RAM on Apple silicon

[BobK]

A couple days ago I emailed the Cinematic Studio Series support team asking about RAM recommendations for Apple silicon.

I have the Cinematic Studio Strings and Cinematic Studio Solo Strings libraries (and will be adding their Woodwinds soon).

The support guy said that while he didn’t have direct experience with Apple silicon Macs, his impression was that their RAM is at least twice as efficient as on Intel Macs, maybe as much as three times. (Apparently this is based on customer experiences.)

I'd like to see this verified by actual tests, but it sounds promising.

He recommended the 64 GB upgrade if you can afford it, but not because it's absolutely necessary - more as a safety (especially since the RAM is not user-upgradeable).

I imagine the heavy users of orchestral templates (such full-time film/tv composers using immense libraries) will continue to run VIs on a separate dedicated computer, but for people like me with less-demanding needs, this is great news!

I ordered an M1 Mac Studio and decided to play it safe with 64 GB. The upgrade charge is easier to swallow if you amortize it over the lifetime of the computer, and I hope to use the Mac Studio at least as long as I used my cheese-grater Mac Pro - about nine years.

Hope this helps.

[James Steele]

I ordered an M1 Mac Studio and decided to play it safe with 64 GB.

Thanks for the report. I'm pretty sure, but you went with the M1 Max model, right?

[BobK]

I ordered an M1 Mac Studio and decided to play it safe with 64 GB.

Thanks for the report. I'm pretty sure, but you went with the M1 Max model, right?

Yep, the M1 Max. Sorry - should have included that!

BTW, with the 1 TB drive and 64 GB RAM upgrades, the shipping date is currently estimated to be 8-10 weeks! I think that’s subject to change, but right now I’m OK with it. Gives me a chance to cancel if I change my mind!

[James Steele]

Well congrats! Very exciting. I can’t wait to hear about how it works for you. The M1 Ultra is so tempting, but my budget is more M1 Max. Besides that, the M1 Max is probably plenty for my needs!

[BobK]

Well congrats! Very exciting. I can’t wait to hear about how it works for you. The M1 Ultra is so tempting, but my budget is more M1 Max. Besides that, the M1 Max is probably plenty for my needs!

Thanks, James! It is exciting - it's been a long time since I bought a desktop Mac new - maybe 2004? (I bought my cheese-grater Mac Pro used on Craigslist!) I'll definitely report back.

Maybe I could've stretched for the Ultra, but I can't really afford it and I don't think I need it.

My thought process:

- I haven't run into the limits of my Hackintosh (which has the same CPU and GPU as an upgraded build-to-order 2019 iMac), and the Geekbench 5 scores of the M1 Max MacBook Pro are 50% better than I get. I don't know how those relate to real-world tasks, but they were at least a consideration.

- Some stress test videos of the M1 Mac Mini on YouTube convinced me that a Max will probably be ample. In one (which I saw last year but can't find now), a guy ran a crazy number of Spectrasonics instruments on a Mini (like maybe 80-90 instances, IIRC). In another, 96 orchestral instruments ran on a Mini with only 16 GB RAM, though with some glitches when the buffer was set very low. These were far from perfect tests, but they were more extreme situations than I'll likely face.

Until right now, I didn't think to search for M1 Max MBP stress tests, but I think it's safe to extrapolate from the Mini.

- I also found Max Yuryev's M1 Max MBP videos helpful, though he's a videographer. (I'll probably do a little video editing, but not for pay.) I was surprised that he said most people will be fine with 32 GB of RAM, considering that he routinely edits 4k video.

Oh…and I can probably get some cash selling my Hackintosh…

[mikehalloran]

The GPU in the M1.pro/max/ultra blows away just about everything except ultra-high end cards used by AV studios. That shouldn’t have to factor much in any of our decisions—it’s gonna be better than we’re used to, even my Vega 64x.