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MacBookPro - Is 16 GB RAM enough for Photoshop?

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I am planning on buying a MacBookPro with 500GB SSD and 16GB RAM. I could do 32GB RAM but that's another $400. Any issues with 16GB RAM? Thanks.

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D FosseCorrect answer

Community Expert

Photoshop is mainly bandwidth limited - moving data in and out of memory. But there is never "enough" RAM no matter how much you have installed. More memory is always needed. So Photoshop writes temporary working data to a temp directory on disk - aka the scratch disk. This is the crucial part.

A scratch file is always set up, and whatever RAM you have acts as a fast access cache to the scratch disk's main memory. It's going back and forth in a dynamic process.

The scratch disk used to be a bottleneck, and lots of RAM helped speed it up. But with today's ultra fast NVMe SSDs, this isn't really a consideration any more. Just make sure you have enough free space.

Bottom line - 16GB will do just fine.

D Fosse

Correct answer

Community Expert

Photoshop is mainly bandwidth limited - moving data in and out of memory. But there is never "enough" RAM no matter how much you have installed. More memory is always needed. So Photoshop writes temporary working data to a temp directory on disk - aka the scratch disk. This is the crucial part.

A scratch file is always set up, and whatever RAM you have acts as a fast access cache to the scratch disk's main memory. It's going back and forth in a dynamic process.

The scratch disk used to be a bottleneck, and lots of RAM helped speed it up. But with today's ultra fast NVMe SSDs, this isn't really a consideration any more. Just make sure you have enough free space.

Bottom line - 16GB will do just fine.

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gener7

Community Expert

MBPs 2016 and later now sport NVMe

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3136714/apples-new-macbook-pro-may-be-the-worlds-fastest-stock-laptop.html

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gener7

Community Expert

I have a mid 2012 MBP and 16GB is the max and I do ok considering the Intel 4000 graphics video ram is shared memory. I can run Mojave on it. I'd recommend dedicated vram.

So here is a article on the 16 vs 32 GB choice, and the answer is a good one.

16GB or 32GB DDR4 ram? | AnandTech Forums: Technology, Hardware, Software, and Deals

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Sahil.Chawla

Adobe Employee

Hi there,

The recommended RAM for Photoshop is 8 GB, So you're goof with 16 GB of RAM. Please have a look at this article to know more about Photoshop's system requirement: Photoshop system requirements

Regards,
Sahil

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pjgladAuthor

Inspiring

Thanks for responding. I have already read that article. I want to understand performance vs requirements. Once again, thanks.

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Sahil.Chawla

Adobe Employee

To put it simply a better configuration always runs smoother.

8 – 16 GB of RAM will be more than enough for most of your tasks when editing JPG Photos in the 10 – 20 MP range and the occasional RAW Images. If you are a power user, that edits mainly in high Bit depths and Resolutions, and might have lots of other RAM intensive Software running in the background, consider 16+ GB of RAM

Also, make sure that you get a compatible Graphics Processor unit, which is essential for Photoshop. You can check this article to know more about the supported GPU's: Photoshop graphics processor (GPU) card FAQ

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