Yes and no. RISC instructions are pretty much the same size in bytes. CISC instructions vary greatly. Some can be as many as 8 bytes long. It helps to balance out the sizes.
Yes, I always learned that RISC is way better than CISC itās why Apple had the PowerPC chips during a time. More instructions per second. For RAM, it depends of what you do. My dad is super happy with his iMac M1 with 8 GB of ram, never had any issue of performance or speed. Heās doing a lot of stuff with photos and movies.
Thank you Paul. Iām retired from paid development and do this stuff for āfunā with some pro bono work.
I have just replaced a 4-1/2 year old typical mid-range Intel iMac (3.6 GHz 4-core Core i3: 16GB RAM 512GB SSD) with a new āsimilar levelā M3 iMac (8-core CPU 10-core GPU 16GB RAM 1000GB SSD. For my use, the performance increase was very noticeable (Default installation, minimal plugins). My numbers are:-
TASK Intel iMac M3 iMac SPEEDUP FACTOR
============================================================
Launch Xojo 00:16 00:10 1.6
Load project 00:20 00:03 6.7
Load second time 00:03 ~00:1 ~3
Compile/Load [1] 00:20 00:07 2.9
Compile/Load [2] 00:12 00:06 2.0
The results are for a simple web front-end loop test app running locally to load data into SQLite, based loosely on Dana Brownās web Task SQLite Example. The idea was for the test to cover common SQL operations.
WAL is turned on and I have tested with up to 9 separate client front-ends on a WiFi LAN.
Each loop inserts 2 rows into a table, and 3 triggers insert a row into a log table for each added/updated/deleted main table row.
The loop updates each added main row; deletes a row from main table and retrieves the last 3 added rows from the log table.
I have also put in the option of a delay time for each loop to get an idea of a typical ādays workā for a pro bono.
The numbers with no delay time are:-
TASK Intel iMac M3 iMac SPEEDUP FACTOR
======================================================
Add 6,000 rows 00:05 ~00:01 ~5
Add 60,000 rows 00:54 00:15 3.6
The final results for 60,000 rows added/updated/deleted were ~180,000 rows in the log table (~12,000 rows/sec) added to an initial 1,322,875 rows.
Repeating the test with 5 WiFi LAN clients plateaued at 13,635 rows/sec over ~66 secs.
Comparing this to similar WiFi LAN plateau tests with the Intel iMac showed a generally similar ~3.2 speedup factor.
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Maybe because he does not know better. The imac will use the SSD as ram, not only the performance is worst, the ssd will ha be very short life span
I would advocate that people get at least 16 GB of RAM for these machines.
But in fairness,
the ssd will have a very short life span
is perhaps overwrought . The situation might shorten the life of the ssd but it not established that that will ever affect this guyās father. I donāt think that there is data to imply it is likely that that ssd will, for example, die within 5 years.
There is plenty of data and thhousands of already dead ssds. Apple already made some patches to slow down the problem but low ram means ssd die sooner
Just where is this data? āThousands of already dead SSDāsā is an imprecise number and, if true, is a small one against the number of Silicon Macs that have been sold.
I would look for data to see if a Mac will boot where the primary drive is a dead SSD.
My 3 year old MacBook Pro is an independent repair shop right now. According to Apple, the logic board is shot and I should just buy a new Mac.
According to the repair center, when the battery fails, the Mac wonāt boot even if connected to power. I should find out in a couple of days who was telling me the truth.
if ti turns out to be the battery, thatās some dirty & disgusting business practice from Tim Apple.
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?? totaly off topic
If his father is happy, his father is happy - thereās nothing more to know, and no need to question if āhe knows betterā. Heās literally the only person in a position to judge his own happiness and satisfaction.
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No one is judging his father happiness and satisfaction. 
He is free to use whatever he wants.
But PERSONAL happiness and satisfaction is not enought to make a general statement.
Despite the fact what others saying, an SSD doesnāt die quickly on the condition that you use quality SSDās. I used for more than 10 years an Intel SSD, without any problems. Believe me, it was heavily used. I replaced the SSD because I ran out of space.
Donāt format too much, donāt compact it and you are fine. Your SSD will really make you fast and happy!
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