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Will I notice a 4 to 8 RAM upgrade?

R

rsted222

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 12, 2011
105
0
Just bought the new iMac (base, 21.5) and I LOVE this thing. I just do basic stuff like internet, iPhoto, iMovie, and that's about it. I noticed through OWC I can add 4 gb of RAM for $50. Question is, with what I do, is there even a point to the upgrade.

Thanks.
 
miles01110 said:
Unless you've found 2x4 GB of compatible RAM for $50, you'd only be upgrading from 4 GB to 6 GB. The iMacs come with 2x2 GB installed; so you'd have to remove one stick to put in the other.

In any case, I don't think you'd notice much difference.
Click to expand...

The 21.5" and 27" iMac have four memory slots (page 37), thus buying one 4GB stick and adding it to the already two 2GB sticks will get the OP 8GB.

OP, if you have many memory hungry applications open at once or just use one intensively, you will notice a difference.
 
check the memory usage ...something like iStat pro should give you a rough indication of RAM usage .. as said above some apps / files use more RAM then others most people can get away with 4gb ... but if you are using the system for high end editing or serious graphics work then you might need more
 
Binary Ninja said:
check the memory usage ...something like iStat pro should give you a rough indication of RAM usage .. as said above some apps / files use more RAM then others most people can get away with 4gb ... but if you are using the system for high end editing or serious graphics work then you might need more
Click to expand...

One can also use Activity Monitor:
______________________________________________________
Have a look at Activity Monitor (Applications / Utilities /) and select All Processes and sort by CPU to see what the culprit may be.
Also check the "System Memory" tab to see what your "Page ins:", "Page outs:" and "Swap used:" are.

image below uses sorting by CPU as an example
Acitivty_Monitor.png

Further reading:
______________________________________________________​
Click to expand...
 
iRobby said:
Can some one please explain some of the memory terms used here on MacOS X for me. i'll be switching from PC to iMac this summer.

I'm a little confused looking at the pie graph and the numbers.

Windows memory on the hard drive only lists 3 things:

1) Free
2) Used
3) Capacity

The image above for Mac OSX lists 5 things:
1) Free
2) Wired???
3) Active???
4) Inactive???
5) Used

What is the difference between and what do Wired, Active, Inactive mean compared to Windows?
Click to expand...

HDD ≠ RAM, thus "memory" is not the same as "hard drive capacity":
What is Computer Memory? RAM vs Hard Drive
RAM vs. Hard Disk

And the links below the image you quoted explain some things.

Also have a look at this (which includes a link to MRoogle, a search engine for MR, which can help you to find answers, which have often been given():
 
I need a new iMac ... and maybe more ram.

Just ran System Monitor and opened up four 18 megapixel images in PSE9.

Almost 4 year old iMac with 3 Gigs of Ram isn't cutting it! LOL

I was watching CPU usage and man even that gets hammered from time to time. :eek:
 
just ordered the BTO 27" iMac 3,4Ghz i7
I didn't upgrade the ram when I ordered as I was planning to do it myself.
In the past I was told ram should always be symmetrical.
so, now I have 2x2Gb already inside.
Can I order 2x4Gb and pu it in the free slots, or is it better to order 2x2Gb ram so I end up with 8Gb symmetrical ram.
 
macses said:
just ordered the BTO 27" iMac 3,4Ghz i7
I didn't upgrade the ram when I ordered as I was planning to do it myself.
In the past I was told ram should always be symmetrical.
so, now I have 2x2Gb already inside.
Can I order 2x4Gb and pu it in the free slots, or is it better to order 2x2Gb ram so I end up with 8Gb symmetrical ram.
Click to expand...

It should not make any difference whether you put 2x2 or 2x4 along side the existing 2x2.
 
macses said:
just ordered the BTO 27" iMac 3,4Ghz i7
I didn't upgrade the ram when I ordered as I was planning to do it myself.
In the past I was told ram should always be symmetrical.
so, now I have 2x2Gb already inside.
Can I order 2x4Gb and pu it in the free slots, or is it better to order 2x2Gb ram so I end up with 8Gb symmetrical ram.
Click to expand...

Olden days.

More ram always trumps.

Not sure what you are doing harcosparky, but my iMac *is* 4 years old (in august) and I can open 4 50 meg PSD files in about 5 seconds.
 
Badger^2 said:
Not sure what you are doing harcosparky, but my iMac *is* 4 years old (in august) and I can open 4 50 meg PSD files in about 5 seconds.
Click to expand...

Running PSE9, opening 4 18 megapixel ( about 32MB each ) Camera RAW image files.

Had one download running.

I could throw more Ram in it, and I know there would be an improvement.

It's not the time to open the files so much as when you begin to apply changes to many files at once, but that is done in another program.
 
It really depends on how many apps you run. I recently upgraded from 4 GB to 8 GB of RAM. I don't notice a SPEED difference so much, but i can run many more apps without it slowing the way it used to. I used to run:

Mail, Safari, iChat, iTunes, Skype, NewsRack, Echofon.

Now i run those plus: Delibar, Bowtie, Fantastical, iStat Menus, MainMenu, Boom, WeatherDock, BetterTouchTool, and TypeIt4Me.

Now, running all those extra apps, i still typically have 1-2 GB of RAM unused.
 
4GB to 8GB RAM, will you notice any difference? Honestly it really depends on your usage.

Unless you're doing high end multimedia, games or video then you're not going to notice any difference besides the obvious $50 missing from your wallet.
 
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