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When would I feel a difference between 512 MB RAM and 1 GB RAM?

G

Gary King

macrumors 6502
Original poster
When would I feel a difference between 512 MB RAM and 1 GB RAM? Is there only any point to getting the 1 GB of RAM when I'm using heavy duty software, like Photoshop CS 2 AND 3DS Max at the same time? Or Photoshop and Mathematica? etc.? Since I mostly just do programming, but a little bit of Photoshop?

I hear that the Mac OS X is really RAM hungry, and feeding it more would only increase the speed dramatically?
 
You would feel a difference with programs such as iMovie, login, the time it takes a program to startup. A gig of ram is worth it.
 
Apple said:
You would feel a difference with programs such as iMovie, login, the time it takes a program to startup. A gig of ram is worth it.
Click to expand...


Aren't login and program start up times more dependant on CPU and hard disk access speed though? Unless of course, you've done wither of these very recent;y and they've been kept in the RAM.
 
mad jew said:
Aren't login and program start up times more dependant on CPU and hard disk access speed though? Unless of course, you've done wither of these very recent;y and they've been kept in the RAM.
Click to expand...

Yes but it still seems to open faster; perhaps just perception but my iPhoto opening time seemed to decrease when I went from 512Mb to 1.25GB of RAM.

As far as when you'll see a difference? Do you see spinning beachballs regularly or hear the harddrive spinning up when you change focus window? If so, you'll notice the benefit of extra RAM. How much extra RAM is another question...
 
It not just preventing swapping; OS X, like all modern unix variants, uses extra RAM for disk caching (and hitting your hard drive for any reason is the slowest operation around). In fact, it will swap out old programs to have more space available in RAM to disk cache files/modules/resources relating to open programs (which is why there is comparatively little harm in leaving programs open; they will get swapped out if left idle).

RAM is the single best value upgrade you can make on your Mac, at least up to 2 GB. Past that point, it does begin to depend on your program use - do you use programs that regularly mmap() more than 2GB net?

Example:
I'm using Omniweb 5 to view this website (and have over a dozen sites open in tabs on a few windows). Its memory use is around 100MB. It's mmap()ed memory use is 500MB. What are those 400MB? Memory-space entered access to cache files, preference files, etc. OW doesn't try to load them into RAM; instead it "maps" them to the memory space and would (theoretically) hit the hard drive for any read or write operation - except that almost certainly the disk cache will clone at least part of those files.

-RS
 
Applespider said:
Yes but it still seems to open faster; perhaps just perception but my iPhoto opening time seemed to decrease when I went from 512Mb to 1.25GB of RAM.

As far as when you'll see a difference? Do you see spinning beachballs regularly or hear the harddrive spinning up when you change focus window? If so, you'll notice the benefit of extra RAM. How much extra RAM is another question...
Click to expand...

I agree. Login also got faster on my G5 when I went from 512 to 1Gb... maybe it was just an illusion though! (BTW, Tiger boot ups are muuch faster than panther! amazing). I'm glad I upgraded from 512 to 1gig... and I'd love to stick another gig in here when I have the cash!

The more ram, the better!
 
Check PriceGrabber.com for the best prices on memory... remember that if you have a G5 you need a kit and not an individual stick. I recommend Corsair Value Select memory. Go for the model that doesn't have "C3" at the end if there is little to no price difference because the ones that don't have the C3 have lower latencies (faster).

-mcg
 
Playing Devil's Advocate, I'd say that, if you don't have any problems with 512MB, you don't need to upgrade. You'll see an improvement if you ever have a few apps open at once, but 512MB is certainly usable for OS X. 768 is, I agree, better, and 1GB+ is best. But 512 is fine if it works for you.
 
The difference is amazing if you upgrade the Ram:

I run an eMac side by side with an ibook - and the 1GB ram stick just trouces 256Mb in everything. Its literally like buying a whole new computer.
 
Memory makes a huge difference

I went from 512 Mb to 2 GB on my PB and I can work with full page scanned 1200 dpi images with no problems. My G5 with 1 GB struggles with these images and my PB at 512 MB took forever.

To had some fun with my PC loving friends by having them open one of these images up with their Pentium 4 2Ghz desktop with 512 MB of memory. It froze up their machine and they got "Not responding" messages. I brought up the same image on my Powerbook and it loaded in about 4 seconds. I tricked them into thinking the Powerbook was a hundred times faster than their Windows 2000 desktop. It changed how they looked at Macs forever (at least until the following week when Apple announced the switch to Intel, they probably don't understand why???)

I plan to upgrade to the full 8 GBs of memory on my G5 to see it reach it's full potential. Memory is much cheaper now and it's cheaper than upgrading to a new G5 for a minor speed bump.
 
On my PowerBook I have 1gig (2x 512MB) and I am happy with its performance. I have to be little carefule when working in Photoshop because I tend to work on a number of files at the same time and have Safari and iTunes open. Upgrade for me i little more expenisie caouse to go up to 1.5GB
I have buy whole 1gig stick or two to max it out.
So I am actually considering buying an external RAID 0 harddrive (like the G-RAID from G-Technology) to use it as Photoshop scratch disk and perhaps while at home also use it as boot disk since my PB has only 80GB @ 4200rpm HD
 
BornAgainMac said:
I went from 512 Mb to 2 GB on my PB and I can work with full page scanned 1200 dpi images with no problems. My G5 with 1 GB struggles with these images and my PB at 512 MB took forever.

To had some fun with my PC loving friends by having them open one of these images up with their Pentium 4 2Ghz desktop with 512 MB of memory. It froze up their machine and they got "Not responding" messages. I brought up the same image on my Powerbook and it loaded in about 4 seconds. I tricked them into thinking the Powerbook was a hundred times faster than their Windows 2000 desktop. It changed how they looked at Macs forever (at least until the following week when Apple announced the switch to Intel, they probably don't understand why???)

I plan to upgrade to the full 8 GBs of memory on my G5 to see it reach it's full potential. Memory is much cheaper now and it's cheaper than upgrading to a new G5 for a minor speed bump.
Click to expand...

Is it possible to go to 2 gb on a PB? I thought it was only 1.25?

and also, 8 gb of ram? 😕 You planning on taking over the world?
 
12' can go to 1.25 Go and other go to 2 Go. 1Go dimm are expensive through.

I upgarde from 512 to 768 on my powerbook and notice a difference. yeah it's worth the upgrade, two 512 is affordable. 1Go dimm are expensive for portable right now. Tiger is getting more RAM ungry, widget take a lot of RAM (I hate that, so I don't activate Dashboard right now for this reason, it swap too often with 768Mo.).

The best thing with having a lot of RAM is EsperanceDV with wich you can create RAM Disk. I like that it work really fast for photo editing or keynote presentation with Animation inside them. I do LiveType stuff in uncompress for my presentation it's leave people totaly breathless compare to Powerpoint 😉
 
i think barefeats.com had a mac mini RAM comparison. 256, 512, and 1024mb. each increment made a significant difference. im kinda thinking the RAM made such a significant difference because of the 4200rpm HD.
 
In my experience, even going from 768 to 1.25 made a huge difference, I saw less of that damned beach ball and programs ran way faster, especially when you open it. Also World Of Warcraft ran amazingly fast. My 2 cents.
 
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