The difference between 3 and 4 GB of RAM...

[Sean Dempsey]

this 1 gig of ram is pretty brutal. I'm already getting a pretty hefty amount of page outs. I have a 2GB stick on the way, but I am thinking that if I am doing 3 gigs, why not just ditch the 1gb stick and add another 4gb? Is the extra gig from 3 to 4 really going to matter? Or are most normal use things and web design going to safely reside in the 3 gigs without having to hit the swap very much?

 

[CBAviator]

this 1 gig of ram is pretty brutal. I'm already getting a pretty hefty amount of page outs. I have a 2GB stick on the way, but I am thinking that if I am doing 3 gigs, why not just ditch the 1gb stick and add another 4gb? Is the extra gig from 3 to 4 really going to matter? Or are most normal use things and web design going to safely reside in the 3 gigs without having to hit the swap very much?

Excuse me for my ignorance on this, but what is a "page out?"

 

[Sean Dempsey]

Excuse me for my ignorance on this, but what is a "page out?"

When the ram becomes full/all used and the computer switches inactive data from the RAM (fast) to the page file on the hard drive (slow). Then, when it needs it again, it writes it from the page file back to the ram. This is all background black-magic that the average user never needs to know about. Ideally, you don't ever want a page out. On my Mac Pro with 5GB ram, I can get a few million page in's before I ever get a page out, and even then, its like 5 million ins, 8000 outs.

in about 25 hours uptime, I'm at 300,000 ins, 80,000 outs with 1gb of ram.

If you want to monitor this, you can do it from the Activity monitor, or with the istat pro widget.

 

[nlivo]

Excuse me for my ignorance on this, but what is a "page out?"

but ignorance is bliss.

 

[crazzyeddie]

I think you'll be fine with 3GB for now. If you ever do something that needs more you can upgrade in the future.

2GB is more than enough for almost everyone, so you're already ahead of the game

 

[CBAviator]

but ignorance is bliss.

Ignorance is just an excuse to learn

 

[Sean Dempsey]

Wait a second... according to Macsales.com, the ram for my macbook and my imac are the same, and I have a spare chip lying right here...

I wonder if I can just pop in the 256 meg chip until the new one gets here? Apparently they are both DDR2 PC2-5300 667MHz DIMM

 

[risc]

Wait a second... according to Macsales.com, the ram for my macbook and my imac are the same, and I have a spare chip lying right here...

I wonder if I can just pop in the 256 meg chip until the new one gets here? Apparently they are both DDR2 PC2-5300 667MHz DIMM

When I bought my iMac 24" Core 2 Duo (metal) I just took the 2 GB out of my iMac 20" Core 2 Duo (plastic) and chucked it in the new machine.

 

[Arantxa]

^ Now that's cost efficiency.