How fast is this ram? Is it fast enough to where 8GB should be sufficient for every day tasks? I'm a teacher so I don't really need a lot of power for my tasks but I also don't want to be stuck with a laggy machine in a couple years time. Thank you!
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
How fast is 3733MHz LPDDR4X ram?
- Thread starter kreasonos
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Ram will not be the bottleneck for Internet, email, and office applications. It's going to be the SSD speed.
How long do you plan on keeping a new computer? Are you buying the Core i3 (dual-core) and keeping it 2-3 years or the Core i5/i7(quad-core) and trying to keep it 5-7 years?
If you’re looking at cost as your key driver, then simply buy the base $999 and re-evaluate after 2-3 years. If it’s still running well, then run it until it becomes too tedious to deal with and you’ll have minimized your investment while getting the life out of it that had anticipated and then some. Think of that as a bonus.
If you’re planning to keep the machine for 5-7 years, then I would recommend upgrading the base model to a Core i5 and 16GB of DRAM and hopefully 256GB will be enough for you. If not, get the $1299 model and upgrade to 16GB of DRAM.
You can always check your memory usage now in Activity Monitor and see how much is being used, how much is left and what the Memory Pressure is...if your main usage is productivity apps plus browser, 8GB is enough for you.
I plan on getting the i5 model with 8gb and 512, my plan is for it to be a 3-5 year computer. Because it's a mac i'm hoping 5 yr.
The 2019 MBA had NVMe SSD storage running at 1GB/sec Writes and 1.3GB/sec Reads, so that not really an issue at all.
[automerge]1584990021[/automerge]
It should work just fine then...if you can afford it, bump it to 16GB. If not, 8GB is not the end of the world. The memory bandwidth on the new MacBook Air’s Core i5 CPU is 58.3GB/sec, which is stellar compared to the 33.3GB/sec of the 2018 MacBook Air. Basicallly, LPDDR4X-3733 is the fastest mainstream DRAM supported. Anything faster is relegated to a desktop and is not really “standard”, simply overclocked.
Last edited:
Do you run any virtual machines such as Parallels Desktop, or plan to do any video editing in the future (if schools become virtual for an extended time)? If so, then 16GB might be helpful. Otherwise the 8GB should be adequate for now. Note that 16GB is an $180 upgrade with the education discount.
Last edited:
The 2020 MBA has 3733MHz LPDDR4X RAM ... I didn't know that until I seen this thread!
Excellent and finally!
This is the max speed that we're seeing in laptops from Intel's collaborative Project Athena based laptops: Dell's XPS 13 2-in-1 (late 2019), XPS 13 (2020) and upcoming HP DragonFly (X360 14") - all are 14" display laptops of same RAM and CPU spec.
Excellent and finally!
This is the max speed that we're seeing in laptops from Intel's collaborative Project Athena based laptops: Dell's XPS 13 2-in-1 (late 2019), XPS 13 (2020) and upcoming HP DragonFly (X360 14") - all are 14" display laptops of same RAM and CPU spec.
It's unlikely any of the office apps will need that kind of speed.
The max SSD read and write speed is still slower than the ram speed?
Ram is overated these days. It used to matter a lot. I have 24gb ram in my late 27 inch 2012 iMac with Fusion drive and when I pushed MacBook Air mid 2013 with 8gb ram/256gb ssd core I 5. The MacBook Air ran just as fast with 8gb ram as the 24gb ram iMac.
my 2018 surface pro 6 with 8gb ram/128gb ssd is plenty Same with my Lenovo yoga 2017 8/256gb ssd.
so I just ordered 2020 MacBook Air core i5 with 8gb ram education discount $999. It will be fine for (my needs). Just basic stuff. Email internet , parallels (parallels runs fine in my 2013 MacBook Air as well with 8gb ram), kids school work.
my 2018 surface pro 6 with 8gb ram/128gb ssd is plenty Same with my Lenovo yoga 2017 8/256gb ssd.
so I just ordered 2020 MacBook Air core i5 with 8gb ram education discount $999. It will be fine for (my needs). Just basic stuff. Email internet , parallels (parallels runs fine in my 2013 MacBook Air as well with 8gb ram), kids school work.