4GB or 8GB RAM really make a difference?

[jfadriqu]

I believe the only time where I do notice issues is when I check my feedly RSS list and open articles that I am interested in reading before I "Mark As Read" (sometimes up to 15-20 chrome tabs), combine this with Outlook, and our company software (512MB RAM req). It gets even worse when those articles are videos! The performance tab in task manager shows my memory to be fairly constant (3Gigs), but now that I look at it, perhaps the CPU is my problem... I'm using a Core 2 Duo laptop with 4GB RAM, so you can understand why I'm wondering if 8GB will solve my problem... I've never used an i3/5/7 before so I'm wondering if my occasional slow downs are due to the processor or RAM.

I rarely have to use VirtualBox anymore for my corporate Win7 machine (WinXP for legacy software, Win8.1 for personal use).

 

[ALLCAPS]

I doubt you'll need 8GB when doing normal tablet stuff and web browsing. Even with lots of tabs 4GB is fine. Even most games don't have much demand of raw memory. CPU/GPU juice matters much more. I still recommend getting the 8GB memory variants if you can spring for them. I say this only because, what if at some point you do want to do something that uses a ton of memory? What if decide you want Photoshop or Vegas? What if you need to transcode some vidoes? What if you need to do any number of things? In the average laptop/desktop you could just upgrade the memory if the need arose, but with the Surface what you get is what you have to stick with. I sprang for the 256GB/8GB version for this reason.

 

[Deleted member 10837]

I doubt you'll need 8GB when doing normal tablet stuff and web browsing. Even with lots of tabs 4GB is fine. Even most games don't have much demand of raw memory. CPU/GPU juice matters much more. I still recommend getting the 8GB memory variants if you can spring for them. I say this only because, what if at some point you do want to do something that uses a ton of memory? What if decide you want Photoshop or Vegas? What if you need to transcode some vidoes? What if you need to do any number of things? In the average laptop/desktop you could just upgrade the memory if the need arose, but with the Surface what you get is what you have to stick with. I sprang for the 256GB/8GB version for this reason.

That's what pagefile.sys is for. When the RAM gets full it starts caching to the hard drive. The SSD in the Surface is fast but not as fast as RAM so the programs will still run but it will lag.

 

[jpvonhemel]

This was my first surface purchase, so with accessories and a 256/8, I would have ended up spending close to 1600. That is a lot for an iteration. Cameras haven't improved, nor has the weight/thickness. I decided to cancel the 256 and go with 128 and save the 300 for next year's iteration.

 

[deldalton]

I have the SP2 64/4. I did want to buy the 8GB version but I couldn't justify paying for the additional SSD space that I wouldn't use. £300+ for the 8GB of RAM I wanted just wasn't reasonable.

I expect to browse the internet, watch videos, listen to music, use Notepad++, GIMP 2, and Blender (and maybe play some games on Steam, but I do have gaming desktop PC for that and I'd rather use this as a productivity tool).

I saw someone sculpt, using their stylus-pen, in a 3D modelling application with the SP1 and it ran incredibly smooth and fast. So, that's the SP1 with 4GB RAM.

Unless you expect to have all of the programs above open at once, I just can't see why you would need the 8GB RAM.

However, if you can wait, I will happily let you know how I actually get on with it in the above use-case scenario. Unfortunately, I only had a couple of distracted hours with it last night which allowed me to complete the basic setup, install Office, Notepad++ and GIMP 2, and play with the Start screen to configure it to my liking!

 

[CrippsCorner]

I'm a bit out of touch with RAM setups these days... would it have been possible for Microsoft to offer a 6Gb setup? Perhaps 2x 3Gb sticks.

I'd like to see:

128Gb SSD + 4Gb RAM
256Gb SSD + 6Gb RAM
512Gb SSD + 8Gb RAM

That'd be some nice choices

 

[Ricolando]

If all you do is Office work, browsing, music, and movies it should be more than sufficient. I have an overclocked desktop with 8 GB of RAM and it doesn't feel appreciably faster than my SP1 when it comes to those kinds of tasks. Obviously if I throw games or heavy media editing into the mix it's likely I'll have a different story. Also to Hoho who mentioned that only the 8 GB models have dual channel RAM; CPU-Z indicates that my original Surface Pro has dual channel memory so that shouldn't be an issue unless Microsoft downgraded the RAM configuration in the SP2. Pic attached.