Hello everyone, this is JeffreyTech. Apple’s storage capacity upgrade pricing strategy has been criticized by people. Whether it is a mobile phone or a computer , if you want to get a larger memory or storage space, you often have to pay more money than an Android or Windows computer. For example, the latest The 13-inch MacBook Air with M3 processor has the same configuration. The 16GB memory version is $200 more expensive than the 8GB memory version. Most Windows computers now start with 16GB, with the exception of the Surface. Apple’s pricing is true, which makes many people confused and makes people want to People who buy larger memory have no choice but to joke on the Internet that Apple's memory is more expensive than gold. They are reluctant to use large-capacity memory and set a too high price difference between different capacities of memory. So is Apple's memory different from other companies? Not to mention that computers equipped with M series processors are indeed different. In the specification sheets of Mac computers equipped with M series processors on Apple Computer's official website , they usually indicate "unified memory" in the memory column. Today we will come. Let’s talk about this unified memory. When Apple decided to abandon Intel processors and use its own M series processors based on ARM architecture, it caused quite a stir in the technology and digital circles. The significance of M processors to Apple does not need to be elaborated here, but in M processing There is a component on the processor that has also undergone great changes. It is unified memory. The full English name of unified memory is Unified Memory Architecture. The term is also used to describe its working principle. A simple understanding of Apple's unified memory is that it is encapsulated in the SoC and can be used by the CPU and The advantage of using the GPU at the same time is that it can improve the efficiency of the SoC. Before explaining how unified memory works, it is necessary to understand how the traditional memory architecture works. The CPU or GPU mainly uses memory to temporarily store data while processing and executing instructions . The CPU handles the instructions for most tasks a computer performs while the GPU performs graphics-related tasks such as playing games or rendering 3D images. However, in recent years GPUs have been more widely used to process non-graphics-related data such as mining, etc. where the data can be computed. Variables used in the computer, the results of previous calculations , or anything else that the CPU, GPU may need to perform tasks. In addition, applications and processes use memory to store the data they need to run. Because accessing memory is faster than on a mechanical hard drive or solid state drive, the computer The larger the memory, the more data can be stored. The less time it takes for the CPU and GPU to read and write to the hard disk. But this is only theoretical . In fact, the data transmission between the CPU, GPU and memory will also be affected by other factors. One of them is that the efficiency of data transmission between different components is different from other separate memory components such as DDR 5 memory or LPDDR 5 memory. Apple's unified memory is packaged on a single chip with the CPU and GPU. This shortens the time The communication distance between CPU, GPU and memory reduces protocol overhead and improves memory utilization. The disadvantage is that there are still many games or applications designed for the GPU architecture of dedicated memory, so the performance on computers with unified memory or integrated graphics cards May not perform as well. Is there any difference between unified memory and regular memory? Essentially, they are both made of memory chips. The difference is how they work. Simply put, conventional memory only transfers data with the CPU , while unified memory is equivalent to a memory pool that serves both the CPU and GPU. From Apple’s unified memory introduction diagram It can be seen that both the CPU and GPU can access two memory banks. When Apple first launched the M1 Mac in 2020, many people were surprised by the starting unified memory of 8GB. Even now, Macs equipped with M chips still start with 8GB of unified memory and upgrade to 16GB will cost a lot of money. The official explanation for why Apple only uses 8GB as the starting capacity of unified memory, while Windows PCs of the same price range usually have at least 16GB of memory, is that its unified memory is much more efficient than the memory on most Windows PCs. Therefore , you don’t need that much memory to achieve the same performance level. In fact, if you only use it for light office work or entertainment, 8GB of memory is indeed enough. But if you usually run intensive tasks such as editing very large images and videos, 3D rendering, and 8GB of memory will be stretched when playing large-scale games. At this time, 16GB or more memory is a better choice. But the price difference is too much for Apple. Apple has adopted unified chips since the release of the M series. Memory , CPU, GPU, etc. are packaged in a chip, which can effectively shorten the data transmission distance and simultaneously serve the CPU and GPU to improve utilization efficiency. However, this does not become the reason why "Apple memory is more expensive than gold". Perhaps it is Apple's attitude. The brand tone has always been relatively high in the minds of consumers. Although some people ca n't stand it, people who like it don't care. So maybe it can be said that it's not that Apple's memory is more expensive than gold , but that we are not qualified to be Apple's target users. First, we need to explain here. The memory I want to talk about is really just memory , not what many people call "storage". Just like computers, the storage of smartphones is also composed of memory and storage , which are LPDDR and UFS that are commonly seen in mobile phone specifications. Mobile phone manufacturers often use Different prices are set for the same model based on the size of the storage capacity. In the more than ten years of development of smart phones, the memory capacity installed has also changed from 128MB and 512MB at the beginning to the current mainstream 12GB, 16GB and even 24GB in some mobile phones. The memory capacity of mainstream office notebooks is the same. Currently, there are three major smartphone operating systems in the world: Android, iOS, and Harmony OS. Among them, the memory management of Android system has been criticized. Mobile phones equipped with Android system especially require larger memory capacity , so they are Take the Android system as an example to see how it manages memory. The Android system is based on the Linux kernel , so the memory resources are allocated in the same way. When an application is opened in the Android system, it will create a new "process". The process needs Resources such as memory. If the memory capacity is still free, the data required by the application will be obtained without affecting other running applications. If the memory capacity has been used up, the first thing the Android system does is to "swap memory" Page" means compressing memory. This technique is called ZRAM compression. Memory pages are saved in an isolated logical part of the memory. It cannot be read directly and must be decompressed and then loaded into the regular part of the memory. However, it is still more complicated than loading application data from storage. If the ZRAM is also used up soon , the Android system will automatically clean up the currently unused application processes. This phenomenon is called "killing the background." For example , if your phone is running multiple applications at the same time and you need to switch to The first application you open needs to be re-entered. Current Android phones generally start with 8GB of memory and can reach up to 24GB. However, the iPhone currently only has a maximum of 8GB of memory , and only the Pro version can enjoy it. The regular version only has 6GB. Does this mean something ? Are Android phones with large memory severely over-performing? In fact, we still have to look at it from a different perspective. If your usual habit of using your mobile phone is to open a few applications and have a good habit of cleaning up the background , then 8GB of memory is enough. If you often play some large-scale mobile games and like to play while doing it. Some other things such as listening to music, chatting, etc. Mobile phones with 12GB or 16GB memory are good choices . If you like to play the "extreme challenge" of background-resident programs and run dozens of applications or games on your phone at the same time , then you have to get a phone with 24GB memory. Generally speaking, the memory equipped The larger the capacity , the higher the price of the mobile phone . However, last year there were also some mid-range models using 24GB large memory, and the price was not very high. At this time, it is natural to ignore the above mentioned machine requirements. The bigger the memory, the better. That’s it for this issue. After watching the entire video, do you have a new understanding of the memory of computers and mobile phones? Welcome to communicate and interact with us. 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