Illustrator Files Heavy/Big?

Question

I was on the net this morning researching for a certain trick on Adobe Illustrator CS4. Then came across a few comments regarding Illustrator designers as being slow due to application features. I was disappointed. I have been on FHMX , et al for years. But the marvels in Illustrator are awesome.
For starters, most of us designers finding comfort within the same box of things we were taught in college than continuing education with research. As such we develop a psychological condition that finds Illustrator not worth it. Remember FHMX was discontinued a few years ago. technology will be based on compartibility with Illustrator. How are we gona cope.
There are lots of things that can be twicked in Adobe Illustrator to improve speed and performance of the application. Most basic will be identifying transparencies (they have a habit of increasing file size).
The come to preferences pull the slider under the units and Display preferencies up or down.
On Layers, turn off layers containing PSDs or Tiff if they aren't being touched.
Work in the Pixel Preview Mode and only turn the overprint preview when one wants to investigate underdraws and knockouts
And perhaps, open Photoshop, reduce the PSDs in your file and save as a copy in a different folder. re-link the image with a smaller image (this is proof/ preparatory stage after all). Only relink the high res image when printing out a proof or generating a pdf. Remember also to capitalise/invoking the PGF features in the application by saving a PDF compartible document.
Re-link high-res images only when printing proof or on Final Artwork
Doing step and repeats? Re-link to high-res, work in "Outline Mode" step generate PS or whatever FINAL out-put FF(File Forma) you use.
The final file could be heavy yes, but its worth it because you have linked high-res PSDs, if compensated for dot-gain but in any case this document will be backed-up to save disk space after generating your len files.
Trust me this optimises performance considerably during the proof stages.
Hope this makes sense.
Bye for now
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Answer 1

is this what you mean?
Processor
2.5GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.1GHz) with 3MB L3 cache
2.9GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz) with 4MB L3 cache
Memory
2.5GHz
4GB of 1600MHz DDR3 memory
Configurable to 8GB
2.9GHz
8GB of 1600MHz DDR3 memory
Storage1
2.5GHz
500GB 5400-rpm hard drive
Configurable options:
750GB 5400-rpm hard drive
128GB solid-state drive
256GB solid-state drive
512GB solid-state drive
2.9GHz
750GB 5400-rpm hard drive
Configurable options:
1TB 5400-rpm hard drive
128GB solid-state drive
256GB solid-state drive
512GB solid-state drive