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Who has 32GB RAM in their iMac?
- Thread starter stevefo
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I'll let you know soon. My 768 all ssd iMac i7 comes tomorrow and the 32 GB Crucial Ram comes the next day. You don't say how much ram you currently have.
For everyday normal stuff? Nope, except that I can now keep every program that I normally use open and ready to go. There is effectively a zero second delay for every program that I use on a routine basis. But other than that, it's not any faster -- 2012 27" with Fusion and i7.
Me! Prob a bit overkill but I use Adobe CS6 Creative Cloud so it just means RAW camera files with multi layers etc are not an issue. Bang for Buck you can't go wrong.
There seems to be a misconception that RAM improves speed. The general thinking seems to be, the more you put in, the faster it will go.
RAM does not improve speed.
In traditional applications in the past, when an application on a computer ran out of RAM to store information, it would move information from existing RAM and page it onto another media like a hard disk drive (HDD). This storage area on the HDD was known to be a paging file. HDD transfers information slower to/from RAM than if the information was keep entirely in RAM.
It is this movement of information to/from RAM to paging file that slows down the computer.
Once there is sufficient amounts of RAM where it no longer requires to page information to a HDD, the system runs at optimum speed and will not perform faster.
A 8GB iMac can run just as fast as a 32GB iMac if the applications do not demand more than 8GB usage. Adding extra RAM will not hurt your system.
Knowing this, only install the RAM that you need to run your applications without any slow down.
I hope this helps
I think instead of increasing RAM you should increase cache memory size. Because of less cache memory TAT is increased, so try increasing cache. I assure you will notice increase in speed.
I feel that questions like this should center around how you use your computer.
If you are the type that just surfs the web, does some e-mail, then shuts their machine down every night, then the base amount is more than enough.
However, if you are "power user" and like to have a bunch of applications open at the same time or use RAM hungry applications get as much as you can. This is especially true if you also shutdown/reboot infrequently.
RAM is relatively cheap so maxing your iMac out probably wouldn't hurt anyway.
I agree with what the other poster said about it not making your computer "faster" but again, this depends on how you define faster. Will your iMac boot up faster? Probably not. But if you are working in a way that requires use of more resources RAM is going to be faster than a mechanical HDD.
To answer the OPs question directly, I do not have 32GB of RAM on my current iMac but plan to on my next one.
If you are the type that just surfs the web, does some e-mail, then shuts their machine down every night, then the base amount is more than enough.
However, if you are "power user" and like to have a bunch of applications open at the same time or use RAM hungry applications get as much as you can. This is especially true if you also shutdown/reboot infrequently.
RAM is relatively cheap so maxing your iMac out probably wouldn't hurt anyway.
I agree with what the other poster said about it not making your computer "faster" but again, this depends on how you define faster. Will your iMac boot up faster? Probably not. But if you are working in a way that requires use of more resources RAM is going to be faster than a mechanical HDD.
To answer the OPs question directly, I do not have 32GB of RAM on my current iMac but plan to on my next one.
I have 32GB in mine. As said, in day-to-day usage, you wont notice the difference between 8GB and 16GB, let alone 32GB.
However, when using virtual machines, you notice a huge difference. I can have 6 virtual machines running, each with 4gb of RAM (which improves the performance of the guest OS'es dramatically), have a couple of other apps open, and still have room to spare before it starts paging to disk.
However, when using virtual machines, you notice a huge difference. I can have 6 virtual machines running, each with 4gb of RAM (which improves the performance of the guest OS'es dramatically), have a couple of other apps open, and still have room to spare before it starts paging to disk.
Where do you recommend selling the stock 8GB of RAM. I'd like to do this as my 32 GB crucial ram arrives tomorrow. Computer came today.
Where do you recommend selling the stock 8GB of RAM. I'd like to do this as my 32 GB crucial ram arrives tomorrow. Computer came today.
Craigslist, Ebay or Kijiji.
do they even make these? 16 GB DDR3 SODIMMS? because then you could have 64GB in that beast...
Where do you recommend selling the stock 8GB of RAM. I'd like to do this as my 32 GB crucial ram arrives tomorrow. Computer came today.
Personally I don't recommend selling it. In the case your iMac needs to go into service with Apple, I recommend holding on to those sticks and swapping them into your machine prior to service and holding on to your store bought ram. I've heard "rumors" of Apple service people returning machines to stock build and people losing ram and hard drives in the process. Just something to take into consideration, because honestly is the maybe $100 bucks you get for the sticks really worth the possibility you might have to buy all new ram?
that is what apple specs the machine at, but as every one knows apple only specs the machine at the available ram sizes when they are released (right now 8GB per slot) and never updates the spec the 2011 models can only have 16Gb (4 GB per slot) but plenty of people have put 32 GB into the 2011 model since the 8GB sticks came out OWC and Everymac.com have plenty of stories of these facts when 16GB sticks come out it is possible that all 4 will work just fine...
For those of you with 32GB or even 16GB -- check your usage with everything running. Wired+Active is the amount you are using. Unless you are running a bunch of virtual machines concurrently I bet you aren't even using 8GB of RAM and quite possibly 4 or less!
The only good thing is that RAM is pretty inexpensive.
The only good thing is that RAM is pretty inexpensive.