Today’s Question: I need to purchase a new Apple computer. I don’t understand unified memory and how much I need. I may run Photoshop, Lightroom, and Bridge, along with possibly Denoise AI and Helicon Focus at the same time.
Tim’s Quick Answer: Unified memory refers to a single pool of memory in a computer used for both the main processor and for the graphics processor. This means you should opt for more memory than you otherwise assume you need, because there is not separate memory for the graphics processor.
More Detail: It has long been the case that computers featured both system memory (RAM) and video memory (VRAM), with the former being primarily used for the main processor (CPU) and the latter being used exclusively by the graphics processor (GPU). More recently, these lines have been blurred.
To start with, many applications (including those from Adobe) can leverage the GPU and the associated memory for additional processing power. This can greatly improve performance for certain tasks.
In addition, some computers (especially but not exclusively laptops) employ unified memory, where a single pool of memory is used for both the CPU and the GPU. Therefore, when considering how much unified memory you need, you should add the amount of system memory and video memory you want or need.
For example, for Adobe recommends a minimum of 8GB of system memory, with 12GB being recommended. They also recommend 2GB of video memory. So in reality, with a computer that uses unified memory, the recommended amount would be 14GB (the two recommended amounts added together).
However, in my view these recommendations are based on only running a single high-demand application at a time. If you’re going to run Lightroom and Photoshop at the same time, along with possibly other applications, I recommend opting for more memory. In this specific scenario I would consider 16GB to be an absolute minimum, and would recommend upgrading to 32GB of unified memory. And, of course, if money is no object you could opt to upgrade to even more memory.
