Do I really need 8GB of RAM?

“Here’s a question that I’ve been asked a lot lately in one form or another: ‘Do I really need 8GB of RAM?'” Adrian Kingsley-Hughes reports for ZDNet.

“Well, instinctively I’m going to say ‘YES,’ and say it very enthusiastically,” Kingsley-Hughes reports. “The difference between a machine with 4GB of RAM and an identical machine with 8GB of RAM is like the difference between night and day.”

“But do you really need 8GB of RAM? Well, maybe not,” Kingsley-Hughes reports. “See, the truth is, it depends. If you’re a hardcore gamer or you use a memory-intensive application like Adobe Photoshop or Premiere Pro, then you definitely need lots of RAM (I’m now starting to look at 12GB as the minimum for running Adobe applications, given that they are now 64-bit and can really chew through RAM). If you’re in the habit of having multiple applications from a suite like Microsoft Office open, then having lots of RAM is a huge advantage. If you’re the kind of person that has lots of applications running simultaneously, then 8GB of RAM might be for you.”

Kingsley-Hughes reports, “Note: Even Mac users running these sorts of applications can benefit from 8GB of RAM!”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Why limit yourself to just 8GB?

About this Mac

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]

58 Comments

  1. Adobe? Microsoft Office?

    That’s your problem right there! I can edit photos, surf the web, write a paper, and work on a presentation simultaneously just fine with my measly 4GB, but I don’t do it with crap from Adobe or MS Office.

    PS: Adobe PS is not really crap (could be much better, though), but it is mostly overkill for the functions I need.

  2. It’s not night and day, more like noon and after noon.
    4 GB is enough if you don’t do a lot of heavy stuff and run allot of programs at once.

    Just wish I could chose AMD with Mac. I feel nothing for Intel. A more greedy company engaged in criminal business activities to crush te competition is hard to find.

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