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Return 4GB for 8GB?
- Thread starter trdsol23
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Well that is very good news. I always buy base configurations, but since I tend to upgrade every two or three years, I've never had problems. Even my 2010 Air with 2GB RAM did fine with ML. That probably has a lot to do with the fact that I use my computer for English professor type things rather than Pro applications.
While I agree with the others that you should get 8, I want to point out that memory management is better under Mavericks.
Ok,
I don't ever have problems with 4g of memory, I have no problems with processor speed. What I find is that I have storage issues...
i have been a mac user for about 20 years, My latest is a 128g/4g/I5/11" 2012 air. I would be happier with more storage.
I am not upgrading this time, as the battery storage is not enough of a plus, though more battery storage is awesome. Just not worth it for me, I guess I am skipping a gen.
So... My answer, way happy with 4g, if I was to upgrade anything it would be the storage, up to 256K.
I don't ever have problems with 4g of memory, I have no problems with processor speed. What I find is that I have storage issues...
i have been a mac user for about 20 years, My latest is a 128g/4g/I5/11" 2012 air. I would be happier with more storage.
I am not upgrading this time, as the battery storage is not enough of a plus, though more battery storage is awesome. Just not worth it for me, I guess I am skipping a gen.
So... My answer, way happy with 4g, if I was to upgrade anything it would be the storage, up to 256K.
My new one week old 13" 4gig is flying along using parallels and with my new wifi ac time capsule backups are super fast.
let's break this into 2.5 comments:
1. yeah, by having more ram, you could positively affect battery life (in the case of intensive tasks requiring swap, you will reduce the chance of requiring swap). As far as negatively affecting battery life (as in powering the DIMM?), good luck determining how much.. maybe less than 1%.
2. Tech specs have in no way hit a wall. Sure clock speeds fluctuate a little but clock speeds aren't everything. The big companies are trying to sell the "app" (win 8 apps, apple store apps etc) but most traditional software are still requiring more and more 'specs'.
2.5. While it looks like they're still listing requirements as 3ghz cpu, 2gb ram etc, these are just ballpark estimates for what these companies see as their market reasonably using; a 3ghz p4 is probably not sufficient.
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How is parallels btw? I've never used it but heard great things. I will install on my i7/11" as soon as I get back to North America, lol.
8GB should be standard. This is 2013. It probably costs Apple $20 to add it. I have a rMBP with 16GB, and it's probably been overkill 98% of the time, but even just light usage i'm around 4GB already.
According to this forum, and the endless questions about 4 gig vs 8 gig, lots of people go with 4 gig. So, no, 8 gig should not be standard. 4 gig is perfect for people who use an MBA like a Chromebook.
4GiB is the bare minimum today. A computer is supposed to last at least 3 years. No laptops should be sold with less than 8GiB RAM when soldered. In fact, it should NEVER be soldered.
As far as I'm aware the only thing being introduced is compression of inactive memory, and this is unlikely to have a significant effect.
Which is why that is the std config for MBAs.
Says who, other than you?
People know the RAM cannot be upgraded after purchase. If they don't like this, they should buy it with 8 gigs or buy something else.
So many pronouncements. Wow. I'll take thin over having to make room for a socket.
You should read over the Mavericks DP threads. Users there are reporting much better memory management. My point is due to these changes in Mavericks it will need less memory than say Mountain Lion and not more, so the old axiom about successive OS updates always requiring more memory does not necessarily hold.
Yes it should. I already said it. Go ahead and justify your 4gb purchase, but you messed up. Enjoy your page outs.
You are ASSUMING I bought 4 gigs. You are wrong. This exchange was about what the DEFAULT amount of memory should be, a FACT you clearly missed. YOU messed up.
Default should be 8GB. Less than 8GB you're GOING to have page outs. Enjoy those RESTARTS. Sorry, my CAPS LOCK keeps getting RANDOMLY stuck.
I would rather not read either of your posts. Neither one of you is adding anything to this conversation by bickering.
My first Air was a 2010 with 2gb ram and it ran Parallels (with win XP) just fine as long as I was not running a lot of other programs in OSX at the same time. Running Safari was fine, but Safari plus iTunes at the same time as Parallels would seriously max it out.
Second Air was 2011 with 4gb and no issues, but I think the 8gb is a cheap and good upgrade and its hard to go wrong so I went for it on my 2013.
As for running Parallels with 4gb vs. 8gb, I don't really see any difference unless you run a lot of other programs at the same time.
It sounds like you're trying to justify spending more money on 8GB when in fact 4GB is likely to be plenty for years to come for the majority of people. Maybe it's not enough for you, but its a reasonable default. A 2010 MBP with 4GB of RAM runs Lightroom 4 just fine while editing RAW images from a D90. Not a professional workflow, but above average usage.
Average people don't open every app on their computer or have 20+ tabs open in their browser. Average people don't run photoshop and don't give a crap that it takes an extra half a second to switch from Safari to iPhoto to iTunes. And no average computer user gives a crap what a "page out" is.
The real truth is that both OS X and windows do a really good job of dealing with memory management. They will adjust to the users habits (auto termination of apps, memory compression, etc).
My point is, if you know you'll need more memory, you arent going to be asking on a forum. You'll buy it anyway. But if you have to ask, you probably don't need it.
Well, flash memory is just as efficient as RAM. So if you are talking about old school HDD you would be correct.
Correct, more memory means more to power the DIMM. Also, more stuff the OS has to haul. My point is that having a bunch of unnecessary RAM can affect your experience. My recommendation is to buy what you actually use. For example, I run Ubuntu at home and my memory consumption is no more than 1.5GB.
There are physical limitations in how much you can do on silicon and no amount of engineering can bend the laws of physics. You are right, clock speeds fluctuate but they are not getting any faster. Typically what I see in 'traditional' software is software that was written pre-2007 with a different philosophy. However, I think these software packages are a bit of a Dodo these days. If there is a software package X that has 10,000 features and runs like crap on my machine, and there is another software package Y that has 5 features I actually need and runs well, I'm going to go with Y never X.
If you look at Windows 8 for example, it actually has the same minimum specs as Windows 7 so you can kind of start to see where the industry is heading.
Amen brother! I think in the future software is going to have get more intelligent in the way it solves a problem. More convolution and nonsensical code can no longer hide behind ridiculously high 'tech specs'. It is a common trend for people to abandon complexity in favor of simplicity.
If flash were totally comparable to RAM then we wouldn't even be using RAM anymore. It is certainly faster than a HDD, yet still not as fast as RAM. Also flash memory has a relatively limited number of write cycles. So caching to it all the time could reduce the life of the drive.