Does ram make a difference in speed ?

[onysi]

There's an i5 with 4gb ram/ 128gb storage and an i5 with 8gb ram/256gb storage.

The difference is about $300. I mean will you notice the difference or are rams just there to handle way more programs.

My SP3 right now is i5 with 4gb, and it has some lagginess when i have multiple apps opened like onenote, photoshop, steam, browsers, etc etc. I can only login and switch around 6-8 User Profiles before it starts behaving irraticaly.

 

[ptfuzi]

Ram doesn't improve performance directly, maybe hou are running out of memory on your sp3
Sent from Lumia 1020.

 

[a5cent]

Having not enough RAM will force W10 to place some of what it should keep in RAM in storage instead. This is very noticeable when switching between windows on a system that is too RAM limited, as the device is then often forced to swap memory pages back and forth between RAM and storage.

Once you have enough RAM to fit the OS and all software into RAM, adding more RAM will not improve performance further.

 

[TheCudder]

Less RAM will affect multi-tasking. If you're only using store apps, 1 or 2 basic desktop applications at a time and basic web browsing, 4GB will likely do you just fine. Now if you're planning to do web-browsing w/ MANY tabs, audio editing, photo editing or any other memory intensive work --- you'll want 8GB RAM because it'll eat 4GB fairly quickly. 16GB really isn't necessary for any one who's not doing video rendering/editing or AutoCAD type work.

 

[onysi]

Thank you. I do use PhotoShop a lot and video editing for recorded videogames thanks to the built in video recording of windows 10. Im going back to the store and change my pre-order.

 

[bugelrex]

There is a better way to confirm this:
Do what you normally do on you laptop/desktop, do some moderately heavy task while having the task manager open. If the performance tab show close to or more than 4GB in use then you ideally want the 8GB model. If only 3GB in use under the most demanding work then 4GB will be mostly adequate

 

[onysi]

What about battery? Does it help a little considering the fan wont be running as much when multiple apps/programs are opened, so that means the battery wont drain much?

 

[xandros9]

What about battery? Does it help a little considering the fan wont be running as much when multiple apps/programs are opened, so that means the battery wont drain much?

it won't make a significant difference

 

[etphoto]

I live on PhotoShop and RAM helps noticeably, especially when working on multiple images at once.

 

[onysi]

Thanks guys I drove to the store and change my preorder to the 1299 version.

 

[Citizen X]

With photoshop particularly when you have other apps running in the background RAM helps. If you are having any issues with speed when using Photoshop the first suggestion people make is feed your machine RAM.

 

[orlbuckeye]

Like was said more RAM allows for faster multitasking. How it helps is when you put programs in the background (using multiple windows) if you don't have enough memory its using the Windows pagefile which is stored on a drive. Memory is many time faster than hard drive so you would much rather move stuff to memory rather then the pagefile.

 

[taymur]

If its getting full, then most probably yes it can affect speed.

another thing to consider is the speed of RAM itself, that also affects speed.

 

[Cain69]

There are technical reason why, but the short answer is: Yes.
Buy the most RAM and SSD you can afford.

 

[Keith Wallace]

There are technical reason why, but the short answer is: Yes.
Buy the most RAM and SSD you can afford.

Definitely don't listen to THIS suggestion. Don't just spend money to say you spent it. Buy what you want, maybe what you need. DON'T just spend the most amount you can because you have that money.

I'm confused, though. There isn't an i5 model with 4 GB of RAM. It starts at 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage. The 4/128 model has the m3 processor, and the price hike is $400, not $300.

 

[onysi]

I'm confused, though. There isn't an i5 model with 4 GB of RAM. It starts at 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage. The 4/128 model has the m3 processor, and the price hike is $400, not $300.

It's under "configure now" button.

 

[Keith Wallace]

It's under "configure now" button.

I see. That's a weird way for them to do stuff. Either put the full customization out front or don't have it. They're just trying to confuse people.

Regardless, if you want to know about your RAM consumption, throw up the Task Manager and run your typical group of programs. Watch the RAM consumption in the "Performance" tab. 4 GB is fine for casual computing. It took World of Warcraft, Zune, and probably a dozen-plus browser tabs to get my PC to eat up 4 GB of RAM (I'm on 16 GB now). I basically idle around 2.5-3.0 GB while on a browser, so if that's all you do, 4 GB will be fine.

However, I'll add that SSDs are more expensive than RAM (not on a per-GB base, but on an upgrade base, pretty much). A 128-GB SSD will cost you more than 4 GB of RAM on the open market, though the two upgrades combined would probably only run you $150, maybe less.

 

[dboy54]

So what are everyone's thoughts then on the Surface Pro 3 i5 256/8GB vs the Surface Pro 4 i5 128/4GB. They are essentially the same price right now. Typical usage would be multiple browser tabs open, dual monitors, some photoshop Raw photo processing (not a daily thing) and music streaming as well as possibly word and excel also running. Interesting to see what everyone thinks is the better buy. I'm currently running a Dell XPS M1330 and its getting real long in the tooth and seems to get a big laggy from time to time. I can 't tell if that is due to the 4GB of ram or just the age and hrs on it.

 

[MobileVortex]

If you are going to be doing anything with photoshop i would go with the 8GB of RAM.

 

[orangesplease]

I did my research and went w/ the i5/256gb/8gb configuration knowing that 8gb will still be plenty for me. At home, I will be using it with dual monitors and always have multiple browser windows open in addition to video playing. Still, that should not tap out the 8gb.