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Is RAM so important in MBA?

woodbine

woodbine

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 8, 2010
200
18
Bath, UK
I was looking at refurb MBA on Apple Store, they have them but with only 4GB RAM. My question is how much performance hit is there with only minimum RAM plus super fast SSD, compared to old spinning rust plus minimum RAM.
I know that when RAM is full, the OS creates virtual RAM on the SSD, but now SSD is very quick and I can imagine that would eliminate a bottleneck.
 
I'll echo what Zboater said, the use cases of the general population will be fine with a 4 gig configuration. I've got 8 gig in mine as I run a single VM most of the time along with the general stuff I run daily on OSX. I give 4 gig of ram to the VM and both the VM and OSX are happy and perform very well.
 
woodbine said:
I was looking at refurb MBA on Apple Store, they have them but with only 4GB RAM. My question is how much performance hit is there with only minimum RAM plus super fast SSD, compared to old spinning rust plus minimum RAM.
I know that when RAM is full, the OS creates virtual RAM on the SSD, but now SSD is very quick and I can imagine that would eliminate a bottleneck.
Click to expand...
There is no question that a SSD improves performance over a HDD, including improving paging performance when memory requirements exceed available RAM. Still, a SSD is much slower than RAM, so any paging activity results in somewhat reduced performance. The real question is how much RAM is appropriate for your needs, to minimize the possibility of page outs.

This should help: How much RAM do I need in my Mac?
 
depends how you use it.

Skype running in the background will cause a few freeze ups with netflix and drop youtube down to low quality. Calling notification centre from the right while playing those sites can also slow it down and make it stutter.

No Skype is fine.
 
As others have said, your use case is the biggest indication. Since you are considering an air then I assume you are not going to be doing anything too intense; therefore, I think a 4GB ram and SSD would be perfect. I have a model in the same configuration from 2011 and it still is blazing fast.
 
Zxxv said:
depends how you use it.

Skype running in the background will cause a few freeze ups with netflix and drop youtube down to low quality. Calling notification centre from the right while playing those sites can also slow it down and make it stutter.

No Skype is fine.
Click to expand...

If true, this has nothing to do with RAM anyway.
 
motrek said:
If true, this has nothing to do with RAM anyway.
Click to expand...

Meister said:
Here: https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=19384469

----------

That's some real confused gibberish.
Click to expand...

when I switch skype to signed out everything goes back to normal. I assumed it was due to ram. So you're both saying if I had 16gb of ram it would make no difference and I'd still have to sign out of Skype to watch netflix (html5 player) without stuttering. You're both saying its due to something else.
Ok fair enough. I thought it more ram would help.
 
Zxxv said:
when I switch skype to signed out everything goes back to normal. I assumed it was due to ram. So you're both saying if I had 16gb of ram it would make no difference and I'd still have to sign out of Skype to watch netflix (html5 player) without stuttering. You're both saying its due to something else.
Ok fair enough. I thought it more ram would help.
Click to expand...
I didn't really comprehend you previous post.

If youtube automatically switches to low quality, then that is due to internet bandwidth. Maybe Skype is interfering with that. Check your internet speed.

Netflix is behaving odd as of late. If you force buffer high bitrates, it will occupy massive amounts of RAM. However it will not lead to any problems with playback, but it will lead to a temporary lag, when you switch from netflix back to other apps. I made a thread about this here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1863248/

On the 4gb RAM topic:
With the recent massive price changes in europe, I'd recommend to anyone to seriously consider the cpu and ram upgrade on the 2015 mba series.
If you can get the 'old' 2013/2014 models for the old price or live in the US, go with the base models.
 
Meister said:
I didn't really comprehend you previous post.

If youtube automatically switches to low quality, then that is due to internet bandwidth. Maybe Skype is interfering with that. Check your internet speed.

Netflix is behaving odd as of late. If you force buffer high bitrates, it will occupy massive amounts of RAM. However it will not lead to any problems with playback, but it will lead to a temporary lag, when you switch from netflix back to other apps. I made a thread about this here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1863248/

On the 4gb RAM topic:
With the recent massive price changes in europe, I'd recommend to anyone to seriously consider the cpu and ram upgrade on the 2015 mba series.
If you can get the 'old' 2013/2014 models for the old price or live in the US, go with the base models.
Click to expand...

a reboot sorted things out. I assumed it was ram. everything ran smooth again after. hey ho maybe the system just got bogged down. My internet connection is fine.
 
richwoodrocket said:
I don't see how any normal to moderate user could live with 4GB RAM.
Click to expand...

Well. My MBA 2015 with 4 GB ram can handle 3 (haven't tried more) 4K YouTube videos in different Safari windows, Word, iMessage, Google Drive and Photoshop at the same time. No stutter, no lag. I had 8 GB MBA 2012 before and while the system says it used all of them, it did not. It just reserves it and it just seems like it is used. Performance and multitasking is exactly the same with the things I am doing. Would gladly take a 2 GB version as I never have 3 videos at the same time. It was just testing.
 
bnmcj1 said:
Well. My MBA 2015 with 4 GB ram can handle 3 (haven't tried more) 4K YouTube videos in different Safari windows, Word, iMessage, Google Drive and Photoshop at the same time. No stutter, no lag. I had 8 GB MBA 2012 before and while the system says it used all of them, it did not. It just reserves it and it just seems like it is used. Performance and multitasking is exactly the same with the things I am doing. Would gladly take a 2 GB version as I never have 3 videos at the same time. It was just testing.
Click to expand...

similiar exepeeinces. 5 desktops open, calender, iTunes running, Skype, only times I encountered stutter was as I posted above, netflix open and Skype, quite Skype and all was fine, reboot and slept can run at same time, so something was hogging or bogged down in memory. The 4gb air is an amazing computer. Who knows how long that will last? I have no idea.
 
Zxxv said:
similiar exepeeinces. 5 desktops open, calender, iTunes running, Skype, only times I encountered stutter was as I posted above, netflix open and Skype, quite Skype and all was fine, reboot and slept can run at same time, so something was hogging or bogged down in memory. The 4gb air is an amazing computer. Who knows how long that will last? I have no idea.
Click to expand...

It will be plenty for the next 5 years. Microsoft just released a Surface 3 with 2 gb base. They could because of brilliant optimization as Apple also have. My budget was up to the point of 15" rMBP, but I make logical purchases based on what I need for my usecase. I am a heavy user with Photoshop, Illustrator and all, but with smaller file sizes. I just know that I do not need more and I would be happy if I could have ordered a 2 gb - because I know it will work. Also, I change my laptop every 2-3 years.
 
In every mac forum, i ve seen people suggesting to pick biggest amount of ram no matter what users do with their Mac and most likely toward bigger specs overall
Future proof
I actually regret more about hard drive size than RAM :confused:
 
richwoodrocket said:
I don't see how any normal to moderate user could live with 4GB RAM.
Click to expand...

I temporary use it for music production with various heavy workload. It can perfectly handle it (in CPU and RAM terms), never reaching more than 30% aprox. of memory pressure while producing and even less with other stuff. And yeah, I'm using quite heavy stuff, not native DAW plugins.

Funny tho, that when using Safari with multiple tabs (40-60) or Firefox with similar amount of tabs (various youtube vids open at same time, because of tutorials and other stuff) it easily reaches yellow memory pressure (never red tho). But hey, appart from me, who really uses browsers with 60 tabs open at same time? That's my usage problem :D

P.S: I'm comming from a 2010 MBP with 8GB, using a 2014 13" Air with 4GB & i5 until new 15" MBP Skylake comes out.
 
Last edited:
bubulol said:
In every mac forum, i ve seen people suggesting to pick biggest amount of ram no matter what users do with their Mac and most likely toward bigger specs overall
Future proof
I actually regret more about hard drive size than RAM :confused:
Click to expand...
You are listening to the wrong people.
 
bubulol said:
In every mac forum, i ve seen people suggesting to pick biggest amount of ram no matter what users do with their Mac and most likely toward bigger specs overall
Future proof
I actually regret more about hard drive size than RAM :confused:
Click to expand...

Meister said:
You are listening to the wrong people.
Click to expand...
Exactly! Not everyone in forums knows what they're talking about, and far too many assume that everyone else uses computers the same way they do. The fact is that many users can operate with ease with 4GB of RAM, which is plenty for average web surfing, emails, listening to music, watching movies, etc.
 
I know that why i picked my 4 GB MBA :p
And people kept stating 4 Gb wont be enough in near future
As if next updates of OSX will require 8/16 GB of ram lol
But struggling with only 128 GB of SSD :mad:
 
Last edited:
bubulol said:
I know that why i picked my 4 GB MBA :p
And people kept stating 4 Gb wont be enough in near future
As if next updates of OSX will require 8/16 GB of ram lol
But struggling with only 128 GB of SSD :mad:
Click to expand...

You can use a shareware utility called Disk Inventory X to give you a good idea of what's taking up space on your drive. Maybe you have files you forgot about or weren't expecting and don't need.
 
i was planned to using bootcamp + OSX
otherwise, 128 GB would be fine for my use ;)
I am not the guy who would pick 512 GB because on Mac forum, people suggest to pick the maximum options :p
Besides, i have a lot of external hard drives such as SSD, hard drive and NAS
 
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