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Another upgrade wirth it?

B

bigaudiofanatic

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 17, 2008
130
0
So recently I upgrade my HD to a 250gb one now I am thinking of upgrading the memory from 1 gig to 2. Should I expect much improvement from the performance or would it be a waste of money?
Again it is a powerbook g4.
 
1GB is a bit too little these days.
RAM isn't too expensive, so if you plan to use the G4 some before scrapping it i'd upgrade it
 
cluthz said:
1GB is a bit too little these days.
RAM isn't too expensive, so if you plan to use the G4 some before scrapping it i'd upgrade it
Click to expand...

Ya I want it to last me another 2 years but I think that is asking a lot out of it. As soon as my money situation gets better I will be getting a new one. I just had to upgrade the HD because of all my music.

Were is a good place to buy ram cheap for my laptop?
 
Can't help with the RAM but it's certainly refreshing to see somebody trying to keep a good machine going rather than constantly spending truckloads of cash just to always have the latest Apple offering.
 
Richard1028 said:
Can't help with the RAM but it's certainly refreshing to see somebody trying to keep a good machine going rather than constantly spending truckloads of cash just to always have the latest Apple offering.
Click to expand...

Thanks man, ya she just keeps on trucking along and works well. Just wanted to see if I could speed her up a tad. I will tell you what if she died tomorrow I would not be mad at all. It has lasted me 5 years with no trouble.
 
I have had great success with Tigerdirect.com but that is probably because I am at an APO address right now, but I got it quickly...

newegg.com is also a good spot to buy computer products.:apple:
 
bigaudiofanatic said:
So recently I upgrade my HD to a 250gb one now I am thinking of upgrading the memory from 1 gig to 2. Should I expect much improvement from the performance or would it be a waste of money?
Click to expand...
I've noticed that there seems to be a bit of misconception about RAM and its performance boosting powers. If you don't max out your current RAM usage regularly then you will most likely not see any benefits. For example, I recently upgraded from 2 gigs to 4 gigs and really only notice the difference when I use Photoshop or other RAM hungry applications. A quick way to keep track of RAM usage is to open up Activity Monitor. What RAM doesn't do is give you a faster CPU which some people seem to think.
 
EndlessMac said:
I've noticed that there seems to be a bit of misconception about RAM and its performance boosting powers. If you don't max out your current RAM usage regularly then you will most likely not see any benefits. For example, I recently upgraded from 2 gigs to 4 gigs and really only notice the difference when I use Photoshop or other RAM hungry applications. A quick way to keep track of RAM usage is to open up Activity Monitor. What RAM doesn't do is give you a faster CPU which some people seem to think.
Click to expand...

I already have that utility my cpu maxes out when I am burning disks and such I have really never looked at the memory part. I have notice sense the new version of itunes and over 94 new albums added itunes seems to have slowed down and does not glide when scrolling threw. That is one reason I was thinking about ram.
 
EndlessMac said:
I've noticed that there seems to be a bit of misconception about RAM and its performance boosting powers. If you don't max out your current RAM usage regularly then you will most likely not see any benefits. For example, I recently upgraded from 2 gigs to 4 gigs and really only notice the difference when I use Photoshop or other RAM hungry applications. A quick way to keep track of RAM usage is to open up Activity Monitor. What RAM doesn't do is give you a faster CPU which some people seem to think.
Click to expand...

bigaudiofanatic said:
I already have that utility my cpu maxes out when I am burning disks and such I have really never looked at the memory part. I have notice sense the new version of itunes and over 94 new albums added itunes seems to have slowed down and does not glide when scrolling threw. That is one reason I was thinking about ram.
Click to expand...

The best way to tell is not just look at the memory tab of the performance monitor, but look at the page in to page out ratio. You want the page outs to be as low as possible in ration compared to the page ins. How do yours look after regular use?
 
Just ran a few tests, the memory drops down to 65 MB free while watching a tv show in itunes. :eek:
 
Sounds good this paycheck I will take some out for 2gigs of ram. Unless someone has some laying around. :p:apple:
 
clyde2801 said:
No, DDR3 will not work in a DDR2 machine. Seriously though, DDR2 is cheap; at least the last time I checked.
Click to expand...

DDR2 won't work in a DDR machine either.
MY last generation Powerbook had PC2700 DDR ram.

Which version of the G4 do you have?
 
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