ram upgrade, or refurb imac?

[Hurd111]

Hello.

As of now, I have a (white/isight) intel 17" imac, with 1gig of ram.

It's getting pretty slow, and Im wondering if I should buy a ram upgrade (2 gigs), or when the new imacs come out, get a refurbished (2008) 20".

The new imac (the one thats out right now) will have a faster processor, but, considering Im tight on cash, would it be more reasonable to just get ram upgrade?

[natebookpro]

You would see a nice speed increase by maxing out ram if you are short on cash right now. If you can afford the new imac then yes it will be faster than your current one.

[Semiopaque]

You would see a nice speed increase by maxing out ram if you are short on cash right now. If you can afford the new imac then yes it will be faster than your current one.

I don't know that I would necessarily agree completely with a noticeable speed increase. It really depends on what you are doing. If you just browse the web, another gig isn't going to make a huge speed difference. If you have multiple apps running at the same time or have like 20 different websites going at the same like I do sometimes, or do a lot of video - yeah you'll notice it.

Having said that, though, getting 2 gig of RAM now a days is almost a no brainer since most of it is relatively cheap. If you're pretty happy with the speed you have and only notice slowness when you do certain things - go with the RAM and save up for a big upgrade in the future.

[Hurd111]

Well, I do a lot of photo editing, and I run parallels on a regular basis.

I think Im going to buy some ram...

Sorry, but where should I buy ram? Any recommendations?

[jcosmide]

Well, I do a lot of photo editing, and I run parallels on a regular basis.

I think Im going to buy some ram...

Sorry, but where should I buy ram? Any recommendations?

definitely here: Crucial (http://www.crucial.com/)

[clyde2801]

Go into activity monitor when you're using your rig as you normally do. See how much free memory you have. If you don't have any, you need more ram. If you have any pageouts, get more ram.

[aethelbert]

You should always max out your current system before dumping money on a new one. If I remember correctly, the 2.0 iMac was only core 2, so upgrading to 3-4gb of ram should speed you up. Getting four would make your system just a bit faster than three, giving you dual channel support and about 300 extra megabytes of memory.

[SnowLeopard2008]

Kingston makes some good ram chips.

[Hurd111]

I was actually looking at this (http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/5300DDR2S2GB/).

Would my imac be able to use more than 2gb?

[aethelbert]

I was actually looking at this (http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/5300DDR2S2GB/).

Would my imac be able to use more than 2gb?
If it's a Core 2 Duo, it will be able to use 3.3GB (so you could do 2x2gb to get dual channel, .7gb wouldn't be used). If it's a Core Duo, your maximum RAM amount is 2GB.

[Hurd111]

It's a core 2 duo.

Thanks for the help guys!