really, I suspect this is the problem: you won't need to pre-load anywhere near as much sample data on an M1/2 machine as you do on your current computer.
Click to expand...
True, but only to a point. 24GB won’t handle full BBC Pro or a heavy Cinesamples template (my two large orchestral libraries).

Besides, with the Apple pricing ladder an M2 or M3 with 24 GB gets very close to a Pro with 32/36GB.
 
allen-garvey said:
To answer your question, the reason for this is that on Apple Silicon the memory is part of the chip, not just ram sticks that can be added, meaning that to increase the memory on the base chips it would also significantly increase the price.

appleinsider.com

Apple Silicon relies on integrated memory, for better and for worse

Apple's Unified Memory Architecture first brought changes to the Mac with Apple Silicon M1 chips. There are clear architectural benefits for the hardware — and it is both good and bad for consumers. Here's why.
appleinsider.com appleinsider.com
Click to expand...
The RAM chips aren't integrated with the SoC but are simply added to the packaging that the SoC uses.
I am not aware of Apple using anything but standard RAM chips that are generally available.
Curious to hear if that isn't the case.
 
aldous said:
On the OP's original point: I'm sure Apple could produce a chip with, say, the M2 Pro's size (and price), but fewer cores in favour of more memory. I guess they think there wouldn't be the demand; or at least, not enough demand to justify the expense of a new chip.
Click to expand...
They literally did this...the M3 Pro. Well, not fewer cores but fewer Perf cores and more Efficiency cores (ie: less transistors overall) and boosted the memory by 4GB.
 
Technostica said:
The RAM chips aren't integrated with the SoC but are simply added to the packaging that the SoC uses.
I am not aware of Apple using anything but standard RAM chips that are generally available.
Curious to hear if that isn't the case.
Click to expand...
Yes they're in the packaging and yes they're standard memory chips. But again: in the packaging. Definitely advantages (and of course disadvantages, pretty much only in expansion) there.
 
I don't want the lottery of compatibility issues with hardware or the risk that a Windows Update I can't prevent will break something.
Click to expand...

Apple also has a "lottery" of compatibility issues based on OS updates you can't prevent and can break things.

Let's not paint the other grass as any less (or more) green than it is.

As for the RAM issue: Apple doesn't build computers with musicians in mind (too small of a market), and what it does build it carefully calibrates to encourage spending more money. This is part of the so-called "Apple tax" in choosing the platform, and it's up to each person if the extra cost is worth it or not.
 
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I don't think it matters if somebody is an actual pro or not. If somebody needs more than 32 GB of RAM for whatever they're doing, then Apple obviously considers those users as having pro needs, even if somebody is using their computer for a hobby. And Apple will gladly sell those people a higher end model in order to meet their needs.

Another thing to perhaps consider is that the higher-end chips have a much greater memory bandwidth than the lower end chips, so even if somebody could cram a bunch of RAM inside the lowest end chip, it would be worse than having the same amount of RAM on the higher end chips.
 
wayne_rowley said:
True, but only to a point. 24GB won’t handle full BBC Pro or a heavy Cinesamples template (my two large orchestral libraries).

Besides, with the Apple pricing ladder an M2 or M3 with 24 GB gets very close to a Pro with 32/36GB.
Click to expand...
Can anyone test this for the OP? I think we might be surprised that the silicon RAM goes a lot farther.
 
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