I'm considering upgrading my early 2011 15" MBP from 4 to 16 G of RAM. Aside from an outlay of $, what impacts can I expect?
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16Gh RAM impact?
- Thread starter Keukasmallie
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simsaladimbamba
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Better multi tasking (more open documents or applications) without slowdowns and the spinning beach ball.
Open Activity Monitor after a day of typical use and go to the System Memory* tab and look for Page Outs and Swap used and report back.
That way, you can determine, if you can profit from more RAM and if 16 GB (not Gh) of RAM might or might not be overkill.
Open Activity Monitor after a day of typical use and go to the System Memory* tab and look for Page Outs and Swap used and report back.
That way, you can determine, if you can profit from more RAM and if 16 GB (not Gh) of RAM might or might not be overkill.
I just made an upgrade from to 8 to 16GB. You'll theoretically see higher power usage, but I couldn't quantify any difference in my experience.
The biggest thing I think you should be aware of, that I ran into, is that your hibernation and pagefile (at least in windows, not sure about OSX) will grow to 16GB each. 32GB of disk space can be quite the shocker, especially if you are running on an SSD with limited space like I am. In order to resolve this I disabled hibernation and reduced the size of the page file (in Windows).
The biggest thing I think you should be aware of, that I ran into, is that your hibernation and pagefile (at least in windows, not sure about OSX) will grow to 16GB each. 32GB of disk space can be quite the shocker, especially if you are running on an SSD with limited space like I am. In order to resolve this I disabled hibernation and reduced the size of the page file (in Windows).
I read somewhere that Macbook Pros that can take up to 16 GB (such as the early 2011 model) can physically take 16GB, and the computer will recognize that it is there, but will only actually utilize 8GB. Any one know if there's any truth to that?
simsaladimbamba
Guest
Can I ask something along these lines that's been bothering me?
I have heard, and I am not even sure if it is accurate (hence the question) that if you have 2 identical machines, like 2 rmbp and the only difference in specs is the amount of ram (say 8gb and 16 gb for our example), then the machine with more ram will use more RAM for the exact same applications.
For example if we open both machines and we open the same applications as well, then the 16GB ram macbook pro will be using a bit more ram than the 8gb model.
Is this true in any sense? And if it is, what is the reasoning behind it?
I have heard, and I am not even sure if it is accurate (hence the question) that if you have 2 identical machines, like 2 rmbp and the only difference in specs is the amount of ram (say 8gb and 16 gb for our example), then the machine with more ram will use more RAM for the exact same applications.
For example if we open both machines and we open the same applications as well, then the 16GB ram macbook pro will be using a bit more ram than the 8gb model.
Is this true in any sense? And if it is, what is the reasoning behind it?
yusukeaoki
macrumors 68030
2011 2.2GHz MacBook Pro and up can take 32GB DDR3.
However, no such module exist yet.
And no, 16GB works fine on 2011 models...
Nope. Always consider the source. I have read and heard plenty that just isn't true. Everymac is a reliable source.
The impact from 4gb to 8Gb can be felt but only during multi tasking when your running multiple apps or using multiple tabs in Chrome.
When I went from 4 to 8 I noticed that i could do more without any bog downs.
But when I went from 8 to 16 I dont notice it at all because I do nothing that gets even closer to 16GB of ram usuage.
Ram is not the type of upgrade you feel all the time. Its not like an SSD or CPU upgrade which you can feel as soon as you boot up but rather it just adds the ability to do more things at once without issues.
I like having 16Gb in my MBP, but Im a nerd and like everything Maxed on my laptop BUT the biggest upgrade I made was adding a Solid State Drive to the machine. Thats where you can truly feel the upgrade.
When I went from 4 to 8 I noticed that i could do more without any bog downs.
But when I went from 8 to 16 I dont notice it at all because I do nothing that gets even closer to 16GB of ram usuage.
Ram is not the type of upgrade you feel all the time. Its not like an SSD or CPU upgrade which you can feel as soon as you boot up but rather it just adds the ability to do more things at once without issues.
I like having 16Gb in my MBP, but Im a nerd and like everything Maxed on my laptop BUT the biggest upgrade I made was adding a Solid State Drive to the machine. Thats where you can truly feel the upgrade.