Minimum RAM/processor requirements for quantitative work?

[Grad Apps Aren't Fun]

Hey folks,

I'm going to be starting a political science PhD in the fall, and I'm very likely going to be doing quite a bit of quant work, as methods is my secondary field. Right now, I have a Surface Pro 4 with 4GB of RAM, and that's pretty clearly just not going to cut it. Does anyone have advice for RAM/processor requirements for a laptop that I should be looking at? Or anything else that I should be looking for when choosing a new laptop? Thanks!

[polsciguy88]

I don't see any reason why you would really need more than 8 or 16 GB. R, or whatever else, doesn't really need all that much RAM - less than most high-end computer games in fact. Unless you are doing big data stuff, the likelihood that you need more than 8 is low. 

I have 16 GB, but I rarely need that much, if ever.

[munch22]

Depends on what sort of data work you want to do. If you are interested in research questions that may use big data, the more the better. Normal data sets with maybe a few thousand observations you would be fine with 8GB