New XPS 13 - GREAT Design, But... 8GB of RAM?

This is what MAJORLY pisses me off.

Sure your 90% of the target audience will only use 4gb of RAM in any given moment. 8GB is good enough for TODAY. But not 2-3 years down the road.

It is darn embarrassing as PC lover to see PC packing 8GB max for their FIFTH (!) generation core processors. I packed 8GB with i7 720QM (remember the days?)

Great design and innovation all around. But no 16GB option in 2015 is extreme shame. Doesn't matter if YOU only use 4gb. Still extremely shameful.

My vent is done. I want to buy one, but not sure.

 

8GB is good enough for the purpose of a 13-incher. If you want more, get the XPS 15...

 

I agree. My first thought was "Great, is there a 16GB option ?"

I can't consider another 8GB laptop. This isn't just a matter of future-proofing to me. It's also about productivity today. We're talking virtual machines, graphic software, gaming, etc...

Again, this needs to be an option. Great that they have QHD, but damn it that video memory will have to come from somewhere and besides, memory is so cheap now.

 

Actually I'd disagree - especially considering tomorrow, where everything is being outsourced to the cloud / whatever server computing. And considering the last couple of years - yes. Vista was the thing that ate up RAM like no tomorrow. But from Win7 onwards the RAM consumption went down. And actually 8GB are pretty fine for VMs etc.

I currently have 16GB myself and feel weird downgrading for a new machine - but since there hasn't been a slim device (besides the MacBook Pro Retina 13 - and Apple is a no-go for me) I either have to choose something like the Toshiba Z30 (16GB), a Dell Latitude (also available with 16GB RAM) or a HP EliteBook 840 G1 (also 2 DIMM-Slots).

Or just face it and if I want a sexy slim pretty good light laptop, I need to sacrifice RJ45, VGA and more than 8GB of RAM and go for something like the XPS13. Or buy the Z30 Toshiba - and pay a staggering price for it. (around 2000$)

 

Well people don't go for 15 inch for portability. And yes 8gb is generally enough for 13 incher. But so is i3. Why does Intel offer i5 and i7 in the first place? Because there are people who need more when they sometimes do.

8GB is certainly embarrassing for 2015 standards. And that same config will sell into early 2016. 8GB is 2016? Jesus Christ. It was 8GB setup in 2010.

 

There are very clear performance differences between an i3 and i7. What's the performance gain between 8GB and 16GB?

Especially with the read/write speeds of the PCIe SSD in the 512GB version. 16GB just doesn't seem useful it to me. Like already said, if you need it, there's XPS 15.

All that said... if they offered it, I'd buy it.

 

There is very very significant performance differences if you happen to utilize over 6gb of RAM, not to mention caching etc. It of course depends on the user and type of work, but realize is that applications are utilizing more and more ram and with SoS over browsers, 8gb is becoming really the bottleneck for users who multitask. Straight up crashing happens with insufficient memory for those who need it.

There is reason why people do not opt out for 15" due to sheer size. Especially the size difference between the XPS 15 and the new 13 is quite large.

It's like, every single aspect of the computer improved, from battery to wireless card. But memory performance and capacity stays the same.

 

I have Skpe, Yahoo, 3 tabs open in Chrome and a word document and I am using 3.4GB. If I open Minceaft I am over 4GB (4.2GB) already.

Add using an email application, a few more tabs or a music application and people will easily be over 4GB and they are not even doing anything intensive.

Apple is CONSTANTLY getting crap for still having a 4GB base, and while MAYBE some people don't NEED 4GB. with the way apps are going, in 6-12 months over 4GB will not be uncommon at all. With higher resolution screens and the GPU taking up more RAM with shared memory to hold the higher resolution resources, I bet almost 1GB if not 1.5GB of that 8GB is for the GPU. so you are really looking at having about 7.25-7.5 at any given time for applications.

You have to remember not everyone closes every application when they are not using it. the "average" user just opens things and then clicks on them when they need them.

 

In this case, I don't really consider RAM a performance thing. It's a headroom thing.

I mean, when are you crashing with 8GB?

 

If you run some decent softwares and many many many browser tabs.

All I am saying is that there are CERTAINLY 100% reason why people need more than 8gb in their portable systems. I am not saying they need full 16gb, but just any over 8gb. Thus 16gb option is critical.

I am sure many of those running Adobe suites with this screen will be disappointed with 8gb option too.

Just with CPU and GPU, there is clear difference between 13 and 15 inchers. And I am sure they could have found high enough density chips to make it 16gb. All the talks of space on mobo and supply chain issues holding up production is just their excuse...

 

Hi Dellienware, have you already received your XPS 13 9343? Can you post your first impressions? thx a bunch

 

so just to confirm, the memory is not upgradable? as in it's soldered in?

Dell just added a new option that's i5 with 4gb which is $100 less than the i5 with 8gb

 

Yeah, the memory is on board so whatever you order is what you get for as long as you have the laptop. Which is why I went with the 8GB option.

 

1. I did not receive yet.

2. Solder, yes.