Upgrading to 8GB for extra $100 a good idea?

Two threads down...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1597762/

Yes.

With Parallels, yes.

Probably!

No, I have 4gb and VM's fly on the new 2013

The answer to that question is almost always a resounding 'yes'. $100 for double the RAM is a good investment. While some see it as a sort of 'future-proofing' that is not the strongest argument in favour; rather, increased performance and speed is the argument you need to heed. If you want the power, by all means go for it as it will make your computing experience much better and more enjoyable, especially if you use processor intensive material.

Go for it. If you can afford it, I don't think you'll regret it! Especially if you plan on not upgrading your computer for a good few years.

Yup, well worth it.

If it hadn't been an option, I wouldn't have bought an air. Simple as that. I was actually disappointed that no 16gb upgrade was available given the lack of ability to upgrade later.

My 2011 had 8gb because I bought into people saying omg you HAVE to get 8gb. My 2012 has 4gb and it's way faster and have never needed 1mb over 4 gigs. If you need 8 gigs for a specific reason then go ahead but if you don't need it, why get it?

I wish 8 GB was available in one of the stock options and not force a BTO.

BenTrovato said:

My 2011 had 8gb because I bought into people saying omg you HAVE to get 8gb. My 2012 has 4gb and it's way faster and have never needed 1mb over 4 gigs. If you need 8 gigs for a specific reason then go ahead but if you don't need it, why get it?

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The amount of RAM you have doesn't correlate with speed.

In 2011 8 GB RAM probably wasn't necessary, but in 2013 and if you plan to keep this MBA for more than a few years getting 4 GB RAM would just be a bad idea

URGENT 4gb cs 8GB ram thread

Hi guys, just for today, I have a chance to buy mb air 256 GB SSD and 4GB ram with 10 percent discount... I was considering to buy same config but with 8 GB ram.. And now I am literally torn, what to do... do I really need 8 gigs of RAM?

My typical usage is - surfing in safari, listening music in itunes, ms office and apple iwork stuff, skype, and very soft photo editing (iphoto, pixelmator, plan to use adobe lightroom in the future) - but i do like to get it all open, dont want to be forced to quit apps because of lacking RAM...

Please, any advice given ASAP is more then welcome... (looking on my current machine wont help, I do have iMac with 16 gigs, but it is leaving my house in few days - so this new 13 inch air is gonna be my primary machine for approx 2 years).

majkom said:

Hi guys, just for today, I have a chance to buy mb air 256 GB SSD and 4GB ram with 10 percent discount... I was considering to buy same config but with 8 GB ram.. And now I am literally torn, what to do... do I really need 8 gigs of RAM?

My typical usage is - surfing in safari, listening music in itunes, ms office and apple iwork stuff, skype, and very soft photo editing (iphoto, pixelmator, plan to use adobe lightroom in the future) - but i do like to get it all open, dont want to be forced to quit apps because of lacking RAM...

Please, any advice given ASAP is more then welcome... (looking on my current machine wont help, I do have iMac with 16 gigs, but it is leaving my house in few days - so this new 13 inch air is gonna be my primary machine for approx 2 years).

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If you desperately need to save the money, then save it.

However since it's going to be your primary machie for 2 years, and you like to have all of your apps open then might be better to spend the extra money now.

lol these threads will continue till the end of time

It'll work fine with 4 GB of RAM, it just might be slower due to more memory paging. But since you're paging to an SSD anyway (and with Mavericks, it will be using compressed memory), it's still faster than it was with spinning hard drives.

Especially if you know you're only keeping it for 2 years, 4 GB could be just fine.

Perspective: I'm still running a 2007 era Santa Rosa MBP. It is a little slower than these machines, but it still runs everything just fine.

***** yeah. 8GB all the way bro.

Guys, already pulled the trigger for 256 gb ssd and 4 gig ram - couldnt justify paying 300 usd more for 4 more gigs of ram

majkom said:

Guys, already pulled the trigger for 256 gb ssd and 4 gig ram - couldnt justify paying 300 usd more for 4 more gigs of ram

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What weed are you smok'in? Its only a 100 bucks.

??? Please, be polite. No weed, here in europe price difference is 130 usd and as i wrote before, just for today reseller here has 10 % discount only for 4gb ram model, so buying 4gig model today gave me 300 usd difference against 8gig model, got it?

Adding 8 gb of ram is not smart. Get a refurbed rMBP for the same price and it comes with 8gb of ram.

majkom said:

??? Please, be polite. No weed, here in europe price difference is 130 usd and as i wrote before, just for today reseller here has 10 % discount only for 4gb ram model, so buying 4gig model today gave me 300 usd difference against 8gig model, got it?

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Why didn't you say that in the first place?

sparkie7 said:

Why didn't you say that in the first place?

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I mentioned discount for 4 gig model in my first post but maybe someone could understand that discount is for whatever model i choose if that was the case, i would buy 8 gig model, of course

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falconeight said:

Adding 8 gb of ram is not smart. Get a refurbed rMBP for the same price and it comes with 8gb of ram.

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No refurb store in my country;( and i dont want current gen retina mbp - too laggy

falconeight said:

Adding 8 gb of ram is not smart. Get a refurbed rMBP for the same price and it comes with 8gb of ram.

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What's smart and not is relative to each user, for whatever task they're doing and their use case. Just because it's "not smart" for you specifically doesn't make it not smart for everyone else.

Some people might want the latest processor and a thinner form factor, in which case the MBA is perfect for this, and buying a refurb is "not smart."