4 Gb Ram -> 8 Gb Ram, huge difference?

[L.B.]

Hi all,

I am about to buy a surface pro 3 as soon as it comes out (since i come from Germany I have to wait until end of august). Right now I dont know which hardware configuration I should buy. It's either going to be the i5-Version with 128Gb SSD and 4Gb RAM or the i5-Version with 256Gb SSD and 8Gb RAM.

Do you think the difference in RAM ist noticeable in normal use or just when you do video editing or similar stuff? It would help a lot if somebody could describe where the edge is, meaning what can i do with 4Gb RAM and for which purposes would I need 8Gb?

 

[Jeffrey]

Welcome to the Forum.

The general rule is the more RAM the faster your tab will run. I always max out the ram on any device I buy.

 

[malberttoo]

I don't know what the price difference is between the two machines, but I also go for more RAM rather than less.

4GB of RAM will be fine for the "casual" or average laptop user, one who does some surfing, email, Netflix, Skype etc. But if you frequently have multiple apps running, or often leave lots of tabs open in your browsers, then you may want the extra RAM.

If you consider yourself "average", you'll probably be ok with 4. If you're an enthusiast, you'll want 8 .

 

[cdf3]

I originally purchased the 4GB model, and returned it for the 8GB model. I haven't noticed any difference in speed between them. I came close to maxing out the RAM in the 4GB model due to several apps I was using, therefore I swapped it out for the 8GB model so I wouldn't have to keep an eye on the RAM. The extra Hard Drive space comes in handy as well. I had about 40GB left on the 4GB model. I have a lot more space available now. I only use my SDCard to store music and video files I don't use often, due to the failure rate of some cards.

 

[GreyFox7]

I currently have 16 Tabs open in IE. Mail, 3 word docs, an excel spreadsheet, Task Manager, Resource Monitor, and 4 PDFs. Open.
There's 3.5 GB in use, 1.7 GB in standby and 2.8 GB Free. 8gb total. as I have paused its moving more from in use to standby. Standby memory is memory that was freed from in use due to inactivity rather than immediately paging to disk (SSD in this case). Your Mileage May Vary.

If your going to run a VM or two and be active you'd want 8 GB for sure. What I am currently doing would be fine on 4 GB. Go for 8 if you can afford it.

I can't speak to graphics work requirements or game requirements, they are not my thing. However software should specify what's recommended.

 

[leeshor]

Much of the RAM use depends on the types of programs you're running. The more programs that are true 64-bit, (after all this time there still aren't that many), the more useful the extra RAM will be. I sell desktops and my standard minimum is 8GB. That gives you headroom to grow and do more down the road.

 

[L.B.]

Thank you all very much for sharing your opinion and experiences.
This helps me alot!

 

[bulls96]

In was wondering about that too.

I'm not much of a multi tab browsing guy but I do PhotoShop elements. I get'erts from Norton eveyrtime I use it saying high memory usage. But when I get to look at it it says 500-700mb ram used only.

 

[GreyFox7]

In was wondering about that too.

I'm not much of a multi tab browsing guy but I do PhotoShop elements. I get'erts from Norton eveyrtime I use it saying high memory usage. But when I get to look at it it says 500-700mb ram used only.

PhotoShop elements system requirements ...says it needs 2gb.
http://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/policy-pricing/system-requirements-photoshop-elements.html

 

[malberttoo]

In was wondering about that too.

I'm not much of a multi tab browsing guy but I do PhotoShop elements. I get'erts from Norton eveyrtime I use it saying high memory usage. But when I get to look at it it says 500-700mb ram used only.

Not trying to start anything or go off-topic, but this is why I've never liked Norton or Symantec products made in the last many years. They throw so much useless information at mostly clueless users (not necessarily talking about you bulls96!! ) that the poor users have no idea what they're looking at, and soon just ignore every single notification coming from that area.

 

[ThatCoolBlueKid]

One thing to consider is the added bump up from 4Gb to 8Gb also warrants an extra 128Gb of Storage space. Probably a lot more important to most people.

I've used 4GB of ram on my MacBooks for the past few years and its let me down a few times. The 8Gb on my Gaming Desktop hasn't run into any issues as of yet however.

 

[kristalsoldier]

I don't know what the price difference is between the two machines, but I also go for more RAM rather than less.

4GB of RAM will be fine for the "casual" or average laptop user, one who does some surfing, email, Netflix, Skype etc. But if you frequently have multiple apps running, or often leave lots of tabs open in your browsers, then you may want the extra RAM.

If you consider yourself "average", you'll probably be ok with 4. If you're an enthusiast, you'll want 8 .

And, what if one is an "average enthusiast"?

In all seriousness though, I have not yet run into a problem with 4GB of RAM. But then again, my principal uses are Office (multiple document types open at the same time), browsing (with at least 2-3 tabs open) and sometimes I may have a desktop version of a program also running.