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Blackbook: 2 GB or 4 GB?

blairh

blairh

macrumors 603
Original poster
Dec 11, 2007
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5,097
Contemplating purchasing the 2.2ghz, 160 GB blackbook.

Wanted to upgrade the RAM (from a third party vendor, of course). Is it worth shooting up to 4GB instead of 2GB? Will I notice the difference between 4 vs. 2?
 
I'm in the same situation myself. All I really use it for is school, chatting, and misc things. However, I do use iPhoto to manage all my photo and minor editing.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; IEMobile 6.12) Sprint:pPC6800)

the price difference is nominal, and the speed increase is significant. the 2.2 can address all 4 gigs (as opposed to preSR @ 3.3) so why not?
 
The price of getting the 3rd party RAM is so cheap. So buy your standard config. macbook, and when you hav emoney and don't know wut to buy go upgrade your RAM.
 
I just got the refurb black 2.2GHZ MacBook last week- the week before that 4 GB of ram was waiting here patiently for it..For the cost it really is a no brainer if you can afford it.. While you may not need 4GB for the tasks you mention, OSX could certainly make use of 2GB with that.. For a couple bucks more you can keep the OS running right along..

I have 2.5GB in my iMac G5 and just today I noticed I had 20 Page outs.. The machine was running Excel, iTunes, video chatting, mail, and safari.. Nothing too intensive, but enough that the OS found ways to utilize all that Ram and could have possibly found use for even a little more it appears.. Sure, it would have been fine with 1GB probably, but if you give it more it will make use of it and that's a good thing..
 
I put 4gig in myself and so far the only thing I notice is that OS X uses more memory... MenuMeters used to report 500-600 uses and 1100 free now it reports 850 used and 3200 free. And then the used gobbles memory up to the 1400+ range and I reboot. I guess I can now have more programs open and that is cool... Firefox eats memory like there is no tomorrow. Which for some reason it only does on my MB. I do not see this happening on my iMac. I use firefox exclusively on the iMac and Safari on the MB. Go figure. I guess that makes me a Mac nut.:D
 
Really depends on what type of work you are doing on the computer.

Hardcore video/photo editing -> 4gb
Casual surfing, bit of photo/vid editing, ms office ->2gb
 
go for 4, the only reason i got two is because bestbuy had a sale during boxing day and i paid 23 bucks a gig so it seemed quite good at the time, so i am staying with that untill i find some extra money :p
 
I'd recommend going to 4 GB. Recently, I purchased a new black MacBook (2.4 GHz) and I tried it out with the 2 GB RAM, but that lasted a whole 30 minutes. LOL

OWC has SAMSUNG 2 GB modules that are matched - I got these for $149.00. SAMSUNG RAM is always more expensive than other companies' RAM.

The more RAM you have in a notebook, the less your hard drive is being read constantly. Also, because of this your battery life should be better.
 
thanks for this guys. i'm going for 4 gb's. the price difference is small, and in the end, there really is no down side to maxing out your ram at such a small price.

thanks!
 
a word of advice - Wait to see what your refurb comes with. I just bought a 2.2 blackbook, and had planned to max it out at 4 GB. But I had heard that sometimes refurbs came with "extras," and sure enough, my macbook arrived with 2 GB. I'm sticking with that because even though the price difference between going from 1 GB to either 2 or 4 is not that much, since I got to 2 for free, the price difference between 2 and 4 is now much greater.
 
buy it with the 2gb. when you get it, go find 4gb on the net somewhere (crucial, newegg, etc.). more ram = more better....i always say.
 
It's a worthwhile upgrade.

My 2.2 SR with 2GB of ram ends up using most of my ram when I have Logic Pro running, so 4GB is definitely a necessity if you're doing anything music or graphic intensive.
 
Another vote for 4GB. I'm using VMWare and do minor video editing and converting and I've seen available memory reach down to almost zero from time to time.

If you get 2GB, you'll always wonder if 4GB will solve some issues, but if you get 4GB, there'll be no look-back.
 
blair.harringto said:
Contemplating purchasing the 2.2ghz, 160 GB blackbook.

Wanted to upgrade the RAM (from a third party vendor, of course). Is it worth shooting up to 4GB instead of 2GB? Will I notice the difference between 4 vs. 2?
Click to expand...

What do you plan on doing with the machine? If you're just surfing the net, word processing, playing music, you probably won't notice the difference.
 
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