How Much RAM Do 6,000 Open Tabs in Chrome Consume? The Answer 'No' Will Surprise You

The Mac Pro workstation is one of the most interesting systems Apple has released in recent years. Setting aside its exorbitant premium, the ability to install up to 1.5 terabytes of RAM certainly makes us turn our heads. Is there anything that can challenge such an amount of memory? The answer is yes… and the most likely thing is that you use it to visit us. Google Chrome carries a heavy reputation as a RAM addict, and YouTuber Jonathan Morrison installed a terabyte and a half in his Mac Pro to see how the browser behaves… with 6,000 tabs open.

Processor Intel Xeon W with 28 cores, two Radeon Pro Vega II Duo, up to 8 terabytes of solid-state storage, a maximum of 1.5 terabytes of RAM… configured to the limit, there is no doubt that the 2019 Mac Pro is a monster in hardware and price, easily surpassing $50,000.

However, it is always possible to find alternatives. For example, OWC offers a 1.5 terabyte expansion pack (128 GB x 12) at a price of $20,000, five thousand less than Apple's official route. YouTuber Jonathan Morrison, who specializes in all things Apple, managed to access that pack and put it to a very particular test:

Google Chrome! RAM destroyer par excellence, to such an extent that the public turned it into a meme. No matter what Mountain View does to its code, the browser is capable of taking entire gigabytes of RAM… on a calm day. Logically, 1.5 terabytes is a terrifying amount of memory, enabling multiple possibilities for the end user, but Morrison decided to open 6,000 tabs in Chrome, without using blank pages (courtesy of Automator).

At first, the numbers were reasonable: Chrome had only demanded between 200 and 300 gigabytes of RAM... But Morrison decided to leave the system running all night, and that's when the browser showed its true profile. RAM consumption jumped to 800 gigabytes without doing anything, but the leak continued until it reached 1.4 terabytes, with 100 percent usage across the 28 available processor cores.

What happened to Chrome? Exactly what we expected: Chrome threw in the towel at 1.4 terabytes and hung. When he cut the interrupted process in Activity Monitor, macOS neutralized all instances of Chrome and returned RAM to the user. At the same time, this serves as conclusive proof of the Mac Pro's stability, which in 24 hours had no pauses or thermal throttling problems. For such money, we expected nothing less...