Dammit here we go again...512 or 768?

[neoelectronaut]

My girlfriend, who is getting an iBook, is, well, not very much of a techie. Honestly, she probably won't notice that 256MB of RAM isn't enough for OS X, but I'd like to help her out anyway.

Would 512MB be fine? Or should I go ahead and get her a 512MB strip to boost her up to 768MB of ram?

Gah.

 

[bousozoku]

I consider 512MB a minimum and acceptable for things like web browsing, checking e-mail, word processing, printing, and low resolution scanning.

Anything else should require more memory.

 

[neoelectronaut]

Yikes. Minimum for web browsing? She's gonna kill me if she gets the thing and it's stupid slow. She'll be saying "I should've gotten a Dell!" or some ****.

Dammit.

 

[FredAkbar]

Well, I dunno about that, I would say 256 is the "minimum" and 512 or more is "recommended." But if you don't mind shelling out twice as much cash (buying a 512 instead of a 256 MB chip), then I would say go for 768 MB. That's what I have on my iMac, and I've never really needed any more than that except when I run things like VPC, back when I tried to run Win2k or XP with it, which need as much RAM as possible, like OS X. But yeah may as well go with 768 total, you won't regret it. Though I don't think 512 would be "slow."

 

[neoelectronaut]

Well see that's the thing. I ordered my eMac here with 512MB preinstalled, and then a friend of mine gave me a 256MB module I stuck in about a week after I got it.

So I've been running at 768 for pretty much the entire time I've had my computer, and I don't remember there being any serious problems with 512MB.

256MB ram for the iBook is around $45 while 512MB is about $90-ish. I'd like to get her the 512, but if I can save have of that amount, I'd like too. Paying $90 doesn't hurt nearly as much as $45...

So I was just wondering if 512 was just as good as 768 or not.

 

[Zaty]

I guess it depends on how many apps she will use concurrently. From my experience, (I usually have several apps running. i.e. Safari, Mail, iCal, Word, Excel, iTunes), my systems easily uses 512+ MB. So I'm glad I upgraded to 768.

 

[jtgotsjets]

I'm on an iBook with 512 and I'm fine.

I often have at least safari and ichat running, a lot of times itunes too, plus a lot of address book.

i also leave them running when playing games (not high performance, mainly starcraft and stepmania, but still games) and notice no lag. the only times i notice lag are in ichat when i switch to a window and type a lot very quickly and send it all in shor tperiods of time.

but really, 512 should be fast enough.

if you want to keep her from whining about getting a dell or something due to lag, find a 5 year old dell, claim that its top of the line, and show her the difference.