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Meister

Suspended
Oct 10, 2013
5,456
4,310
I mean unless it's really intensive. I only ever swap when I'm running Xcode, Coda and Safari.
Yosemite and mavericks always swap.
I have 8gb and 0.5gb swap showing just from having safari open.

Read :apple:s explanation on how to read the activity monitor. Swap doesn't mean you are out of RAM.
 

Izsec

macrumors newbie
Feb 3, 2015
4
0
Looking to downsize

I have a MBP Retina 15" I7, 8GB, 256

The only thing I ever do that beats up the CPU is when I'm rendering HD commercials in Premiere and also when I'm streaming using Livestream at a high bit rate and frame size.

That being said, would a 11" MBA I5, 4GB, 256 do in a pinch or would it be a night and day difference?

I have read these threads with great interest and felt after reading this version I should ask specific questions to my usage in order to get a better idea of the best course of action.

Best Regards,

David
 

kage207

macrumors 6502a
Jul 23, 2008
971
56
Yosemite and mavericks always swap.
I have 8gb and 0.5gb swap showing just from having safari open.

Read :apple:s explanation on how to read the activity monitor. Swap doesn't mean you are out of RAM.
Uh, I have 8GB and I never swap with Safari, Mail, Calendar, Reminders and Messages.
 

motrek

macrumors 68030
Sep 14, 2012
2,613
305
I have a MBP Retina 15" I7, 8GB, 256

The only thing I ever do that beats up the CPU is when I'm rendering HD commercials in Premiere and also when I'm streaming using Livestream at a high bit rate and frame size.

That being said, would a 11" MBA I5, 4GB, 256 do in a pinch or would it be a night and day difference?

I have read these threads with great interest and felt after reading this version I should ask specific questions to my usage in order to get a better idea of the best course of action.

Best Regards,

David

Indeed, asking "is 4GB of RAM enough" is sort of like asking "is half a tank of gas enough." Uh, enough for WHAT? :)
 

AroundTheFur922

macrumors member
Jan 30, 2013
78
17
NJ
I'm in school for video production and have used After Effects on 4GB of RAM without any issues (while also having 4 tabs of Chrome open and Twitter/Mail/Pages.
 

asoksevil

macrumors 6502
Jun 7, 2010
483
158
London, UK
I've been using my 2010 MBA with 4 GB of RAM for 5 years and I feel that 4 GB is plenty for my given usage (web browsing, Youtube, Anime MKV, word processing, some light gaming, etc)

I don't feel like 8 GB will be such a bump, but for future proofing and considering that I want to keep my MBA for as long as I can, I would consider upgrading it if it were possible back in 2010.
 

joshlalonde

macrumors 6502
Jul 12, 2014
422
0
Canada
We need to get better about indicating sarcasm.

I really hope nobody took that seriously though... I mean, there are a lot of ... people out there. But anyone who knows at least what RAM is should hopefully know that I was being ironic.

I can't say, however, that it was, but for the hyperbole, far from the truth. When Chrome isn't eating your RAM, it decides to crash multiple helpers which could be a source of memory leaks.
 

motrek

macrumors 68030
Sep 14, 2012
2,613
305
I really hope nobody took that seriously though... I mean, there are a lot of ... people out there. But anyone who knows at least what RAM is should hopefully know that I was being ironic.

I can't say, however, that it was, but for the hyperbole, far from the truth. When Chrome isn't eating your RAM, it decides to crash multiple helpers which could be a source of memory leaks.

I'm surprised you and Meister have so much trouble with Chrome. I've never had a problem with it myself. I'm looking at its Task Manager now and I have 12 tabs open and the biggest one is this one, taking ~200MB of RAM. Almost all the rest of the pages are 50MB or less. And these are fairly popular news sites, Google calendar, etc., not just creampuff sites.
 

joshlalonde

macrumors 6502
Jul 12, 2014
422
0
Canada
I'm surprised you and Meister have so much trouble with Chrome. I've never had a problem with it myself. I'm looking at its Task Manager now and I have 12 tabs open and the biggest one is this one, taking ~200MB of RAM. Almost all the rest of the pages are 50MB or less. And these are fairly popular news sites, Google calendar, etc., not just creampuff sites.

Hmm, I guess mileage varies.

For me, the problems don't stop there. My battery life is effectively halved. I'm not sure exactly why.
Either way, I'm not big into the Google ecosystem so it doesn't particularly affect me, though it was a bit disappointing.
 
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