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Should I upgrade RAM to 2gb?

T

Tragedies

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 4, 2007
374
0
Melbourne, Australia
I recently purchased my Alu iMac (lower end model, 2 GHZ 1GB Ram). Thats all I THINK I need, but it got me thinking on wether or not I should upgrade my RAM.

I'm going to have this computer for 5 to 6 years (maybe even more if it lasts) and am wondering if I should upgrade my RAM from 1GB to 2GB. Is it worth it? Will it make my computer faster? (Im guessing that's what RAM is for, letting you run more programs faster) People say it makes a big difference, and I mainly go online and use my Mac for gaming. Is it worth the cost?
 
Extra RAM will simply reduce the effect of other items slowing down your computer, rather than make it faster as such. What do you use your machine for at the moment? Maybe restart it and monitor the page ins and page outs over the next day of normal usage. If these figures are high then you'll benefit from extra RAM. Streetwise is a brilliant little place to get RAM. They have an online tool to make sure you get the right stuff, too. :)
 
Tragedies said:
I mainly go online and use my Mac for gaming. Is it worth the cost?
Click to expand...

1 gig should be fine. Ram doesn't have much to do with gaming as your imac has a dedicated graphics card.

But why not?! OWC has a 2gig stick for $50 USD so it's kind of pointless NOT to upgrade in my opinion, especially if your looking for a longevity of 5+ yrs.
 
Just found out an extra 1GB costs 100 dollars at CompNow (#1 Apple reseller, Aus doesn't have official Apple stores) with free installation. I reckon I'll go for it :D Thanks for the help =D
 
A friend of mine had mixed feelings about upgrading his Macbook because he had heard from a classmate that "1GB is enough". I convinced him that it wasn't and told him he should definitely upgrade.

Anyway, he was ecstatic the first time he booted his laptop with 2GB ram, and said something like "woooooooow...it started up so fast this time!" He also remarked at how his mouse cursor was faster and more responsive on the screen.
 
When booting, the RAM is clear so all that's happening is the system is writing information to it. The benefits of RAM aren't apparent until the system (or an app) has to retrieve this information and can get it from the RAM instead of the much slower hard drive. Having more RAM means more information can be kept in it and re-accessed quickly.
 
.........and depending on how many, and what apps you have set to run at log in, may result in a perceived improvement in startup time:D
 
I just went to 4 Gig because I plan to be a heavy user of Fusion. Got it from Crucial (www.crucial.com). They are a little more expensive than some other vendors, but they have excellent support if you have memory issues and ship VERY quickly. They guarantee their memory will work in your machine and many times I've found the memory I've ordered from them to be identical to what is already in the machine. Never had a problem mixing their memory with others either, although I don't condone that practice.

If you were to see the performance increase on a curve you would see a significant increase up to about a Gig and then the curve starts to flatten. My experience shows that after about 2 Gig performance doesn't increase dramatically, however stability does when running multiple applications.
 
Tragedies said:
I recently purchased my Alu iMac (lower end model, 2 GHZ 1GB Ram). Thats all I THINK I need, but it got me thinking on wether or not I should upgrade my RAM.

I'm going to have this computer for 5 to 6 years (maybe even more if it lasts) and am wondering if I should upgrade my RAM from 1GB to 2GB. Is it worth it? Will it make my computer faster? (Im guessing that's what RAM is for, letting you run more programs faster) People say it makes a big difference, and I mainly go online and use my Mac for gaming. Is it worth the cost?
Click to expand...

If you can afford it go for 4 gigs.. else two would for sure be better then one.
 
2GB should help, but 4GB would likely allow you to keep your computer for longer. If you upgrade to 2GB now, you'll probably want to upgrade to 4 (or 8 if 4GB DIMMs ever come out as PC2-5300) in the future. RAM prices fall to low points then slowly start creeping up a lot after computers that use older RAM types stop being produced.

If you think that getting a 128MB stick of ram for a computer from 2002 would be cheap, think again. Try to upgrade before PC2-5300 RAM gets too expensive. I suggest getting a single 2GB stick now (only if you can afford to do so), then the upgrade to 4GB is just a single stick away. Then you won't have to buy two brand new sticks to do so.
 
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