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MattyMac

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Oct 6, 2005
1,692
17
NJ/NYC
Who is using the MacBook with the standard 512mb. Is it all good? I just ordered a MacBook for my mom, and I am hoping that 512 will be good enough. Just basically using iphoto, office for mac, safari, etc. Let me know your opinion. Thanks.
 

eva01

macrumors 601
Feb 22, 2005
4,720
1
Gah! Plymouth
well since you want to use Office for mac instead of iWork

You may want to get at least 1GB since Office will have to run through rosetta while iWork wouldn't have to
 

MattyMac

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Oct 6, 2005
1,692
17
NJ/NYC
eva01 said:
well since you want to use Office for mac instead of iWork

You may want to get at least 1GB since Office will have to run through rosetta while iWork wouldn't have to
I was thinking that...but my mom wont really worry too much about it if there is only a little bit of a lag. Anyone with some experience??
 

kevin.rivers

macrumors 6502a
Dec 4, 2005
501
0
Im running Office on a 20" imac and stock 512MB, just worked on 5 documents in Office with no problems. While running Camino, downloading some apps, and iTunes of course. No problems.

You should be fine, if you do notice a slow down though you may want to add another stick.

If you have the extra funds, shoot for the 1GB though. It doesn't hurt to have it.

Note: My iMac is 2.0Ghz and the hard drive is probably a little faster. However, overall you should experience something similar to what I am.
 

MattyMac

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Oct 6, 2005
1,692
17
NJ/NYC
kevin.rivers said:
Im running Office on a 20" imac and stock 512MB, just worked on 5 documents in Office with no problems. While running Camino, downloading some apps, and iTunes of course. No problems.

You should be fine, if you do notice a slow down though you may want to add another stick.

If you have the extra funds, shoot for the 1GB though. It doesn't hurt to have it.
Awesome! Then it should be good enough for my mom. Thanks!
 

Sun Baked

macrumors G5
May 19, 2002
14,941
162
When you are in a single app for awhile, without severe background load, it should be no problem.

You will however get a slight lag when you swap apps as the VM manager swaps the apps from HD-to-memory and memory-to-HD.
 

crazycat

macrumors 65816
Dec 5, 2005
1,319
0
I have been using macs for a while and i know for a fact that if you get less the 1GB it will run slow. To rull OS X and really have a great experience you need to atleast have 1GB.
 

pinetec

macrumors member
Mar 21, 2006
45
0
Red Sox Nation
I purhcased my Black MacBook with only 512 MB RAM. Within a week I had ordered two 512 MB sticks from newegg.com. It was just to slow for me. I espeically noticed the lag when working with MS Office. If I had Mail, Safari and Office all opened it just dragged. With 1GB RAM it is extremely fast.

Both my sister and my dad just purhased new Intel MACs (MBP & iMAC). They both went with the 1GB upgrade and are very pleased. They ditched XP machines!
 
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