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Can You survive on 2gb of Ram?
- Thread starter van2010rulz
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I have an older 2 GB MB with the slow integrated Intel graphics and it is just fine running everything except for some kids' games and Virtual Machines. OpenOffice and MS Office both work fine, as do every browser.
The 2 GB MBP I had was also fine except for a couple of the games and VMs.
4 GB is enough to run FreeBSD or Linux under Parallels, but, not Windows 7. The only applications that I have used that need more than 4 GB are the Final Cut apps and Adobe pro apps (e.g. PhotoShop).
Personally, I would go with the 13" MBP -- it may be the same price on sale as the MB and has FW. I back up to FW and it is significantly faster than via USB2.0, as I had a chance to test when a FW cable got damaged and I backed up via USB to the same drive for a little while. I also find that I do prefer backlit keys on laptops. Let you sit outside on a balcony or deck on a hot night, etc.
For along time i have been going back and forth with this. 2 vs 4. Yes i have looked at Refurbished MBP and know i think im going to get one because of four reasons. 1. the 4gb of ram will help me in the long run. 2. That backlit keyboard would be great for late nights. 3. The case looks really good. 4. With the Ram costing $100 and i get firewire, sd card slot, backlit keyboard, and the unibody casing. Thats worth $100 too me!
Thanks to all of you who have responded.
-Van2010rulz
Thanks to all of you who have responded.
-Van2010rulz
Ah, the good old days! I remember when I did my first ever upgrade from 2mb to 4mb and I thought I was big stuff! How far we've come!
I've got windows ram hog 7 64bit the only thing I got license for lol the university gives each student 8 licenses
for windoze 7 proedit: my first pc had 100mg hdd and 4mb ram and that was a LOT, now my punny cellphone has 128mb of ram and i can play mega drive games on it xD
Up until about 2 months ago my 2008 3.06ghz iMac (10.5.8) was running on stock 2GB of RAM. With that, I successfully ran Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop on large and complex projects on a daily basis and felt relatively few slowdowns, and did my fair share of video editing on After Effects and some 3D work on Maya with equally positive results. OSX handles its RAM usage rather well. If you're not using your computer for professional applications, I would be hard pressed to believe that a correctly set-up and maintained system could feel any bogging with 2GB of RAM. You'd have to go out of your way to make the machine sweat with just web browsing, itunes, and some non-demanding photo editing.
I will say though that upgrading to 4GB the other month has really made running multiple highly demanding applications a lot smoother. But for 95% of the people buying Apple products, anything above 2GB (in my opinion, at least) is nothing more than a luxury purchase and possibly superfluous.
I will say though that upgrading to 4GB the other month has really made running multiple highly demanding applications a lot smoother. But for 95% of the people buying Apple products, anything above 2GB (in my opinion, at least) is nothing more than a luxury purchase and possibly superfluous.
My MacBook came with 2 GB. It runs fine for multitasking, such as accessing the internet, listening to music, running an email app and having an office suite in the background.
I do web design work every once in a while and find that with just OS X running by itself, running Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 and Adobe Photoshop CS5, that my system becomes quite slow.
2 GB ram should be fine for most users, however if you're possibly going to do lots of media work, I would suggest upgrading to 4 GB.
I agree, Apple's prices are ridiculous for ram, perhaps you can find cheaper ram elsewhere.
I do web design work every once in a while and find that with just OS X running by itself, running Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 and Adobe Photoshop CS5, that my system becomes quite slow.
2 GB ram should be fine for most users, however if you're possibly going to do lots of media work, I would suggest upgrading to 4 GB.
I agree, Apple's prices are ridiculous for ram, perhaps you can find cheaper ram elsewhere.
2gb is fine for most. I got my 13" with 2gb and upgraded to 4gb later on - there wasn't a huge difference between the two. The upgrade is cheap to do yourself later on if you feel you need it
EDIT: see that you found a good deal on the 13" mbprefurb - if you can get the mbp for close to the same price definitely do that
EDIT: see that you found a good deal on the 13" mbprefurb - if you can get the mbp for close to the same price definitely do that
2GB is fine for what you said you're planning to do with the computer. As long as you're not editing in iMovie as well as having several other programs open as well, it shouldn't lock up or freeze. I use my MacBook for more or less the same kind of things and it isn't a problem for me.
Wow I never thought I would get more responses on this topic. I am really going to have to think abut this though. But by all means keep the responses coming!
I'm still quite happy with a 16MHz processor, 4MB ram, and a 40MB hard drive.
Aside from that, 2GB is absolutely fine - even using Windows and Parallels. The 4GB is a luxury on the macbook that you'll notice when running multiple bits of heavy software at once - you'd notice a difference working on Office at the same time as eg Photoshop. Add in Parrallels with Safari also having loads of pages loaded (especially flash these days) all at the same time and you might feel you need more than 2GB.
But if you can afford it, I agree the refurbished MBP is a better option for the long term. Never upgrade your ram with apple by the way - you can get it for a fraction of the price after buying the computer and also seeing if you actually need it - it's simplez to install yourself.
I have to agree that the Ram that Apple sells is way too over priced. I have looked online and could get the 4gb for around $80. The Hard Drives that Apple sells are also way too over priced. $100 for an extra 70gb. I could get a 750gb for that price! Yes i think im going to go with this Refurbished MBP.
http://store.apple.com/ca/product/FC374LL/A?mco=MTgwOTc3Mjg
http://store.apple.com/ca/product/FC374LL/A?mco=MTgwOTc3Mjg
FYI: Saw a brand new one (not refurb) on amazon for $60 extra:
http://www.amazon.com/Apple-MacBook...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1278541032&sr=8-1
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
I think i would rather go through Apple if i were to buy online but thanks very much.
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Do you live near a Micro Center? They've got the $1199 regularly priced MacBook Pro for $999 through July 18th...
MacBook Pro MC374LL/A
SKU 656306
Mfr Part #: MC374LL/A
UPC: 885909358878
* Intel® Core 2 Duo Processor 2.4GHz
* 4GB DDR3-1066 SDRAM
* 250GB 5,400RPM Hard Drive
* 8x SuperDrive
* NVIDIA GeForce 320M
* 10/100/1000 Network
* AirPort Extreme 802.11n Wireless Network
* Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
* 13.3" Widescreen Display
* Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
* Silver
I've actually been able to get away with using 2gb. I'll be running Logic (multiple tracks, lots of Waves plug-ins), Firefox, and iTunes at the same time without anything crashing. Would I like 4gigs? Sure. But 2 is still passable for pretty heavy duty multitasking.
