Personally, I would get 4gb. However, this person already has an i5 17" mbp and a 2009 imac. So, they don't really need the higher specs. If they want to do something intensive, they have the hardware.
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Is 2GB of RAM enough for me?
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i dont really wanna wait for a 4gb model to ship out .. i played around with the 2gb one in the store and it seemed snappy enough .. only thing i will load on it is office 2011 just so i can write papers and take notes .. only other thing i see myself doing is surfing the net and checking email during class .. i have an i7 imac which will do anything heavy
im used to 4gb minimum .. but i always end up overbuying thinking im gonna need the power and i end up barely using it .. i doubt i will keep this MBA longer than 6 months since i always tend to sell stuff .. 4gb is probably better resale value .. im just not sure what to do
im used to 4gb minimum .. but i always end up overbuying thinking im gonna need the power and i end up barely using it .. i doubt i will keep this MBA longer than 6 months since i always tend to sell stuff .. 4gb is probably better resale value .. im just not sure what to do
Well, you should.
The old MBA has a crappy processor that overheats and underclocks itself, thats why it was slow. The anandtech review shows that even the base MBA11 is quite a bit faster than it.
Upgrading to 4gb of ram is a must for the MBA, for future proofing, and resale value. Since the MBA ram isn't user upgradable, it is a no brainer to pay the extra $100 for 4gb, 2GB can be maxed out in a jiffy.
Good point. 10% for this kind of increase is peanuts. I would also argue that 10% for going from 1.4 GHz to 1.6 GHz isn't that bad of an idea. Remember, this is dual core, so that's a 14% speed increase per processor. Under certain types of multitasking, that could be somewhere near a 25% increase in performance.
Lol no it won't it will be 28% on 200% cpu which is still 14%. In geekbench which is really cpu stress test the difference is a little above 10%. If you are going for the 128gb/4gb 11 inch anyway it makes sense to me to take the speed increase. It might increase you battery life too which is nice benefit. (because the cpu gets to idle faster and thus using less power.) If your going for the 64gb
model then i wouldn't bother.
Back to 2 vs 4 gb, if you want to use it for anything other then Browsing/Watching/Text editing 4gb is mandatory in my opinion
I have a question concerning page ins and page outs. After doing some reading I understand the basic principle involved. My question is I have a Macbook air 13" base model. When I look at the activity monitor there are 420MB of page ins and 24 kb of page outs. That number changes a bit as I use the computer through the day. I know most everyone is recommending 4gb of ram. However with 2gb I have opened 9 programs on one bounce of the dock icon. I can detect no slow down at all of anything I use. I can return my 13" base for 4gb or ram but if they charge me restocking the total could exceed $200+. The Apple person at the store says 2GB is plenty. So how important are the page ins and outs. What numbers would be of a concern?
I have another question.....maybe stupid but....will a mba with 128GB run faster than a mba with 256GB?
I think I read that the maxed out version of the 13" was 10%-15% faster than the stock. I would say the ram if anything. Using my stock 13" and having a MacBook pro 15" i7 I can tell you this Air is one speedy guy
24 kb of page-outs is next to zero which is perfectly fine. My 2gb RAM macbook has around a 20:1 ratio for my use. In your case of amount of page-ins that would make it 24 Mb of page-outs instead of 24 kb. Even still I don't have a lot of problems with it so you'll be more than ok.
Thanks. I have been wrestling with this 2-4gb thing and even though this stock model runs great I was skeptical about 2gb. Due to restocking at Apple Store and additional cost of ram option I hate to go $200+ if really don't need it. Besides I had enough problems deciding between 11.6 and 13" so didn't want to worry about ram too. The wife got an 11.6 so i can play with that one too
Gosh so many people are saying so many different things? So is 2GB or 4GB enough for running Photoshop?
It shouldn't make too much difference, you may notice the computer running slower if the drive is almost full so if you have a lot of data the 256GB may be better. But there won't be much if any speed difference.
RAM, definitely. Remember, RAM is 20 times as fast as the SSD. If you have a lot of programs open (or tabs in Safari) you'll start running out of memory and OS X will start paging the contents of memory to your SSD. That will slow things down.
I'll let others discuss page ins/outs. Speaking from experience, 2GB RAM is adequate for most tasks now, but upgrading to 4GB helps "future proof" the machine. 64-bit applications use up more memory than comparable 32-bit programs because there is a little more overhead. Thus, as more programs are written for 64-bit, RAM will be more in demand.
Extra RAM also helps if you want to run Windows on it, or if you like to have multiple programs running in the background.