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Why are people scared of 4GB of RAM?

8GB RAM because of using Parallels VM

I opted to buy MBA with 8GB RAM because I am using Parallels Virtual Machine with Win 7 x64. With 4GB ram the system is paging out a bit more and Parallels runs slower and MBA has tendency to run hotter.

With 8GB I experience no performance degradation compared to Win7 x65 boot camp partition.

I am very happy with how balanced the MBA 11" with 1.7GHz i5 runs under Win7 x64 Parallels VM. I am using it now since several days intensively and also the battery life is similar to Win7 under boot camp.

Because of that excellent experience, I am most probably going to delete the boot camp partition and run Win7 only as a virtual machine.

So for my usage pattern 8GB RAM was the best choice for me.
 
SlickShoes said:
So apple should only sell macs to people that can afford the price of the mac plus an extra 10-20% on top. Why is that? Does it make you feel better about yourself that you can afford the extra and other people can't?
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Carouser said:
What? The only reason why someone would not upgrade is because of the cost, so in your view, nobody should be buying or should have bought a 4GB Air at all.
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you probably need to check your financial priorities if you are buying a $1000 laptop and cannot afford another $100. an extra 20% is a huge difference between the 9% that is really is. Again, if you cannot swing another $100 then a $1000 laptop is not your best bet. If you cannot see that, then you are probably trying to convenience yourself of owning something you cannot afford. They market to people who can afford a premium price.
 
I on occasion run vmware fusion with a win7 prof guest machine and when doing that, available memory fell to around 250mg on a 4gb machine, with nothing else much running except iTunes or mail. For me it was a no-brainer, especially since a Crucial set of 2 4gb cards was all of $50. I took out the 2 2gb cards from the macbook pro and put in the Crucial ram to upgrade that machine to 8gb. Very good results; still room to breathe when running vmware. Then I took the 2gb cards and added them to my iMac (2 empty slots available), bringing THAT machine also up to 8gb. Two machines upgraded to 8gb for $50? Absolutely the most cost effective hardware upgrade I've ever experienced.
 
mattopotamus said:
you probably need to check your financial priorities if you are buying a $1000 laptop and cannot afford another $100. an extra 20% is a huge difference between the 9% that is really is. Again, if you cannot swing another $100 then a $1000 laptop is not your best bet. If you cannot see that, then you are probably trying to convenience yourself of owning something you cannot afford. They market to people who can afford a premium price.
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Do you really think that people absolutely can't afford that extra $100 for ram? Even if they say "I can't afford the ram upgrade", it probably means that the person can't justify spending extra or that he has other priorities in his life than an extra ram in his computer. Think about it.

Should people not buy cars unless they get all the options and bells-and-whistles with it? Say I want to buy a Porsche Cayman, but I don't want to spend that $6000 extra for that Sports Bucket Seat. Sure the option is only 10% of the total price of the car and sure, if I wanted to I guess, I could afford it. But do I need it? No. Am I a financially incapable self-convicing fool? No.

So instead of arguing based on the cost, and implying that those people that don't get the extra ram are poor, try to give some practical justification for spending extra $100.
 
mattopotamus said:
you probably need to check your financial priorities if you are buying a $1000 laptop and cannot afford another $100. an extra 20% is a huge difference between the 9% that is really is. Again, if you cannot swing another $100 then a $1000 laptop is not your best bet. If you cannot see that, then you are probably trying to convenience yourself of owning something you cannot afford. They market to people who can afford a premium price.
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Your argument amounts to "The computer is expensive so if you can't afford to pay more for it than the base price you shouldn't buy it at all, and if you can afford to pay $1000 you can afford to pay $1100 and ought to".

The whole question is whether the additional cost is worth it, depending on a buyer's needs and circumstances; I fail to see how your advice helps anybody. I could afford to buy a dozen laptops; that doesn't tell me whether the RAM is going to make any difference to me at all and whether the price/value proposition for RAM is attractive. Others have made good arguments along those lines, but the one you give isn't one.

So of course blanket statements about "If you are able to spend $1000 on a computer then you can and should also spend 10% more" are ridiculous. Apple should just inflate their prices 10% across the board if people actually made purchasing decisions like you suggest.

EDIT: What Newtype said. mattopotamus might as well tell people to max out every single Mac they buy, because hey: the additional cost of every possible add-on is only a small proportion of the price without the add-on.
 
I'm not sure exactly how manufacturers arrive at a base ram configuration. I imagine at Apple its a calculation that involves the least ram that will give their target customer a good user experience. As Apple is known for providing a good user experience, one could expect their base configuration to be adequate for the majority of their target market.

But a minority of users will be above the sweet spot that base configurations target either because their immediate needs are higher or because they will keep the machine longer than expected.

Given the Air's lack of upgradability and the fact that its in the ultra small and light category (which limits its computing power) you really have to buy a configuration that will not only meet your immediate needs, but any perceived need to the end of its service life.

The key here is know thy self. Past experience tells me I'm seldom happy with a base configuration. Current experience shows my routine use is typically in the 6gb range. So 8gb is a no brainer for me.

Its my belief that 4gb is adequate today for routine use, but that RAM requirements will likely grow with Mountain Lion and the latest versions of software for ML. Apple may be anticipating this which is why their base config went from 2gb to 4gb. But if an extra $100 now allows me to remain happy with the machine for say an extra year, I'd have to think about it.

So I don't think people are so much "afraid of 4gb" but wonder about current and future needs when purchasing a non upgradable machine. I'd say 4gb might be ok for light to routine use for a year or two, but heavier use or longer service would have me recommending 8gb (think about resale value too).
 
The argument is pointless, there are too many user variables involved. I think some here took the "it's a no brainer" expression too seriously, as if those that wrote it were implying that the RAM upgrade is almost a necessity and that not getting it is foolish. If you're concerned about exceeding 4GB of RAM, future-proofing or you're an infrequent buyer, then I think the 8G upgrade is pretty much a no brainer at $100. That doesn't mean it's a must for everybody.
 
Newtype said:
Do you really think that people absolutely can't afford that extra $100 for ram? Even if they say "I can't afford the ram upgrade", it probably means that the person can't justify spending extra or that he has other priorities in his life than an extra ram in his computer. Think about it.

Should people not buy cars unless they get all the options and bells-and-whistles with it? Say I want to buy a Porsche Cayman, but I don't want to spend that $6000 extra for that Sports Bucket Seat. Sure the option is only 10% of the total price of the car and sure, if I wanted to I guess, I could afford it. But do I need it? No. Am I a financially incapable self-convicing fool? No.

So instead of arguing based on the cost, and implying that those people that don't get the extra ram are poor, try to give some practical justification for spending extra $100.
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Carouser said:
Your argument amounts to "The computer is expensive so if you can't afford to pay more for it than the base price you shouldn't buy it at all, and if you can afford to pay $1000 you can afford to pay $1100 and ought to".

The whole question is whether the additional cost is worth it, depending on a buyer's needs and circumstances; I fail to see how your advice helps anybody. I could afford to buy a dozen laptops; that doesn't tell me whether the RAM is going to make any difference to me at all and whether the price/value proposition for RAM is attractive. Others have made good arguments along those lines, but the one you give isn't one.

So of course blanket statements about "If you are able to spend $1000 on a computer then you can and should also spend 10% more" are ridiculous. Apple should just inflate their prices 10% across the board if people actually made purchasing decisions like you suggest.

EDIT: What Newtype said. mattopotamus might as well tell people to max out every single Mac they buy, because hey: the additional cost of every possible add-on is only a small proportion of the price without the add-on.
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ok, yet again....that was to the people who said they wanted the 8gb of RAM, but could not afford it! there were about 3 or 4 in this thread. I think I made it pretty clear i was not saying to just buy it. I have a 4gb air and an 8gb air and both work just fine
 
dukebound85 said:
That should work fine though it really depends on your arrays. I know for me, I value a decent hdd as my work will easily fill up terabytes of space and with enough large matrices, 128gb is too little as a scratch disk once ram is full

How big are your arrays? For instance, I analyze multiple arrays on the order of 240x121x15x4x13000 in terms if dimensions. However a lot can be said for coding smart and clearing variables in a timely manner. Though now, having usb3 as an option for external, it is a little better/faster to work straight off an external if your internal is close to being full capacity

For smaller stuff, I had run matlab on a Mac with 8 gigs just fine, albeit slow as ram is always my bottleneck
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My Matrices ain't as big as yours now that I see it. My 4D matrices are on the order of 64x64x10x256, the 3D's would be about 256x256x128 or 64x64x1536
I do constantly clear variables as I progress through the code.
My biggest matrix would be ~15000KB in size.

I have about 6GB of data + codes for the past 10 months I was in grad school. So far saved on my laptop (320GB, 4 yr old hp) and a portable HDD

Do you think the 2.0GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 (turbo boost up to~3.2GHz) will be able to handle this?

Clearly, I am trying to stay with a MBA (portability) :)
Thanks for your help!
 
My only reason for bumping to 8GB on the MBA would be for re-sale to all the people that are sure they need 8GB. I upgrade every year and think the £60 spent would make it much easier to sell down the line.
 
mattopotamus said:
ok, yet again....that was to the people who said they wanted the 8gb of RAM, but could not afford it! there were about 3 or 4 in this thread. I think I made it pretty clear i was not saying to just buy it. I have a 4gb air and an 8gb air and both work just fine
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This thread isn't about people who want 8GB and can't afford it. It is about whether 4GB is enough. It has clearly proven to be enough for most people, so purchasing the extra RAM is a poor decision. The value for that $100 is extremely low, despite it being "only" $100.
 
dcorban said:
This thread isn't about people who want 8GB and can't afford it. It is about whether 4GB is enough. It has clearly proven to be enough for most people, so purchasing the extra RAM is a poor decision. The value for that $100 is extremely low, despite it being "only" $100.
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holy trolls. It was a post in reference to another post inside this thread. I have made many post about the 4gb vs 8gb and if it is worth it. That single, individual post...that keeps being brought up, was in regards to the person who said they cannot afford 8gb. Reading comprehension....5th grade

more specifically this post

"I am getting my wife one this week and have been saving up for a while for it, I can't afford to put 8GB in it, the extra £70 means another month or so of saving up again. She is a regular user, browsing, writing essays, reading, itunes and some very light games from the app store.

As far as I am concerned 4GB will be enough to let her get 3 years out of the laptop, at that point 4GB will be like 2GB is now, you could get by on it but its advisable to have 8GB.

I think 3 years of good solid use from a laptop is a great return, 3 years is also plenty of time to be putting money away for your next laptop too.

If you are going to keep an air for more than 3 years then YES upgrade to 8GB but if you are a normal everyday user and will be replacing the computer in 3 years or less then 4GB is fine."
 
dcorban said:
This thread isn't about people who want 8GB and can't afford it. It is about whether 4GB is enough. It has clearly proven to be enough for most people, so purchasing the extra RAM is a poor decision. The value for that $100 is extremely low, despite it being "only" $100.
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Some people really do need the 8GB of memory. If you want to use a memcache to speed up compiling stuff than 8GB is better than 4. If you want to do virtualisation the 8GB is a better idea, especially if you want to run multiple vm's, Windows, and/or a Window vm with Visualstudio. Just to name a few.

Purchasing the extra ram for those is clearly a very good decision. Sticking with the 4GB would be a very very poor one (maybe even masochistic).

There are however also a lot of people that simply have no idea what their memory requirements are or how long they will last with the machine. For them getting the extra 8GB is also a good decision. Not getting it can lead to problems later on but it may not. Upgrading provides some security that you won't run into memory problems that easily in the future. You can't put a price tag on that kind of security. If they want to resell it than they can also sell it to people who need 8GB. Maybe the 8GB is the base config for machines when they are reselling the then old MBA 2012. Makes it a lot easier to sell because it is more attractive. This can be seen as some sort of security as well and thus putting a price tag on it is yet again rather difficult.

Think of it like a car insurance or health insurance. Most people won't need it because there is nothing wrong with their car/health but when something happens they at least have something to fall back to. If you haven't got it you can run into heaps of financial problems resulting in you being bankrupt. That is also why in quite a lot of countries certain kinds of insurances are mandatory. If you haven't got them you'll be fined when they discover it.

Btw, let's not forget that a computer still is somewhat of a luxury item. In your point of view pen and paper is enough for the majority of people and thus buying a computer (any kind, any config) is a poor decision anyway so if you're going to buy one it makes no difference if you get the 4 or 8GB mem config ;)
 
I have 8 in my 2011 mini, and it can only stay up about a week before I have issues. I don't consider myself a power user - but I guess when I think about what I'm running daily I am.

I'm "just" a student, online at that.

But I have to run my school stuff in firefox - about 5-10 tabs at a time, word and XL for it too, then Fusion running XP for stuff that won't run correct in safari & firefox, then safari with 8 or so tabs, mail, Devonthink Pro, newsrack, preview, plex server....

I'm probably forgetting something too.

I guess my 11" will have 8gb when I order it. Which I'd planned anyway, when I graduate a year from now I will pass it to my daughter who is using my 2007 MBP (I think, the one before the Santa rosa machines), prior to that she was using my late 2003 iBook.

I will buy not planning on selling anytime soon, so it makes more sense to me to buy the ram.
 
Wirelessly posted

just running a browser, word, excel, iTunes and iPhoto ... my typical apps I'm at around 4 depending on the number os sites (ie YouTube, etc)

with SSD the performance hit isn't as bad if you start to go over but for $90, I got 8
 
Kendo said:
Just like how 95% of us will never be famous actors or athletes or millionaires, 95% of us "regular folk" use a Mac for the Internet, YouTube, MS Office, movies, and music.

I see a lot of posts where people are afraid of getting 4GB RAM. Not that there is anything wrong with getting 8GB, but for the above tasks you would barely reach 2.5GB. Even in the future with a new OS release, it won't take that much more resources. The CPU and GPU would be obsolete first before it got to that point.

I can see the average person needing 8GB if they run VM Windows, but other than that, how come people immediately say 8GB is mandatory? Particularly when you see college kids who will be using their Mac for simple note taking or programming asking if 4GB is too small?
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Because "regular folk" is a meaningless statement.

And because I regularly see my memory usage rise over 4GB doing things that are not *that* fancy.
 
I chose 8gb ram because it boosts video ram from 384 to 512.

and i run alot of linux systems on virtualbox.
 
Not upgradeable is the main reason for people to get 8GB ram, they want their air lasts longer:)
 
barjam said:
My thoughts are that we have really hit the era of "good enough PCs". 5 years from now an i5/i7 (with an upgraded ssd) from today would still be very useable but 4gb of ram will be like 1gb of ram today.
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This is why Apple is smart to push the retina display. Higher resolution video seems to be the one thing that can push the computer requirements for the masses forward.
 
MHO,

no pro apps:

2gb = runs everything a casual user would ever need if they are not too bad about closing windows after they are done using them. This is just barely enough for casual use but will probably not be in a year or two.

4gb= they can now be much more relaxed on how many apps they keep open. In 3-4 years, 4gb will feel like 2gb today. You can still run everything you need, but you gotta be a tab nazi again.

8gb = little perceivable difference. Only buy if you don't like the tab nazi feeling towards the computer's end of life. Those keeping the computer less than 2-3 years have even less reason.

At least one pro app:

4gb = runs every pro app on the market and your project will be completed, but there will be times you wished you had more. Minimum for pro users.

8gb = ideal. Apps will runs more comfortably and your machine more future proof.

16gb = you might perceive a difference and there might be occasions where it is beneficial but I wouldn't get this unless I had money to burn.
 
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