Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
M5 MacBook Air with 16GB or the M4 with 24GB? My pick is the M5. It has more memory bandwidth, which just means the RAM can talk faster to the processor. The M5 also has neural accelerators on every core for local AI performance, which should matter with macOS Golden Gate since you'll be able to run Siri locally on the computer. The 24GB will benefit you more for multitasking, but the M5 is a more efficient chip, and a lot of tasks will be improved over the M4.
Newer chip or more RAM? Which would you take?
M5 MacBook Air with 16GB or the M4 with 24GB? My pick is the M5. It has more memory bandwidth, which just means the RAM can talk faster to the processor. The M5 also has neural accelerators on every core for local AI performance, which should matter with macOS Golden Gate since you'll be able to run Siri locally on the computer. The 24GB will benefit you more for multitasking, but the M5 is a more efficient chip, and a lot of tasks will be improved over the M4.
Newer chip or more RAM? Which would you take?
