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sparkie7

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Oct 17, 2008
2,508
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I have a base 21.5" iMac. It says it has 4GB RAM under "About This Mac". But when you run Activity Monitor it only shows 3.75 GB total. This doesn't happen on my Mac Pro or MBP. Anyone else notice this inconsistency?
 
You have 4Gb installed, however 256Mb of that is being used by the video card.
 
I don't believe that is accurate. I have 4GB of RAM in my computer, but it is reported as 3.75GB, and I have a dedicated graphics card.

That's what I thought too. The graphics card SHOULD have its own RAM.

However looking at the Apple site under specs for the 21.5", it does say..

"NVIDIA GeForce 9400M with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory"

Bummer :rolleyes:
 
That's what I thought too. The graphics card SHOULD have its own RAM.

However looking at the Apple site under specs for the 21.5", it does say..

"NVIDIA GeForce 9400M with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory"

Bummer :rolleyes:

I've had macs with integrated graphics before with Snow Leopard and it did not show RAM like that. I am 99% positive that that's not why the RAM is displayed like that. Especially since I have my integrated graphics card turned off.
 
its a bit deceptive if you ask me. 4GB RAM, should be full 4GB accessible and usable RAM. Otherwise the machine really should be advertised as "comes with 3.75GB RAM"
 
I have confirmed the following:

My imac with OWN graphics card, shows my full amount of memory in activity monitor.

My Mac Mini with NVIDIA 9400 shows in Actvity monitor my memory except .25 GB, which is obviously to graphics.

So yes, that is why activity monitor shows .25 less than you actually have. There are no worries then, it's just functioning as it should.
 
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