early 2009 iMac 4G, memory used 3.7G under Activity Monitor, very slow Chrome

After upgrading to OSX 10.8, I found my iMac ran very slow especially when many tab, say, 8 -10, opened for Chrome. Other than Chrome, I often need to open Firefox, Adobe, Evernote, then from Activity monitor, often noticed that out of 4G memory Used 3.7G. I wonder if this is considered too high, means I need to install more memory?

I understand for my iMac, the maximum is 8G, wonder if this will fix my problem in slow Chrome ? What is the right level of Used memory, say, under 80% ?

Thanks for any help or suggestions

After a few days of running, the page out can be big, 8G. But if I restarted it, then it comes to 0. I have not tried to see how long it would run to get the page out that big.

I was not sure what would be the right range for Used Memory. After restarted it, now Page out is 0, but Used Memory: 3.87G, at the moment iMac is not very
slow though.

Thanks

justperry said:

More memory is almost always a good idea, and it is not expensive.

Look how many pageouts you get and post here, or make a screenshot and post here.

Screenshot = Command-Shift-4 then hit the spacebar and click on the window to make a screenshot.

Click to expand...

Forgot to include the screenshot,

justperry said:

More memory is almost always a good idea, and it is not expensive.

Look how many pageouts you get and post here, or make a screenshot and post here.

Screenshot = Command-Shift-4 then hit the spacebar and click on the window to make a screenshot.

Click to expand...

justperry said:

It's not slow because you restarted which frees all active memory and swapfiles.
You said before it was 8 GB, that is big and it shows you need more RAM to get rid of swapfiles.

8 GB instead of 4 GB will make a difference and you most likely will not run out of physical memory which means no slow downs anymore.

If you go for more RAM I would suggest crucial, Corsair seems to have quite a bit of problems.

Edit: When did you restart and how many Apps are open now, or did you open many-many tabs again since after a restart it should not be 3.78 GB.

Click to expand...

Yes, I plan to change the memory to 8G, thanks for your suggestion on the memory too. I will see how long it would take to grow the page out no. to 8G. I have never watched the no. carefully.