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Why actually have a new MacBook Pro only 16 GB of RAM

MacBook Pro 2016 is one of the best laptops on the market, although some technological solutions Apple has been quite controversial. First and foremost is, of course, the lack of standard connectors and a card reader that will force users to buy a huge amount of adapters and cables. Some even had doubts about the prefix “Pro” in the name of novelty. On most of the claims Apple, of course, did not answer, but one problem became so discussed that it was commented by Vice President of the company Phil Schiller.

Despite the use of new Intel Core processors generation Skylake, the new graphics and faster SSD, a MacBook Pro, as before, not provide owners with the ability to use more than 16 GB of RAM. According to Schiller, at this stage to install more than 16 GB of RAM in laptops “would require the use of system memory, which would consume too much energy and would be extremely inefficient for a laptop”. Does the extra memory what is the impact on the autonomy of the laptops?

Apple is doing everything possible to components the MacBook it was impossible to independently upgrade. 16 GB of RAM is the maximum RAM for the new MacBook Pro, because the memory chips soldered to the system Board. In Apple’s claim that installing more than 16 GB of memory will seriously reduce battery life MacBook Pro. But does the 32 GB consumes so much energy? After all, you should understand that most buyers use MacBook Pro laptops with professional software, which requires a large amount of RAM.

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The author of the project LinusTechTips Linus Sebastian conducted an experiment to find out how much power is consumed by the 8, 16 and 32 GB of RAM. The test was carried out on a desktop and a portable computer.

For the first test on the PC used the Corsair LPX DDR4 in configurations of 8, 16 and 32 GB. The difference in energy between the minimum and maximum amount of memory was 20 W – 120 W for 8 GB and 140 watts for a 32 GB RAM.

Power consumption for 8, 16 and 32 GB of RAM

However, this is due to the large number of gigabytes or more memory chips? The author of the experiment compared the amount of energy consumed when using two or four modules. It turned out that the more plates, the more battery consumption, but the difference is not too big – 126 W for two “dice” and 131 watts for four.

The power consumption for two or four modules of RAM

Also, the blogger to check how the voltage of the memory module affects the power consumption. For this PC it was installed a couple of 1.2 volt plates LPX DDR4 and a pair of 1.35 V Corsair Dominator. The difference amounted to only 11 watts.

The power consumption for RAM on 1.2 V and 1.35 V

In the case of a laptop the tests were conducted on the model of the Acer Predator 15, which is similar to a MacBook Pro specs – processor Intel Skylake and DDR4 memory. Of course, it would be better to test the RAM on the MacBook itself, but this is impossible because of the soldered chips.

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Testing one and two SO-DIMMs on 8 GB and 16 showed a barely noticeable difference in power consumption. The difference between one plate of RAM to 8 GB and two plates 16 GB was only 105 milliwatts per hour. This indicator has no virtually no impact on battery life. In all configurations of RAM Acer Predator spent no more than 4% of battery to ensure the operation of RAM.

It is necessary to take into account the fact that testing was not conducted on a MacBook Pro and a gaming laptop running Windows. However, if the difference in energy consumption is so small, the question remains, what is meant by Apple claiming extremely inefficient increase RAM for your laptop? Perhaps the problem is that the additional memory chip requires more space in the body of the laptop, which would entail reducing the size of the battery.

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