Apple claims 8GB RAM on M3 MacBook is just as good as 16GB on PC

Apple claims that 8 GB on an M3 MacBook Pro is analogous to 16 GB on other systems and that people need to look beyond raw specifications.

Apple has just released its latest line of MacBook Pro laptops, featuring the latest M3 chip. This year, the MacBook Pro is only available in 14-inch and 16-inch models, with the 13-inch model being discontinued.

Each model comes with a variety of RAM and M3 chip configurations, with the base model starting at a hefty $1,599 and featuring 8GB of RAM. You might argue that 8GB RAM is too little for a laptop that costs this much. But you will be wrong, at least according to Apple.

The company’s VP of product marketing boldly claimed in an interview that 8GB memory on an M3 MacBook is just as good as 16GB on other PCs.

Apple suggests you “look beyond the specifications”

Bob Borchers, Apple’s VP of worldwide product marketing, recently had an interview with Chinese ML engineer and content creator Lin YilYi.

During the interview, YilYi highlighted users’ concerns about the 8GB RAM in the M3 MacBook Pro, suggesting that it might be insufficient for “Pro use cases.”

Replying to the content creator, Borchers said, “Comparing our memory to other systems’ memory actually isn’t equivalent. Because of the fact that we have such an efficient use of memory, we use memory compression, and we have a unified memory architecture.”

Unified memory is the high-bandwidth and low-latency memory featured on Apple’s M-series of chips. It brings together the memory resources available for both the CPU and GPU, which are usually split into two.

“Actually, 8 GB on an M3 MacBook Pro is probably analogous to 16 GB on other systems. We just happen to be able to use it much more efficiently. What I would say is I would have people come in and try what they want to do on their systems, and I think we’ll see incredible performance” he added.

Borchers further encouraged people to see beyond the specs and to go and test the actual capabilities of the device, instead of simply looking at the numbers.

Apple M3 MacBook Pros are now shipping. You can get the laptops through various retailers. However, the M3 Max models will be available at a later date.