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Was it the Core2Duo or the 1GB Ram???

D

davidg4781

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Oct 28, 2006
2,970
476
Alice, TX
So, my friend bought a new MacBook, 2.0GHz C2D, 1GB RAM. I went over to check it out and was surprised by how fast it was opening apps, like iCal, iTunes, and iPhoto. I think Pages opened rather quickly also.

Now, I have a MacBook 2.0GHz CD, 512MB RAM, and mine's been used for about a year, with a nice full calendar, and lots of photos and tunes.

I was wondering what caused hers' to be so fast? The C2D, RAM, or that there's nothing really in those programs yet. I have been thinking of upgrading my RAM, and I think it's coming up to me needing to. Will I experience the same quickness?
 
flopticalcube said:
RAM more than CPU. From 512 to 1G is a MASSIVE leap for a MB.

Open up Acitivity Monitor and look at System Memory. If you have very little green and blue left, RAM will really speed things up.
Click to expand...

There's a green color??? I guess that's part of my answer. I'm planning on upgrading to 2GB, along with a new HDD whenever Leopard comes out. Well, I'll buy the HDD and Leopard together, the RAM, who knows.

I guess I can live without the C2D. Mine still runs great. She had a bad experience at the Apple store, so at least I have that on her :).
 
davidg4781 said:
There's a green color??? I guess that's part of my answer. I'm planning on upgrading to 2GB, along with a new HDD whenever Leopard comes out. Well, I'll buy the HDD and Leopard together, the RAM, who knows.

I guess I can live without the C2D. Mine still runs great. She had a bad experience at the Apple store, so at least I have that on her :).
Click to expand...

definitely get the ram as soon as you can. my sister's macbook was painfully slow compared to my macbook with 2 gb. there really is no need to wait for leopard, and prices are incredibly cheap.
 
davidg4781 said:
There's a green color??? I guess that's part of my answer. I'm planning on upgrading to 2GB, along with a new HDD whenever Leopard comes out. Well, I'll buy the HDD and Leopard together, the RAM, who knows.

I guess I can live without the C2D. Mine still runs great. She had a bad experience at the Apple store, so at least I have that on her :).
Click to expand...

Max the C2D can give is a 25% improvement. Sorry to hear she had a bad experience at the store.
 
I'm waiting on Leopard for the HDD, and the RAM, well, because I'm poor. I may get it soon though, I need something to play with.

From what I've heard though, Leopard is going to provide Intel Macs with a boost in performance from Tiger, and the C2D are going to perform even better.
 
Not the processor at all. The performance difference between the Core Duo (you got) and the Core 2 Duo (she has) is negligible at best.

The performance delta is caused by the different amount of ram in the computers. 512MB is just barely making it and 1GB is the least amount of ram I would recommend to anyone.
 
Her HDD is also newer and presumably contains less file fragmentation so the disk doesn't have to spin as much to access files which might be another factor
 
Is there a way to clear up my file fragmentations? I've heard it's not necessary with OS X, that it does it automatically, but is there a way to make sure it's doing it?

For instance, right now, iCal takes 6 bounces to open, then a few minutes to load everything (although, most of my Calendars are either published or synced and I have about a years worth of stuff). On hers', with nothing on there, it only had about 1/2 a bounce. Address Book loads with one bounce.

Now I want some RAM. The most I can put in a CD MacBook is 1GB, right?
 
davidg4781 said:
Is there a way to clear up my file fragmentations? I've heard it's not necessary with OS X, that it does it automatically, but is there a way to make sure it's doing it?

For instance, right now, iCal takes 6 bounces to open, then a few minutes to load everything (although, most of my Calendars are either published or synced and I have about a years worth of stuff). On hers', with nothing on there, it only had about 1/2 a bounce. Address Book loads with one bounce.

Now I want some RAM. The most I can put in a CD MacBook is 1GB, right?
Click to expand...

OSX will defrag the smaller stuff (<20MB?) for you automatically. Her disk will simply be emptier than yours so that may be part of the issue. You can stick in 2GB (2X1GB).
 
Both.....the RAM is a huge help, seeing how the GPU is forced to steal some sometimes.....but C2D is a very nice chip, very speedy.
 
I'm going to say it was a little of the processor and a lot of the RAM. Upgrading ram makes the biggest difference in the world. They say the minimum for Tiger is 256MB but it really should be no less then 512. When I upgraded my iMac from 512 to 1.5 gigs I was amazed at how much faster everything was.

I'd suggest adding some RAM (1 gig minimum) to your MB. It will make a world of difference.
 
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