macbook sr extra ram worth it?

[qwerty2k]

Got my MacBook couple of weeks ago, loving it (as ive mentioned in a previous thread i opened), its safe to say i won't be going back to pc any time soon!

anyway my actual question is that my MacBook is a 2.2ghz SR with stock 1gig of ram.

Now if i upgrade the ram will it improve responsiveness/performance much? if so is it worth sticking 4gig in, o is it overkill and that 2gig is sufficient?

thanks in advanced,

scott

 

[heatmiser]

If you're in the US, you can get 4 gigs for $80 @ Newegg. A RAM upgrade is the single biggest improvement you can ever make to a laptop's performance.

 

[119576]

You will probably find that it makes a huge difference; if you're doing anything that is RAM intensive.

If you have a high number of page-outs (check in activity monitor) then you'll definitely benefit from a RAM upgrade.

 

[tersono]

There's a big difference between 1gb and even 2gb performance-wise if you do anything with heavyweight apps (Parallels, Adobe CS, anything video related).

Well worth the upgrade IMHO

 

[qwerty2k]

im in the uk, so 2gig upgrade is like £30 whereas 4gig is £100, so jst wondered if the difference in price would give me any extra performance.

 

[darwinian]

Agreed - it's so inexpensive these days that you almost might as well, irrespective of your needs.

edit: in that case, do it only if you need to (see the page outs comment above).

 

[mrtune]

My macbook has the stock 1gb ram. It's pretty easy to max out when fooling around with imovie or vmware fusion. I got 4gb on the way from newegg (I paid $86). Should take care of it.

I've noticed all computer manufacturers (including apple) include just enough ram to get by, never more, unless you upgrade the stock config. I've always had to upgrade the ram in my past pc's as well. Maybe I'm more of a power user than the average person?

 

[IJ Reilly]

If you ask people whether you should spend more of your money, most are in a hurry to say you should -- after all, it doesn't cost them anything. But it depends entirely on how you use your Mac. For most purposes, a gig of RAM will do fine, though you will want to restart your Mac occasionally to delete the virtual memory swap files which will built up.

Keep in mind also, if you decide to upgrade your RAM that problems related to bad RAM are probably the number one Mac killer, so buy brand-name (not generic) RAM, and if the Mac starts to give you fits afterwards (kernel panics in particular), suspect the RAM and pull it immediately.

 

[3nm]

i'd say the extra 1gb will help quite a bit if you do any multitasking. i'd go for 3gb or more if the price is right.

in addition to activity monitor, you can also use menumeters to see how much ram you are using.