4 vs. 8 GB RAM

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I am looking at purchasing the following laptop:

13 " MacBook Pro

? 2.5GHz Dual-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 3.1GHz
? 4GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM ? 2x2GB
? 500GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
? SuperDrive 8x (DVD?R DL/DVD?RW/CD-RW)
? Backlit Keyboard (English) & User's Guide
? Accessory Kit

I am switching from my 12 year old Dell with Windows XP. My Dell is OK for my needs (word processing, photo editing/storage, general internet search). It has on 2 GB RAM.

Question is will I be OK with 4GB Ram on the Mac? Everyone tells me upgrade to 8 but I would already be doubling what I currently have.... Price, of course, is a consideration as I will have to purchase new Mac Software as well.

I assume my printers, wireless internet, etc. will be compatible......
 

anon(4698833)

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Looking at the description, I would suggest you consider purchasing a 2012 model i7 for the same price as the factory new non-retina MBP costs. There are a few reasons for this...

- Better processor
- You can swap out RAM yourself for very cheap (up to 16GB if you want)
- You can dual boot the machine with an SSD and HDD (or another SSD) for amazing performance gains and also, stout internal storage
- You can retain the superdrive functionality as a USB counterpart (and I'll be honest, I've had my dual boot going for some time and haven't used the superdrive once since)

...it's a great machine, and since you're not going with the retina model anyways, you'll save some money and thank yourself in the long run for a more future proof i7 processor.

If you decide that you must have the new machine though, definitely get 8GB of RAM. 4GB is kind of an old standard in my opinion, and in a year or two, you're going to have many different pieces of software that will eat 4GB of RAM for lunch...and it's always better to have more than you need than less when you need it.

Mac's are almost universally compatible now. I haven't really run into any compatibility issues in years.
 

anon(4698833)

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To add...the 2013 MBP non-retina is still capable of RAM upgrades just like the 2012, but the dual boot drive will only support 3G SSD's, which means you sacrifice the ability to use the faster SSD drives internally vs. the 2012 model which supports up to the 6G SSD's.
 

kjc88

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To add...the 2013 MBP non-retina is still capable of RAM upgrades just like the 2012, but the dual boot drive will only support 3G SSD's, which means you sacrifice the ability to use the faster SSD drives internally vs. the 2012 model which supports up to the 6G SSD's.

You lost me at "dual boot" in your first post. 3G SSD's REALLY lost me :)
 

anon(4698833)

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LOL! So sorry...

Dual booting in the non-retina models basically means you can remove the DVD superdrive and put TWO storage drives in the computer! It comes with a basic hard drive, but you can actually replace that with a solid state drive (which runs SIGNIFICANTLY faster, and is one of the main draws of the retina models)...then, in place of your DVD drive, you'd have an additional hard drive (either the one that came with it or a bigger/faster one you buy later) that serves SPECIFICALLY as internal storage and that's it.

Dual boot...two hard drives. SSD to run your operating system and some limited storage, and then another drive strictly for storage (and will support up to 2TB standard HDDs)

3G and 6G SSD's are just different generations of SSD's. The 6G is capable of faster writing speeds and is also more efficient, which means it doesn't have to work as hard to serve the same purpose as a regular hard drive or a 3G SSD. (has nothing to do with 3G cellular service in case that was confusing).
 

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