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Hobodale

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 4, 2006
39
0
So I have had my Macbook for about 3 weeks now. I got a white 2ghz with 1gb of ram. I am thinking about upgrading 2gb of ram but I cant decide. Will I really notice a difference between 1gb and 2gb of ram or would I just be wasting my money?
 
You should tell people what you do with your MB before asking them to make this determination for you...
 
I would definitly say go up to 2GB. Even with normal watching a couple videos, web browsing and messenger with a bit of photoshop, I'm always running out of RAM and I have 1GB right now.
 
Pad18 said:
512 definetly wont cut it?

IMO, that's the absolute minimum for Tiger. Anything less is sinful.
But in reality, there's a HUGE performance boost in just going from 512MB to 1GB of RAM. Much less so doubling again, unless one is doing (many) things that require a lot of RAM.
 
Pad18 said:
512 definetly wont cut it?

you need at least 1gig to run osx well IMO. I bought my macbook with 1gb of ram, would have bought it stock 512, and upgraded to 2gb for the same price if id done my research...

anyway, i have 1.5gb of ram and it is defineately faster than when i ran it with 1 gig.

if you would like a link to ram that is decent, and affordable, try this

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=353418

thats a uk site though, nd i cant remem if ur from uk or not! ah well!
 
I currently own a PC (to be replaced by a macbook in october when i visit the US) and i like to have plenty of browsers open at once and every so often firefox is gobbling up some 400mb of memory ( i only have 512 in my system, therefore i have to shut it to keep going, so it probably would go higher if i let it)

Ill be getting 2GB. no doubt about it. but it wont be stock. I learned applecare is valid in my country, but im skeptical about paying over 200 for it. Can anyone convince me its worth it? I know if it breaks ill be glad I have it, but I never had trouble with computers before and I believe its not likely to break. In fact, I believe its far more likely to have it stolen - in that case, shelling for the applecare would only increase my loss
 
i have itunes and limewire + safari + skype + 2 other browsers opened and i have already used 1.4gb
 
^^Don't bother looking at those numbers because they're meaningless to you and easily misinterpreted.

Go into APPLICATIONS>UTILITIES>TERMINAL, and type "top" (without the quotations). Then press the ENTER button. Tell us how many "Page-outs" there are.

Then close that window and open up another TERMINAL window. Type "uptime." Post both of them here and we'll tell you if you need more RAM. ;)

yellow said:
IMO, that's the absolute minimum for Tiger. Anything less is sinful.
But in reality, there's a HUGE performance boost in just going from 512MB to 1GB of RAM. Much less so doubling again, unless one is doing (many) things that require a lot of RAM.

Agree with Yellow completely. Just listen to this man. Seriously. ;)
 
I had 512MB in my MacBook before I sent it back, and I got a replacement and just recieved (few mins ago) 2x1GB (ie 2GB) RAM for the replacement from Orca Logic (along with my 1GB USB Flash Drive, and MacBook sleeve-its so soft!), but I dont have the actual laptop :mad:! Anyway with 512 it was fast, but the Dashboard animation thingy (when dropping widgets) would take a few seconds to "load", and the graphics preformance was generally choppy at best. I cant wait to see how fast the beast is with 2GB RAM, its quadruple the ammount I have in my desktop and freinds Mini G4, double my other friends gaming laptop, and the same as my OTHER friends gaming laptop. I feel all warm and fuzzy inside :D .
 
I would definitely reccomend the upgrade to more RAM Hobodale.
As CanadaRAM, more RAM is never wasted.


Personally, when I went from 1GB -> 2GB in my Power Mac G5 I noticed an increase in performance. I would expect similar results for you. :)
 
This might sound like a stupid question, but how do you know how much ram you have left?

Someone in here said "I'm always running out of ram". I have 512 MB, how do I find out how much is left... If that's possible. Thanks.
 
DJMastaWes said:
This might sound like a stupid question, but how do you know how much ram you have left?

Someone in here said "I'm always running out of ram". I have 512 MB, how do I find out how much is left... If that's possible. Thanks.

Open Activity Monitor, found in Applications > Utilities

Then click the System Memory tab.

You should have a pie chart displayed, the green is how much Free RAM you have.

Rich.
 
I suppose I'm lucky. The first time I booted my MacBook Pro it was running 2GB, so I can't comment on the performance difference. Don't misinterpret this as "I'm retarded [insert Carlos Mencia noise here] and bought 2GB of RAM from Apple." It's that G.SKILL RAM from NewEgg that's cheap and only had good reviews when I last looked (which was a while ago).
 
I have 1 GB on my macbook, and it's quite enough. I rarely get any pageouts, and even then, only a few. I have to have about 8 apps open to see any at all.

But if you can afford it, why not? ;)
 
So I decided to go for it and I purchased 2x1gb sticks from newegg.com it should be here in a couple days. thanks for all your advice.
 
Hobodale said:
So I decided to go for it and I purchased 2x1gb sticks from newegg.com it should be here in a couple days. thanks for all your advice.

sweet! Who's Ram did u end up buying?
 
Hobodale said:
So I decided to go for it and I purchased 2x1gb sticks from newegg.com it should be here in a couple days. thanks for all your advice.


Good choice Hobodale- you will enjoy the boost in performance associated with having 2GB of RAM in your system. :)
 
I just tried to tax out my 2GB...ran iTunes, Firefox, garageband, iphoto, Adium, Azureus, iMovie, Alarm Clock, Dashboard, Excel, Word, Powerpoint, Entourage, Photobooth, Google Earth, and iCal - Everything still performed great! :eek:
 
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