Steal RAM from my wife's MacBook, or order my own? ;-)

[rogersmj]

I just went and bought a new 20" iMac (replacing my previous Core 2 Duo 20" iMac...yeah not much of an upgrade except for aesthetics, but with the student discount and free iPod deal I came out a little ahead after selling my old iMac ), and of course it has 1GB of RAM in it. All of my Macs (my PowerBook from work, my wife's MacBook, and my old iMac) have 2GB of RAM. I'm trying to decide if I should order a 2GB module for the new iMac for about $120, bringing it to 3GB, or if I should gank one of the 1GB modules from my wife's MacBook for free, leaving her with 1GB. She doesn't do anything but browse the web and listen to music. She doesn't really care, I'm the master of the computers around here.

Would 3GB be a worthwhile improvement over 2GB to justify $120? I generally am pretty intense, my standard fare of open apps being: a dozen or more FireFox tabs open, EyeTV running, Adobe Illustrator and/or Photoshop CS3, Locomotive and MySQL, TextMate, Terminal, Adium, iTunes, Quicksilver, Transmit, Parallels (with 256MB for itself), Transmission, Vienna, and maybe one or two others. 2GB has always served me pretty well, if by a narrow margin. Anyone go to 3GB and notice a difference? Is "stealing" from my wife's computer too desecrating to the MacBook?

 

[Nick12945]

I'd steal and see if it works good for you. If not, buy the 2gb module!

 

[dingdongbubble]

Takeit from your wfe. She doesnt need it but you do. If you max out to 3GB, then when you need more speed, there will be no way out. but if u keep 2 gb and then need speed, then u will FEEL the extra speed, this will keep you happier for a longer time.

 

[Mr. MacBook]

I wouldnt steal it, soon her machine will be outdated and she'll need that RAM to keep up with the times.

 

[Gymnut]

Nothing worse than a woman scorned or having RAM stolen from their Macbooks by their significant other.

 

[rogersmj]

Hmm...I think I will at least "borrow" her RAM for awhile. Like I said, it's highly doubtful she'll notice a difference. I can always order my 2GB stick later after we take care of buying some other things...after all, memory only seems to be getting cheaper and cheaper. It's half the price of what it was in January.

 

[lOUDsCREAMEr]

you cheated!!

 

[Sean Dempsey]

Thanks for the idea! Where's my screwdriver....

 

[blueicedj]

ah..seems like an idea that could go terribly wrong...asking would probably be best...you see, even though she doesn't need it...the fact you took without asking...Wife rampage...I've seen it happen to the best of men...

 

[CanadaRAM]

Get the 3 Gb. Your list of open apps suggests that you're into PageOuts pretty frequently even with 2 Gb. Photoshop by itself can exploit up to 3 Gb of RAM if it is available, so you should see a difference there.

Plus although they may forgive, they never, ever forget....