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4 or 8 GB RAM?
- Thread starter Capex
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What are you using it for? 4GB IMHO is the lowest amount you should have in a computer...2 is minimum required, but really low, especially with Lion.
If you are using it as a personal computer (mail, web, videos, etc) than 4GB is fine. If you are doing anything more with it than 8GB would be a much better option. My Mac Pro has 10GB ram and my Mac Mini has 8GB ram. My MacBook Air has 4GB and I find I have less than 1GB free at all times....which means 2GB would have been massively annoying, while 4 is perfect!
I tend to do some gaming, light photo editing, the occasional movie edit, and web surfing etc.
Sounds like 4 gb would work?
yeah you should be good with 4GB. I only got 8GB on my Mac Mini because I was using it as a DVR.
4gb should be enough but if you have the money then why not go with the 8gb! If you intend on using the mac you're talking about for a while that is
Yeah...it means you need more RAM
Seriously though.....2GB is just not enough these days. 4 is a bare minimum.....but I always say, more RAM the better. So if you can swing 8GB, you'll be golden....but 4GB should do just fine.
-Kevin
Yeah...it means you need more RAM
Seriously though.....2GB is just not enough these days. 4 is a bare minimum.....but I always say, more RAM the better. So if you can swing 8GB, you'll be golden....but 4GB should do just fine.
-Kevin
Thanks so much. I am ordering 8 gb right now from OWC... So much cheaper than Apple. Thanks again!
As long as your Mac can take 8GB...go for it. The price difference probably isn't that big between 4GB and 8GB anyway right?
OWC is great to deal with as well....get all my RAM from them.
-Kevin
I did their little product selector that shows which RAM you can buy, so it should be compatible!
Congrats on your RAM purchase!
You might want to run the Extended version of the Apple Hardware Diagnostics (usually comes on the second CD with your Mac, the disc says you need to press Cmd-D on boot) after installing it. I bought 8GB at the start of this year for my MBP, then every so often (once a fortnight) started getting segfaults in apps and, once or twice, a kernel panic.
Turned out one damn address in that 8GB was bad
You might want to run the Extended version of the Apple Hardware Diagnostics (usually comes on the second CD with your Mac, the disc says you need to press Cmd-D on boot) after installing it. I bought 8GB at the start of this year for my MBP, then every so often (once a fortnight) started getting segfaults in apps and, once or twice, a kernel panic.
Turned out one damn address in that 8GB was bad
Congrats on your RAM purchase!
You might want to run the Extended version of the Apple Hardware Diagnostics (usually comes on the second CD with your Mac, the disc says you need to press Cmd-D on boot) after installing it. I bought 8GB at the start of this year for my MBP, then every so often (once a fortnight) started getting segfaults in apps and, once or twice, a kernel panic.
Turned out one damn address in that 8GB was bad
Personally, I think the Apple Hardware test is junk. I've had failing RAM that the AHT passed
If you really want to stress your RAM to make sure every bit is used and tested.....I've used rember in the past:
http://kelleycomputing.net/rember/
You basically set it and let it run a few hours......it everything comes back ok...the RAM should be good.
It hasn't been updated in a while (not sure if it works under Lion), but it's worked well for me in the past.
There is also diglloydTools....but it's not free.
http://diglloydtools.com/
-Kevin
8GB of Ram (or even 4) is not going to cause any additional problems. I have 4GB and these are the stats I get:-
OSX just uses RAM in a 'strange' way, it uses all the available RAM thats available. The only time you need more RAM is when the Page Outs increase to a larger percentage of the Page In's.
Take a look here for more info about OSX RAM usage. In particular:-
More RAM will only fully benefit you when you have a lot of Page Outs.
This particular picture does not give any indication you don't have enough memory for what you do, however what this picture does not say is how much typical use the machine has had since its last boot. In general, if page out < %50 of page in, you are ok, if page out > 50% page in, you want more memory.
That said, you were right in that for Lion you would want to have more and 8G really is the way to go especially considering how cheap it is at the moment. It'll make your computer very happy, which in turn will make you very happy.
Considering you can get a 8 gig ram kit for about $40 lately, why not just go 8 for the hell of it?
I concur, Me and throttlemeister were just highlighting that the OP does not need more RAM. However it's not going to harm having more.
