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Do I need to upgrade my RAM?

aaron.lee2006

aaron.lee2006

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 23, 2006
1,215
0
Ontario, Canada
You decide... I am a photographer/graphic designer

I have one of the original MBPs 1.83... It has 512 ram. Should I give her a nice upgrade to compete with all you C2Ders :p
 
yes, the ram can come in handy later if you decide to resell or upgrade to a newer model

basically, you won't be "choked" as much :] and it's relatively cheap to do it!
 
when you run activity monitor, at the bottom where it says page ins/outs, if you have a lot of page outs, it means you don't have enough ram and you're having to access your hdd a lot unnecessarily. if it's less that about 3500 after using it awhile, you're probably ok with what you have.
 
For photography?
Just go for 2 x 1 Gb and have done with it.
You will thank yourself every time you don't have that little "gulp" moment when the machine doesn't respond for a second or two -- just enough time to wonder if you've crashed it or not in the middle of your work...
 
orangemacapple said:
when you run activity monitor, at the bottom where it says page ins/outs, if you have a lot of page outs, it means you don't have enough ram and you're having to access your hdd a lot unnecessarily. if it's less that about 3500 after using it awhile, you're probably ok with what you have.
Click to expand...

damn it so does this mean that if i have a 27098/0 then i dont need any more rammmmmmm????
 
orangemacapple said:
when you run activity monitor, at the bottom where it says page ins/outs, if you have a lot of page outs, it means you don't have enough ram and you're having to access your hdd a lot unnecessarily. if it's less that about 3500 after using it awhile, you're probably ok with what you have.
Click to expand...


Does this number continue to add up? I have not restarted the machine in prob 3 days so the numbers are high. 104947/71114 actually. Is this an indication of needing more RAM?
 
juanster said:
damn it so does this mean that if i have a 27098/0 then i dont need any more rammmmmmm????
Click to expand...

yes, that means you have enough ram to do what you normally do. unless you begin using apps that require more ram, it really won't help you to add ram.



marine610610 said:
Does this number continue to add up? I have not restarted the machine in prob 3 days so the numbers are high. 104947/71114 actually. Is this an indication of needing more RAM?
Click to expand...

yes, the number is cumulative. try restarting the computer and using it for a couple hours under normal use with all your customary apps open and see what it says. every time the computer sleeps it does page-outs (writes memory to disk) whether you have enough ram or not.
 
orangemacapple said:
when you run activity monitor, at the bottom where it says page ins/outs, if you have a lot of page outs, it means you don't have enough ram and you're having to access your hdd a lot unnecessarily. if it's less that about 3500 after using it awhile, you're probably ok with what you have.
Click to expand...


where do i check this at?? PB 12"
 
Even if you were just some idiot who uses AIM and browses the web I'd say you need to upgrade. 512MB just isn't enough. Period.
 
orangemacapple said:
when you run activity monitor, at the bottom where it says page ins/outs, if you have a lot of page outs, it means you don't have enough ram and you're having to access your hdd a lot unnecessarily. if it's less that about 3500 after using it awhile, you're probably ok with what you have.
Click to expand...

How would you check if you had a memory leak?
I just bought a C2D MBP and I had very little green section on the pie chart. I have to recheck it when I got home.
 
plux79 said:
How would you check if you had a memory leak?
I just bought a C2D MBP and I had very little green section on the pie chart. I have to recheck it when I got home.
Click to expand...

well, if you see it dripping out the sides, that's a pretty good indication.

after i stop laughing at the image i've conjured...

sorry, i can't figure it out. but... i'm still laughing.

maybe hold a bowl under it to catch it or something!

but, i think when it all leaks out you have to go buy more (i had an old ford that had a leak in the radiator and i always had to keep filling it up).

It probably means most of your memory was used and is now inactive -- check the BLUE section for INACTIVE memory. either that or you're running too many apps and need to close some to free up memory. if the GREEN and BLUE are both just little slivers, then you definitely need more memory.

check it after restart with no apps running and see what your pie chart looks like. then run it normally for awhile and check it again and look at your page-outs.
 
My MBP came with 1x1GB RAM, I just added a second 1GB DIMM to it last month from NewEgg. Right around $60 for the 1x1GB stick is what I paid. So for 2x1GB would cost you ~$120 :D
 
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