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iMac 24 inch always laggy and slowing down, do I need more RAM?

dapa0s

dapa0s

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 2, 2019
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My girlfriend is always complaining that her iMac 24 inch (complete base model), constantly lags and slows down, especially in Safari.
She usually has many tabs open, and many other programs open at the same time.

Would a 1tb, 16gb, 8cpu/8gpu 24 inch iMac solve her issues?

Is it noticeably better than the base model?

And just to note, it's very clean inside, there's no dust, and it has no viruses or anything sus (lol).
 
Just ordered 16Gb 1TB.. In Blue.. Wife is loving it. No Lag, no nothing! SPEED is amazing .. No video editing but Im sure it can handle that too! 16GB was the only way we wanted to go! Didnt need 1TB but she is future proofed for a while now I hope. Good Luck! I think u need the 16GB memory for sure !
 
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It may mean M2 version is incoming so existing ones must slow down, so we can start slinging around "getting long in tooth" and then buy the new one. Repeat again in about 12-18 months. ;)

More seriously, have you tried basic things like reboot? Closing CPU using apps? Checking internet connection? Checking Activity monitor to see if something is hogging a lot of CPU? Etc.
 
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dapa0s said:
Would a 1tb, 16gb, 8cpu/8gpu 24 inch iMac solve her issues?
Click to expand...
The easiest way to check RAM usage is the diagram in Activity Monitor > Memory > Memory pressure.
If it is yellow or even red (and/or lots of swap), then it's a definite YES.
If the opened websites are interactive like web-based office tools, then even a few pages fill up the 8GB very quickly.
 
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HobeSoundDarryl said:
It may mean M2 version is incoming so existing ones must slow down, so we can start slinging around "getting long in tooth" and then buy the new one. Repeat again in about 12-18 months. ;)

More seriously, have you tried basic things like reboot? Closing CPU using apps? Checking internet connection? Checking Activity monitor to see if something is hogging a lot of CPU? Etc.
Click to expand...
I thought they will skip the M2, and refresh with the M3?

arw said:
The easiest way to check RAM usage is the diagram in Activity Monitor > Memory > Memory pressure.
If it is yellow or even red (and/or lots of swap), then it's a definite YES.
If the open websites are interactive like web-based office tools, then even a few pages fill up the 8GB very quickly.
Click to expand...
Yeah, it's in the red all the time, it's definitely not enough for her use.
 
16GB RAM will solve the issues. Nothing else matters (much).

"Many other programs" is a bit vague. I am assuming these are typical apps that most people have that are not particularly demanding. If these, however, are "pro" media creation apps, then she may just need a more powerful machine like a Studio.
 
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wilberforce said:
16GB RAM will solve the issues. Nothing else matters (much).

"Many other programs" is a bit vague. I am assuming these are typical apps that most people have that are not particularly demanding. If these, however, are "pro" media creation apps, then she may just need a more powerful machine like a Studio.
Click to expand...
It‘s usually affinity publisher/photo/designer, word, excell, numbers, pages, canva. Usually the affinity ones are open all the time, although she tries to close it when she can. She says she can‘t even open the mail app due to lag, and it‘s mostly safari combined with one or two other apps that slows it all down, especially since she needs many tabs open.

I guess she could even go for the studio, yeah.
 
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dapa0s said:
It‘s usually affinity publisher/photo/designer, word, excell, numbers, pages, canva. Usually the affinity ones are open all the time, although she tries to close it when she can. She says she can‘t even open the mail app due to lag, and it‘s mostly safari combined with one or two other apps that slows it all down, especially since she needs many tabs open.

I guess she could even go for the studio, yeah.
Click to expand...
Geez! :eek: 8 GB is definitely not a good match for her. A 24 GB M2 Mac mini (coming soon?) or a 24 GB M2 iMac (probably coming in 2023) might suit her, or else a 32 GB M1 Max Mac Studio.
 
EugW said:
Geez! :eek: 8 GB is definitely not a good match for her. A 24 GB M2 Mac mini (coming soon?) or a 24 GB M2 iMac (probably coming in 2023) might suit her, or else a 32 GB M1 Max Mac Studio.
Click to expand...
Haha yeah, I thought so as well after she explained what she uses and has opened daily. The only problem with the mac studio is that there aren‘t many displays that are as good as the imac one.
 
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Update: I just let her use my m1 max 32 gpu/64gb ram/4tb ssd and she has no problems at all now lol.

I guess she needs the new m2 imac/mac mini or the mac studio.
 
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pshufd said:
Why don't you just swap machines with her?
Click to expand...
Because I need it for work, unfortunately, and her imac is way too weak for me. Initially she thought she would only do email and browsing when we bought her the imac, but her work expanded in the last two years, so yeah, I guess she needs something better now.
 
dapa0s said:
Because I need it for work, unfortunately, and her imac is way too weak for me. Initially she thought she would only do email and browsing when we bought her the imac, but her work expanded in the last two years, so yeah, I guess she needs something better now.
Click to expand...

I was just kidding. I have a 2021 MacBook Pro 16 with 32 GB of RAM and it's a beast.

There are a lot of M1 Pro MacBook Pro discounts around right now.
 
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pshufd said:
I have a 2021 MacBook Pro 16 with 32 GB of RAM and it's a beast.
Click to expand...
I was surprised just how much better my macbook pro is than my 10 core imac pro ever was, there's really no comparison.
 
staypuftforums said:
That’s really disturbing if a M1 iMac “constantly lags” while web surfing.
Click to expand...
"web surfing" covers a lot of use cases and modern websites consume high quantities of RAM and CPU. For this you can blame Javascript and Single Page Apps.
 
staypuftforums said:
That’s really disturbing if a M1 iMac “constantly lags” while web surfing.
Click to expand...
Because she's not *just* web surfing. OP hid, later in the thread -

"It‘s usually affinity publisher/photo/designer, word, excell, numbers, pages, canva. "

So with MS office using a few gigs of memory on it's own and notably not playing nicely with MacOS' memory management, an image editing suite, and a few heavy web-apps... It's pretty clear to see this machine is knee-capped for this user by RAM.
 
The other problem I’ve noticed, at least with older versions of Office, and with some browsers is that they have memory leaks. They end up eating up extra memory for no good reason if you keep them open a very long time. Having lots of memory hides that though.
 
As I've posted before, 8gb is not enough for any m-series Mac.

"16gb is 'the new 8'..."
 
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