How much memory is 4 GB of RAM?

[Botts85]

Just for some perspective on what 4GB means:

I had a quad-core 15" with 8GB, which I sold to buy a rMBP. In the interim I am using a C2D 13" with 4GB RAM.

In my daily browsing and computer use, avoiding Aperture, FCP, and HandBrake, I hardly notice the processor slowdown, however the drop to 4GB RAM is monstrously noticeable.

If you have a tabbed browsing addiction, specifically in Firefox, but also in Safari to a lesser extent, be aware that tabbed browsing eats RAM.

Right now, I'm running what one may consider a normal workload for a MacBook, including Aperture open in the background, Safari up with about 20 tabs, and iTunes playing music. I'm currently using 4GB of RAM with another 700MB in swap memory. --> This is not fun. Upgrade to 8GB.

Bottom line, if you order the Air max it right out in terms of RAM. If you order the Pro, keep in mind there are many places, CanadaRAM, OWC, or other third parties to buy RAM and upgrade it yourself, it's really easy to do.

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With SSD replacing HDD, even if pagefile where to exist I doubt I'll notice it much.

I had an OWC 120GB SSD as my boot drive in my old 15" and you could certainly notice when it started to page file. Even 400MB/s, though fast, is no where near the throughput of RAM. It can even be an order of magnitude slower.

 

[John Fridinger]

I have a six year old MBP doing fine, just now going to the cMBP., keep up with the Jones.....

Ram has always gotten cheaper over time and is easy to install... An internal optical drive is handy if you are going to need one and want to travel light...

Get the 13" MBP and 4 gigs and upgrade ram as needed, cheaper in the long run... Get the basic HD and change it for an SSD when they come down in price some more, also if and as needed and also easy enough to do (put the HD in an external and use it for backup/archives...)

If the optical drive ever becomes redundant put another ssd/hd in there, a little more complicated but doable enough from what I read on this forum... The Air won't be future upgradable in such easy ways, if at all... IFixit says it is very, very hard to get into, etc... Stay flexible...

 

[tninety]

With SSD replacing HDD, even if pagefile where to exist I doubt I'll notice it much.

There's a reason SSDs haven't replaced traditional DRAM yet. It's not just bandwidth. While DRAM has an access latency of well under 100 nanoseconds, a typical SSD has an access latency of 0.1 milliseconds - or 100,000 nanoseconds. SSDs are fast for storage but never assume that they're going to make paging out even bearable.

 

[BaseballGuy]

Thanks for the responses everyone! I decided to go with the 13" base MBP, it's pretty awesome!