[whopper]

It doesn't make any sense.

Monitor mode doesn't use more ram, is just an hdmi input and the refresh rate is fixed by the screen technology

As for speed between apps, the base max 2 have about 1.1gb free after boot, unless you go below 300mb, it shouldn't be noticeable a speed increase between one or another as the cpu is the same and there is still plenty of ram available.

So, I'm just inclined to think you are just seeing what you want to see or that one device is updated and no the other, or lastly that the base max 2 have 0 ram when tested because you have 14 apps in the background

Just put both devices side to side and record a video so you have real data and not feeling.

extra 2gb are really neat if you install a lot of system services, root the device and multitask a lot between apps so they don't need to load again into the ram, but that's it, for 3/4 apps at the same time shouldn't be a difference.