Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
16gb of ram for macbook pro?
- Thread starter macuser1232
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I know that's what i think. And that's why im a little unsure about getting 16gigs even though i am obviously needing it. If I did get 16gigs that would solve my problem about whether I should run ubuntu on virtual box like im doing now or on bootcamp. I would run it on virtualbox because i would have plenty of memory to do it!
Buy it.
I don't know about how this is in your country (where dó you come from?). But in the Netherlands 16 gigs will cost no more than 80 euros (110 dollars). Sell your current RAM for 50 dollars like I did (I had 2x2GB) and be done with an upgrade of only 60 bucks. An upgrade that will cost 60 bucks, and give you the ability to run two virtual machines flawlessly (I can run ubuntu and windows 7 next to Lion easy) without any hard work of fans (because as said, they don't do jack to your RAM).
Alternative: buy just 1 8 gb module. If you think that isn't enough, buy another one. This way you are sure you don't overstep it.
16 GB (with 2.5 Ghz Macbook Pro 17" with SATA3 SSD) will grant you avarage gaming playability in virtual machines, and also grant you superfast editing tools (Final Cut Pro X is awesoooom with 16 gigs, as well as After Effects).
EDIT: and yes, for most people 8 gigs is enough. For editors with modern tools it's never enough (it won't help in older 32 bit FCP's or Adobe Suite's though), and for vmachine-users it also helps.
Last edited:
I agree with you
More important, 8GB would have a higher performance.
There are 8GB 1600MHz CL9 upgrades available, but still no 16GB 1600MHz CL9.
16GB: a lower bandwidth (1333MHz) or a higher CAS latency (CL10 or CL11), compared to 8GB.
remember, i already have 8gb of ram. im trying to decide on whether i should upgrade.
Ah yes, 8088 processors, 10 mb hard drives, 5.25 floppys, MS-DOS, The good old days !
I just put in 16 gb in my late 2011 mbp and couldn't be happier. It might be overkill but for the price who cares. If you going to replace your ram, why not just do it once and get it over with.
That's not entirely accurate... there is an indirect relationship. When you've used up all available RAM, your system relies on virtual memory, which is much slower than RAM (especially if you have a 5400rpm hard drive). This causes programs to have to wait longer for any given task and processes will start to stack up; this causes the processor to work harder. Your fans would absolutely kick on in such an instance.
Here, for all the reasons already named (4 video tabs simultaneously? Really?!), I don't think that's the culprit. Fun to think about all the same.
You can get it pretty easily for less than $80 now. For example, on Amazon (Corsair 16 GB RAM). You can get it even cheaper if you go with a no-name brand (this one's $57).
I bet you could get a $50 deal somewhere if you looked, or wait until Black Friday or some sale.
EDIT:
I just realized that this thread was bumped from June. Note that RAM prices have fallen significantly since then, and that is why you can get RAM cheaply now.
Elijen, please refrain from needlessly bumping old threads as situations such as this may happen.
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
ram is cheaper now, but you could easily wait til black friday for a sale on 16 gigs. if not some time into 2013