i7 4GB or i5 8GB?

[m98custom1212]

Thank you so much everyone! You're so kind!
Actually I was thinking to improve my RAM just because on my PC I have 4GB and when I run all the apps I need it becomes so slow (yes, I do use ccleaner, I don't have any toolbars, no virus etc...). For example when I open an outlook email with lots of images and I have more than 6 o 7 tabs of firefox open, outlook crushes or just starts not to respond (it is frustrating when happens!).
Or, if I have open more than 4 firefox tabs, it is impossible to use google voice or website full of flash animations as firefox crushes or stop working.
So, to avoid this, I was thinking to upgrade the RAM.

Why do you think ssd is so important? I'll be happy with 128 GB since I'll save everything (photo, music, etc...) on my onedrive account and open it when I need something from the browser (that hopefully doesn't crush as happens now!)

What OS are using? What Processor are you using?

How is it I can have 10 chrome tabs open, Solidworks 2015, outlook and mastercam x8 on a surface pro 3 and it not slow until my assemblies get fairly large or my mastercam files get over 10mb

 

[Harthag]

I started a wiki about this a few months back:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1756865/

I didn't see that earlier, thank you, really useful for me. So 4gb it is for me, as I'd planned. Was set on the Air and visited Apple store last night as I'd never seen a rMBP screen before. about sums it up. Decisions decisions...at least I'm settled on 4gb ram (if I get the Air) and 256gb ssd!

 

[grandM]

Hello everyone!
I finally decided to do the "big change": I've always used PCs and now I'm going to buy a Macbook for my first time.

Since I'm a student and I don't have lots of money I opted for a MacBook Air and I was wondering if it's better to have:
- intel core i7 with 4GB of RAM
- intel core i5 with 8GB of RAM

Keep in mind that I do not need a gaming laptop but I have plenty of apps running at the same time (outlook open 24/7 to download e-mail in push and to schedule appointments, itunes, word, excel, safari, spotify, skype) and I'm planning to switch to Mac because they're faster than my actual windows.

Which one will give me a faster laptop and more durability?

Thank you

EDIT: I cannot have both i7 and 8GB, too expensive

I do not know where you live but there's a discount on the macbook air base model. Granted it only has a 1.4 Ghz, 4 GB ram and 128 SSD. Others must concur but I think this might be sufficient for your use. And you will save yourself money.

These days 1.4 seems awful but keep in mind in 1996 we were running word, excel, played music simultaneously on a pc with 133 Mhz [0.133 Ghz] and a spinner on win 95. I can not remember the amount of RAM but I am pretty sure it was in megabytes, not gigabytes.

Also shift to pages, mail etc as they are most likely more apple optimized. I myself ditched Ms Office too. My professor ICT at the university said "Sure iWorks has less functionality than MsOffice but ask yourself: do you use the non present functionality?". I certainly wouldn't spend money on Ms Office.

If for some reason you feel more at ease with one of your initial combo's: i5/8GB
I also think the 8GB is not that important having a SSD. If you are not handy dandy I would consider 4GB ram and 256 GB SSD. Eventually it is always nice not having to stream everything.

All this being said I would seriously consider the discount [http://idays.be/nl/actie] on the base macbook air. You can use the savings to party on

 

[motrek]

...
These days 1.4 seems awful ...

No, it doesn't.

Intel chips have variable clock speeds. 1.4GHz is almost meaningless. The chip will run anywhere from 800MHz to 2.7GHz. The cooling system in the MacBook Air is good enough that the chip can run at 2.7GHz all day long. This is almost the same speed as a MacBook Pro.

 

[cr2]

4gb is a multi-gigabyte amount of RAM and should work well for the most applications.

Agree. However, with 8Gb it should be future proof (to some extent) and might be better resale. I don't know if you can upgrade the memory like hard disk.

 

[cycledance]

No, it doesn't.

Intel chips have variable clock speeds. 1.4GHz is almost meaningless. The chip will run anywhere from 800MHz to 2.7GHz. The cooling system in the MacBook Air is good enough that the chip can run at 2.7GHz all day long. This is almost the same speed as a MacBook Pro.

that's wrong.

 

[motrek]

that's wrong.

Heh. It's adorable how confident you are without having any idea what you're talking about.

You're welcome to download the Intel Power Gadget and see that your CPU speed constantly varies according to load.