The Ultimate macOS Thread

Retina display is at a higher resolution than Cinema Display - 2880x1800 vs. 2560x1440.

The only true high DPI monitor in the history has been IBM T221.

I'm not talking about consumer moniors, I'm talking pro stuff like the monitors they use for 4K video and such, also 2560x1440 is significantly higher than 1080p (tho lower than Retina) but that was a response to the apparent "pro" gripe that monitors aren't going past normal HD specs.

Also for professional work while resolution matters so does real estate, especially for OS X where all of the UI elements are kept at a size that is relative to your screen size (for the most part) rather than make them tiny like Windows does.
 
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I'm fine with my 1920X1080 display thank you.
 
I really want the new retina MBP. It looks good value, considering I paid the same amount of money for then-higher end MBP in early 2011, which has a lousy 5400rpm HDD, half the ram and a regular display. The new specs look excellent, especially as I feel now that I'm lugging a useless DVD drive around. Although I might replace it with HDD after a SSD purchase in the future.
 
Apple wants ?200 for 2x 4GB RAM, they must be mad!
 
Apple wants ?200 for 2x 4GB RAM, they must be mad!

Their upgrade prices have always been ridiculous. The only difference now is that you can't upgrade yourself anymore, since the RAM in the Retina MBP is soldered onto the mainboard.
 
Their upgrade prices have always been ridiculous. The only difference now is that you can't upgrade yourself anymore, since the RAM in the Retina MBP is soldered onto the mainboard.
Yep that legitimately sux, at least with mine I can just get more RAM from Newegg.
 
Yeah, it's a trade-off for the form factor I guess. It does mean that you'll have to invest in Apple's expensive upgrades to make it a bit more futureproof.
 
I gotta say my MBP only has 4GBs of RAM and I can't say that ever ran into memory issue but I'm not that heavy of a user.
 
Same here. MacBook with the 2.0C2D and 4GB of RAM and never had an issue with say Microsoft Word, iTunes, Chrome, Mail, etc. running at the same time.
 
Ditto. However, I am seeing the limits of my vaio's video card. Otherwise, in the cpu and ram department. No complaints.
 
Actually, the $200 for the RAM upgrade isn't that bad, because the retina MBP uses a low voltage and high MHz ram, which is around $130 currently. Personally, I've upgraded my early 2011 MBP from 4GB to 8GB mainly because of video editing in FCPX. It's now quite smooth when working with full HD video, so the 16GB would most likely be an overkill. The 8GB feels more than plenty for any other tasks.
 
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Actually, the $200 for the RAM upgrade isn't that bad, because the retina MBP uses a low voltage and high MHz ram, which is around $130 currently. Personally, I've upgraded my early 2011 MBP from 4GB to 8GB mainly because of video editing in FCPX. It's now quite smooth when working with full HD video, so the 16GB would most likely be an overkill. The 8GB feels more than plenty for any other tasks.

I have 8GB in my current Windows PC, that I built almost 3 years ago. Back then 8GB seemed like total overkill, now it feels just right, and I'm beginning to notice situations where I could use more. If you want a future-proof computer, PC or Mac, get the most amount of memory you can, at some point it will be needed.
 
I gotta say my MBP only has 4GBs of RAM and I can't say that ever ran into memory issue but I'm not that heavy of a user.
My MBA has 4GB of RAM. I just checked, and it's currently reporting 7.2GB swap used. It's running Safari, Terminal, Chrome, and Mail.

The issue for me is I try to avoid restarting my web browser or my computer (the machine has been up for 33 days, though Safari's been running for far less time than that). Web browsers tend to have memory leaks (or just be hungry about caching things endlessly) and some of the OS processes will cache things and/or have memory leaks of their own. Thankfully, the SSD in the MBA makes using swap somewhat less painful, but the machine can still end up a bit slower due to "not enough RAM" from time to time.

ETA: After quitting and restarting the web browsers, it's reporting 1.3GB swap used with ~1.3GB RAM free. It's not pulling things out of swap because they're rarely used, and it'll use the free RAM for other things before it touches that swap. OS X is pretty good about managing swap properly (at least for my use), and remembering application state makes restarting the apps much less of an annoyance than it used to be. :)
 
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My MBA has 4GB of RAM. I just checked, and it's currently reporting 7.2GB swap used. It's running Safari, Terminal, Chrome, and Mail.

The issue for me is I try to avoid restarting my web browser or my computer (the machine has been up for 33 days, though Safari's been running for far less time than that). Web browsers tend to have memory leaks (or just be hungry about caching things endlessly) and some of the OS processes will cache things and/or have memory leaks of their own. Thankfully, the SSD in the MBA makes using swap somewhat less painful, but the machine can still end up a bit slower due to "not enough RAM" from time to time.

ETA: After quitting and restarting the web browsers, it's reporting 1.3GB swap used with ~1.3GB RAM free. It's not pulling things out of swap because they're rarely used, and it'll use the free RAM for other things before it touches that swap. OS X is pretty good about managing swap properly (at least for my use), and remembering application state makes restarting the apps much less of an annoyance than it used to be. :)

I don't ever restart my machines, only time they would be restarted is updates that require restarts otherwise it's suspend for the MBP and always on for the Mini. Obviously the server and the networking equipment is only restarted in the event of a complete power failure that is not restored before the UPS runs out :p

I don't see much value in keeping the browser always on though (funnily enough my wife keeps her's on for weeks at a time with like 20 tabs open), I tend to kill Chrome every time I'm done with it because it takes no time to start up on the SSD anyway and I am lucky enough to live in a place that can get fast broadband so loading pages is not a problem.

SSD definitely makes swap very very painless, the speeds are at the point where it's pretty hard to tell if there is any kind of delay.
 
I'm also a member of the no restart club. As for killing apps before putting the machine to sleep, I never do, if I had to do that...i would just shut down.
 
I'm also a member of the no restart club. As for killing apps before putting the machine to sleep, I never do, if I had to do that...i would just shut down.

I'm only talking about stuff you are done using, if I got some websites open in Chrome I won't kill it before putting the machine to sleep. Ditto for things that I always have running like Mail, iCal, Adium, etc...
 
Personally, I've upgraded my early 2011 MBP from 4GB to 8GB mainly because of video editing in FCPX. It's now quite smooth when working with full HD video, so the 16GB would most likely be an overkill. The 8GB feels more than plenty for any other tasks.

I know this isn't part of the main discussion, but what make of RAM did you buy for your MBP? When I bought my 15" in December I intentionally didn't upgrade the RAM (because it was quite expensive and I got the high res display instead) so I could do it myself, and I was just wondering how much and what make would be best for it.
 
I know this isn't part of the main discussion, but what make of RAM did you buy for your MBP? When I bought my 15" in December I intentionally didn't upgrade the RAM (because it was quite expensive and I got the high res display instead) so I could do it myself, and I was just wondering how much and what make would be best for it.
I know they won't ship to Scotland but this a section specifically for Mac RAM http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=551&name=Mac-Memory
 
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