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more memory better?
- Thread starter clin86
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If your using PhotoShop; CS3; Aperture: type of apps then you won't see the benefits of the 4GB of Ram ..
If your a 'simple user' : Safari; iTunes; iPhoto; type of apps then 2GB of Ram is ideal amount of ram for this time in Mac OS X schedule period..
If your a 'simple user' : Safari; iTunes; iPhoto; type of apps then 2GB of Ram is ideal amount of ram for this time in Mac OS X schedule period..
Yes, the iMac will take longer to boot, but you will get more power in the system, put your iMac to sleep when you're not using it.
I just upgraded my iMac from 2 to 4GB. Frankly I couldn't tell the difference in bootup time. Besides, bootup time on a Mac is nowhere near a Vista machine so no big deal.
After throwing in 4GB, I saw an increase in video rendering speeds and a big increase while running VMWare Fusion since I was able to allocate more memory to the virtual partition.
Other than that, very very slight increase for everything else that I have run so far although I haven't tested HD Video editing yet.
After throwing in 4GB, I saw an increase in video rendering speeds and a big increase while running VMWare Fusion since I was able to allocate more memory to the virtual partition.
Other than that, very very slight increase for everything else that I have run so far although I haven't tested HD Video editing yet.
Think about what;s happening at boot time: The machine is checking itself out (hence a slightly longer time with more RAM) and then reading the OS & all your add-ons / startup items / Widgets from the hard drive and loading them.
Very little of this process will be affected by the amount of RAM.
#1 speedup is to cut down on the number of processes loaded at startup,
#2 is the hard drive speed -- the performance of th hard drive, plus how full it is (reading from inner tracks on a full drive takes longer than from the outer tracks on a relatively empty drive.)
I don't understand this obsession with boot times as a measure of performance.
Unless you are a road warrior, you probably boot the machine once a day, or once a week.
Operational performance when multitasking between programs has a far higher impact on productivity.
Very little of this process will be affected by the amount of RAM.
#1 speedup is to cut down on the number of processes loaded at startup,
#2 is the hard drive speed -- the performance of th hard drive, plus how full it is (reading from inner tracks on a full drive takes longer than from the outer tracks on a relatively empty drive.)
I don't understand this obsession with boot times as a measure of performance.
Unless you are a road warrior, you probably boot the machine once a day, or once a week.
Operational performance when multitasking between programs has a far higher impact on productivity.
This is true. Even if bootup time is longer, the time is made up during productivity since overall performance is faster.
parallels or not parallels, THAT is the question
got a c2d white imac, 2.16. had 2 gigs in it, and it ran slow and sloppy while i had parallels 3.0 running. activity monitor showed i only had 3mb of ram left!
went to the 3 gig maximum, and the difference is night and day. not only does parallels run more smoothly, I can actually still do stuff in osx on the mother monitor at the same time now. activity monitor shows i still have a little under a gig of ram left.
i can't explain it, i can only report it.
got a c2d white imac, 2.16. had 2 gigs in it, and it ran slow and sloppy while i had parallels 3.0 running. activity monitor showed i only had 3mb of ram left!
went to the 3 gig maximum, and the difference is night and day. not only does parallels run more smoothly, I can actually still do stuff in osx on the mother monitor at the same time now. activity monitor shows i still have a little under a gig of ram left.
i can't explain it, i can only report it.
I just installed 4GB of ram in my iMac 2 days ago and I did not notice a difference in the boot time either. I did notice right away the apps open much faster and pages load much faster in Safari. Everything seems to load quicker and it was well worth the $80 for the additional ram.
Agree. I have also noticed Safari runs better but I didn't want to say anything. Every time I do, I get stomped on for imagining it. There are some around here that believe that more memory has no effect on Safari speeds.
Don't forget parallels
Sorry, but there's a macro program that I HAVE to use with word perfect, which is a windows only program....boo!
C2D 2.16 ghz white imac, 20" with 2 gig of ram was taken over entirely by parallels. Thin green line left on activity monitor. OSX applications ran slowly. Beach ball party time!
Went to 3 gig ram, and what a difference that 3rd gig made! Parallels has all the ram it wants, and I can open whatever the #$#^ I want to in OSX with no penalty.
Ram is dirt cheap for the imac now. Best buy has 2 gig sticks for 66 bucks on sale this week, so why not 'cram the ram'? If I had an aluminum imac, I can tell you without hesitation that I'd be putting in two 2 gig sticks without a moment's hesitation.
Sorry, but there's a macro program that I HAVE to use with word perfect, which is a windows only program....boo!
C2D 2.16 ghz white imac, 20" with 2 gig of ram was taken over entirely by parallels. Thin green line left on activity monitor. OSX applications ran slowly. Beach ball party time!
Went to 3 gig ram, and what a difference that 3rd gig made! Parallels has all the ram it wants, and I can open whatever the #$#^ I want to in OSX with no penalty.
Ram is dirt cheap for the imac now. Best buy has 2 gig sticks for 66 bucks on sale this week, so why not 'cram the ram'? If I had an aluminum imac, I can tell you without hesitation that I'd be putting in two 2 gig sticks without a moment's hesitation.
The iMac will take longer to boot because it does a system RAM check as part of the startup sequence. This check is longer depending on how much RAM you have. After this is done, your startup will zip along faster than normal (if you have 2GB)
RAM is so cheap now, that I can't see why you wouldn't spend the $100 (avg what 4GB will cost you) to upgrade to the max 4GB on the iMac or MacBook/MacBook Pro. I have 4GB in my 20" 2GHz iMac aluminum and in my 15" 2.4GHz MBP, and I have 2GB installed on my old white 1.83 Core Duo MacBook.
RAM is always a good thing to have, basically. You will see speed improvements (drastic speed improvements) moving from 1GB to 2GB. There is a bit more improvement to be had at the 3GB mark. You won't see much OS speed improvement between 3GB and 4GB, but it's still not a dumb thing to up your Mac to 4GB if you can -- you can load alot more apps at once, multitask better, and those RAM intensive graphics apps will love the additional RAM.
-Ward
RAM is so cheap now, that I can't see why you wouldn't spend the $100 (avg what 4GB will cost you) to upgrade to the max 4GB on the iMac or MacBook/MacBook Pro. I have 4GB in my 20" 2GHz iMac aluminum and in my 15" 2.4GHz MBP, and I have 2GB installed on my old white 1.83 Core Duo MacBook.
RAM is always a good thing to have, basically. You will see speed improvements (drastic speed improvements) moving from 1GB to 2GB. There is a bit more improvement to be had at the 3GB mark. You won't see much OS speed improvement between 3GB and 4GB, but it's still not a dumb thing to up your Mac to 4GB if you can -- you can load alot more apps at once, multitask better, and those RAM intensive graphics apps will love the additional RAM.
-Ward
WordPerfect? I think baby Jesus just threw up in his mouth a little
Please tell me that there's some weird, completely rational explanation for having to use WP as opposed to anything else? hehe...
Like the first respondant said, if you use pro level apps, the extra 2 gigs of RAM isn't going to be enough, and if you're using consumer level apps, 2 gigs is fine. I run 1.5 gigs, up from 1 gig (stock) and I noticed a difference.. and for the $7.50 I paid for the ram, who could complain? But seriously, if you're getting so worked up over how many milliseconds it takes to open iTunes, then you have bigger things to worry about then how much RAM your iMac needs.
What RAM in the UK ?????
Can anyone offer any advice as to what ram to upgrade with, I was looking at the crucial make and would like to know if anyone has tried it ?
Kinda worried as to how cheap it is.
Cheers
Can anyone offer any advice as to what ram to upgrade with, I was looking at the crucial make and would like to know if anyone has tried it ?
Kinda worried as to how cheap it is.
Cheers
I'll second that. Advance lifetime replacement warranty and the prices are great. Unless you use your iMac for nearly nothing, you will feel a difference with 4 gigs. I put 4 in mine, up from 1, and it was night and day. I notice it more when I'm running multiple programs, but whoever said Safari is faster on its own was spot on. You open it up and the pages just snap open. It's great!