Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

More RAM For Average User?

You can buy the ram you listed but i would rather you:


open your iMac and pull out a ram stick see what the chip is;

samsung
hynix

or micron are all apple is using oem.

if they are a pair of 2gb samsung buy this:

https://www.superbiiz.com/detail.ph...-1333-SODIMM-4GB-Samsung-Chip-Notebook-Memory

if they are hynix chips buy this:

https://www.superbiiz.com/detail.ph...R3-1333-SODIMM-4GB-Hynix-Chip-Notebook-Memory

if they are micron buy this


https://www.superbiiz.com/detail.ph...3-1333-SODIMM-4GB-Micron-Chip-Notebook-Memory


buy a pair put them in and you will have 12gb and never have to worry about ram. if you can't buy the pair you can buy 1. I own a
2009 c2d 3.06 27 inch imac and i did a lot of tests. of any combo

1gb 0gb 0gb 0gb
2gb 0gb 0gb 0gb
4gb 0gb 0gb 0gb
1gb 1gb 0gb 0gb
1gb 2gb 0gb 0gb plus many more

I did every set up you can with 1gb 2gb and 4gb sticks took four days.

for info more is better.

matched sticks don't matter for a lot of programs.

I could not make tech tool ram test fail or geek bench fail or xbench fail.

I have a pair of 1gb's with a pair of 4gbs all samsung in the machine now.
 
Last edited:
ibis99 said:
I have a 2010 iMac with the standard 4gb of RAM. I consider myself an average user, you know, web, email, music playback, movie watching and I'm just learning web design.

I'm wondering if it's worth doubling my RAM to 8gb[/url]
Click to expand...
Launch Activity Monitor and look at the System Memory tab at the bottom. If your "page outs" and "swap used" are high under normal use, you likely need more RAM.
 
I personally think that 4gb of ram is more than likely tons of Ram for the usage that you are describing ibis99. I have a 2010 imac with 4gb of ram as well and I do a lot of audio recording in garageband and logic express and I am still ok with 4gb of ram. I highly doubt that web, email, movie watching, music listening and web design will breach that 4gb unless you are doing all at the same time! ;). Web design software normally doesn't tax the system too much at all (rapidweaver, flux, iweb, etc...).

GGJstudios is absolutely right in his recommendations to check page out and swap used. If both 0 then you haven't exceeded the 4gb at all to my understanding.

Here is a test that you can do:
First go to your applications folder, then utilities, then activity monitor, then click on the system memory tab at the bottom of the screen.

Now in that section you will see the following Ram types and what they mean are as follows:
Free = Free Ram, nothing is using it or holding it for use
Wired = Ram used by Osx, cannot free up the operating system is using it
Active = Ram used currently by all other apps/programs
Inactive = Ram that was "just used moments ago" by all other apps/programs, the system stores it here so that if you open it again soon it will open faster as it is still in Ram (good mac memory usage :) ).
Used = Simply the total of Wired, Active, Inactive.

So for example, my system is showing:
Free = 2.31GB (free for anything else I'd like to open)
Wired = 663.5 used by OsX
Active = 473.3 used by other apps/programs
Inactive = 595.1 used by recently opened apps/programs (if new programs need it, they will take from free, then inactive, so inactive is essentially free as well in a way, see what i mean?)
Used = 1.68 (LOL, note my numbers above keep changing all the time and I didn't want to pull out a calculator, pretend this adds up to wired, active, inactive ;) ).

Bottom line, for the use you are describing I wouldn't waste the money on a ram upgrade if your current ram isn't even being fully utilized based on your needs. It would just be a waste of money.

Hope this helped...

Peace... :)
 
Wow!

Ravenwolf40 said:
I personally think that 4gb of ram is more than likely tons of Ram for the usage that you are describing ibis99. I have a 2010 imac with 4gb of ram as well and I do a lot of audio recording in garageband and logic express and I am still ok with 4gb of ram. I highly doubt that web, email, movie watching, music listening and web design will breach that 4gb unless you are doing all at the same time! ;). Web design software normally doesn't tax the system too much at all (rapidweaver, flux, iweb, etc...).

GGJstudios is absolutely right in his recommendations to check page out and swap used. If both 0 then you haven't exceeded the 4gb at all to my understanding.

Here is a test that you can do:
First go to your applications folder, then utilities, then activity monitor, then click on the system memory tab at the bottom of the screen.

Now in that section you will see the following Ram types and what they mean are as follows:
Free = Free Ram, nothing is using it or holding it for use
Wired = Ram used by Osx, cannot free up the operating system is using it
Active = Ram used currently by all other apps/programs
Inactive = Ram that was "just used moments ago" by all other apps/programs, the system stores it here so that if you open it again soon it will open faster as it is still in Ram (good mac memory usage :) ).
Used = Simply the total of Wired, Active, Inactive.

So for example, my system is showing:
Free = 2.31GB (free for anything else I'd like to open)
Wired = 663.5 used by OsX
Active = 473.3 used by other apps/programs
Inactive = 595.1 used by recently opened apps/programs (if new programs need it, they will take from free, then inactive, so inactive is essentially free as well in a way, see what i mean?)
Used = 1.68 (LOL, note my numbers above keep changing all the time and I didn't want to pull out a calculator, pretend this adds up to wired, active, inactive ;) ).

Bottom line, for the use you are describing I wouldn't waste the money on a ram upgrade if your current ram isn't even being fully utilized based on your needs. It would just be a waste of money.

Hope this helped...

Peace... :)
Click to expand...

That was a hell of an explanation Ravenwolf. Thank you so much. And thanks everyone else.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back