Upgraded from 2gb to 4gb - but don't notice difference!

[Hello.there]

Evening all,

Yep, as the title says, I upped the ram on my iMac from 2GB to 4GB. I bought the 2x2 kit from Crucial, who I've learnt to trust.

Installation went fine, 4GB is showing up - but I'm really not noticing any difference in the iMac's performance. Everything's working fine, it's not that I'm having any problems, but I'm just not seeing any marked improvement in the speed of apps opening/operating etc when I've lots of stuff running.

Should I be noticing a big difference? Anyone out there who has done the same upgrade?

Thanks.

 

[f1]

You won't notice much of a difference until ur doing some heavy multitasking or running apps that eat up a lot of RAM.

 

[fridgeymonster3]

What types of apps are you using? The performance enhance will mostly only show up with apps that require a lot of RAM. I went from 2 GB to 10 GB of RAM on my Mac Pro and I almost see no difference when I am doing multitasking with apps such as Safari, iTunes, iPhoto, Word, etc; however, when I am multitasking with several Adobe CS3 apps, such as PS, Flash, Illustrator, and Premiere Pro, I see a HUGE Difference skipping between the apps and the smooth performance. Maybe you just aren't pushing the computer enough, nothing wrong with that

 

[matttrick]

ram is not a cpu or gfx card upgrade. it doesnt make your computer go faster. what it does, is allow it to maintain its speed when ram intensive programs are active.

 

[Keebler]

ram is not a cpu or gfx card upgrade. it doesnt make your computer go faster. what it does, is allow it to maintain its speed when ram intensive programs are active.

this explanation, in laymen's terms, should be added to the sticky about Ram.

great explanation.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

Installation went fine, 4GB is showing up - but I'm really not noticing any difference in the iMac's performance.

that's why people who profess that 2 gigs is the minimum, and 4 gigs is a good amount just piss me off. The typical user can get away with a gig of RAM, 2 for good measure.

 

[rworne]

that's why people who profess that 2 gigs is the minimum, and 4 gigs is a good amount just piss me off. The typical user can get away with a gig of RAM, 2 for good measure.

A gig? With Leopard?

We have an iMac G5 (shipped with a laughable 256MB) that had a gig of RAM and it slowed to a crawl when Leopard was loaded. That is, it was already swapping to disk with a few apps open (Mail, Safari, Azureus). This same machine was perfectly fine in 10.4.

Kicking it to two restored its performance to its past glory.

My 24" iMac (C2DX) has 4 gig in it. I don't really use *that* much RAM, but 4 gig upgrades are now about $100. RAM is so cheap for iMacs it is worthwhile just to max the thing out and be done with it.

 

[Guiltygugu]

ya, i didnt notice a difference either

im actually quite dissapointed in the speed decrease i experienced moving from tiger to leopard

everything just feels a tad sluggish

when i boot into vista, that OS screams its soo fast.....

wuts up with osx?

i did a clean install to make sure that it wasnt any issues with upgrading from tiger to leopard

 

[Yaris]

I have a G4 Mac mini with 512MB RAM and Leopard runs fine. Not very fast, but I can use Photoshop and iLife apps with no problem.

 

[Hello.there]

Thanks everyone, great explanations there - especially for the likes of myself. This smilie - - is actually my photograph.

So, yeah, I understand now why I'm not seeing any huge difference. No regrets getting the extra 2GB, though, because it was a great price and I will be using more memory-hungry apps soon enough.

Thanks again.

 

[gorby]

Yep, if you're just surfing the web or something, you won't notice any difference.


Edit a ton of RAW/TIFF photographs at hi-rez with Photoshop, Bridge, DPP, iTunes, Firefox (which I personally do all the time) and whatever else you have going, and you just might!

 

[Hello.there]

Yep, if you're just surfing the web or something, you won't notice any difference.

Edit a ton of RAW/TIFF photographs at hi-rez with Photoshop....and whatever else you have going, and you just might!

Having just bought a Nikon D40 I hope to be doing all that stuff very soon....if I ever find out where the 'on' button is.

 

[gorby]

You upgraded just in time then

 

[ryanwarsaw]

that's why people who profess that 2 gigs is the minimum, and 4 gigs is a good amount just piss me off. The typical user can get away with a gig of RAM, 2 for good measure.

IMO 1.5 GB is the minimum and also happens to be sufficient for most users (but unless you have a 512 GB stick lying around who would do that?). Why would it piss you off that I get tons of page outs with 1 GB of RAM running pretty basic stuff?

I have 474 MB of RAM free at the moment using 2 GB with only firefox and azureus running. If I had anything less than 1.5 GB I would begin to see a massive amount of page outs.

Average users have iPods and such and it isn't like running some video converters, torrent clients, a few added widgets and the like is only for power users.

I think perhaps if a person is unsure of how much RAM they require 2 GB will do everything they need and then some. Even if they don't utilize it all at first chances are as they get more familiar with their machines and as more software is launched they may begin to use it's upper limits.

I however agree that 4 GB is overkill and a waste of money for most people. 2 GB is enough for basic programs and a bit of a buffer for future use.

 

[thechidz]

Evening all,

Yep, as the title says, I upped the ram on my iMac from 2GB to 4GB. I bought the 2x2 kit from Crucial, who I've learnt to trust.

Installation went fine, 4GB is showing up - but I'm really not noticing any difference in the iMac's performance. Everything's working fine, it's not that I'm having any problems, but I'm just not seeing any marked improvement in the speed of apps opening/operating etc when I've lots of stuff running.

Should I be noticing a big difference? Anyone out there who has done the same upgrade?

Thanks.

this is a good thing.... the whole point of ram upgrades is to not notice anything... enjoy!