New MacBook Pro Can Only Be Upgraded to 16GB of RAM Due to Battery Life Concerns

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Posted October 28, 2016 at 9:56pm by Shalom Levytam

Apple SVP Phil Schiller says the new MacBook Pro maxes out at 16GB of RAM due to battery life concerns.

Following the MacBook Pro unveiling, many customers were surprised that Apple didn't offer a 32GB of RAM upgrade. MacRumors reader David emailed Apple for an explanation.

Question from David: The lack of a 32GB BTO option for the new MBPs raised some eyebrows and caused some concerns (me included). Does ~3GBps bandwidth to the SSD make this a moot issue? I.e. memory paging on a 16GB system is so fast that 32GB is not a significant improvement

Schiller's answer: Thank you for the email. It is a good question. To put more than 16GB of fast RAM into a notebook design at this time would require a memory system that consumes much more power and wouldn't be efficient enough for a notebook. I hope you check out this new generation MacBook Pro, it really is an incredible system.

We'll be sharing early benchmarks for the new MacBooks as soon as they are available. Please follow iClarified on Twitter, Facebook, or RSS for updates.

You can learn more about the new MacBook Pro here.

New MacBook Pro Can Only Be Upgraded to 16GB of RAM Due to Battery Life Concerns

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Ace* - October 29, 2016 at 7:43pm

Schiller's reply sidesteps the actual issue which is power and performance - not battery life. If battery life is, indeed, the main issue then they should have designed a method that uses less ram while the MacBook is unplugged and relying solely on battery power. Most power users (designers, animators, etc.) are using the MacBook plugged in at a workstation a significant percentage of the time. To have the MacBook Pro (it's the *PRO* for christ's sake!) designed in a way as to only be able to utilize 16gb of ram maximum is totally ridiculous and laughable. And no to anyone who says that the way the MacBook Pro is designed eliminates the need for more than 16gb - the most demanding tasks such as video editing require more - period. This is truly why many designers are now running Adobe software on different platforms - Apple's hardware and the inability to upgrade have become crippling.

Ching Cheung - October 29, 2016 at 12:13am

From now on whenever you see people using adapters, it's because of the limitations of the new port designs.

gamerscul9870 - October 29, 2016 at 5:02am

Or people are basically using old ports on different areas, yet what's the gimmick when it can be easily used on those machines. Not to mention you could add more USB-c ports.

Mang Domeng - October 29, 2016 at 5:32pm

USB 2 and 3 are close to be a thing of the past and USB-C is the in-thing. One port that does what different individual ports did. USB-Cs can be a power port, display port, and peripherals port and the reason why there are dongles is that it can be compatible with other old devices that you still have. They have eliminated the old and replaced it with new tech. FYI USB-C file transfer is faster than your USB 3. That's technology. It keeps on evolving.

hamood_d10 - October 28, 2016 at 10:49pm

What a laughable lol, Got Asus ROG laptop and upgraded to 64gb

:D - October 28, 2016 at 10:19pm

Let's be honest if you need a machine with more power than that you would be wise to invest into a MacPro or other desktop setup.

AppleGuy299 - October 29, 2016 at 11:46pm

But they haven't upgraded the iMac or Mac Pro in at least a year!

ProblemSolver - October 28, 2016 at 10:02pm

They had 4 years to design this machine and it can't handle 32GB DDR4 2133mhz RAM. This is disappointing.

gamerscul9870 - October 29, 2016 at 5:00am

This machine has a reason to use 16GB ram that has always been 16GB ram, plus why not upgrade the ssd and take advantage of external ssd's in the future when USB-c ones come. Problem solved in the end!