How much would 8GB help instead of 4GB?

So I'm soon to be buying an M11X, but not sure whether it would be sensible to go with 4GB, or pay the extra for 8GB. I'm not up for upgrading or playing with parts, and might as well just buy it upfront.

Of course, if I just went with 4GB, I could then buy a decent gaming computer and mouse with the saved money. Or, go with the 8GB for extra performance.

How much better will the computer perform with the extra RAM?

 

For an average person 4gb is fine unless you can manage to use all 4gb you will not see any performance gains really. I highly recommend buying the ram separate, buy the least amount possible and go to newegg.com and buy a nice 8gb for ~$60 that will easily save some money - on the m11x all you need to do is unscrew the bottom panel take the old ones out and put the new ones in very easy to do - but if you do not want to that is your choice

I recently went from 4-8 and have not really noticed any better performance

 

Don't waste your money, you won't notice a difference.

 

If you haven't made up your mind yet. Don't do it you wont notice any performance.

if you want to spend your money wisely buy a SSD hard drive and get huge performance boost + better battery life.

 

Nope, you will see no performance gain in games or daily tasks.

 

i have 8gb but i don't ever see it go past 2-3gb!

 

First of all, what task are you subjecting your future m11x?
I have 8 gb, and I opted for it because I knew I would be using a lot of them often.
Actually if you just surfing internet, working office, etc. 4 Gb is more than enough.
In my case, I often have to open tons of tabs when browsing,hundreds of pdfs open at the same time (yeah, I know it is rare to find someone that work this way), editing office documents at the same time and dealing with large statistics databases. Here's when capacity really plays. My normal workload for RAM is around 5 gb. with 4 desktop active (using dexspot)..

That's just an illustration of when you'll be needing more than 4 gb --> almost never in an m11x.

If you want to do graphics rendering, etc. it would also help, but then m11x GPU and CPU just won't do for such.

Go for 4 gb..

 

I've just received a new R3 with 2GB (base option on the website), as to upgrade to 4GB was £70, which in the real world could get me 8GB of decent RAM...

The machine comes with a big, easy to remove single panel on the underside that makes everything accessible so I wouldn't worry too much about opening it up.

 

8GB Ram uses approximately the same amount of power as 4GB, and since Windows 7 will cache all 8GB, you'll notice a slight increase in battery life and opening frequently used programs will be snappier due to a slightly decreased dependance on the hard drive.

I just finished my first on-road HD video project using the m11x as the base and the 8GB of ram makes things feel better overall. Premier CS5.5, Photoshop 5.1, and Illustrator 5.1 all open for a 1080p project put me around 6GB usage just for those programs. With 8GB kits as cheap as they are, I also second the recommendations above to get as little memory from Alienware and purchase a kit from Newegg. Its a good upgrade and as time goes on, will help extend the useful life of the system.