It implies exactly the opposite: you do not understand what you're seeing in Activity Monitor or in Unix in general. I have run over 40 Oracle databases connected to various SANs on one machine with 32GB of memory as the Unix admin and DBA. I don't see how OS X would be much different than that so why don't you elaborate on it more?
I would check
here first.
You specifically said:
"Yeah, 4GB is barely enough for itunes, mail, and safari."
Those 3 applications will not consume anywhere near 4GB of RAM.
Activity Monitor has nothing to do with it. OS X will scale it's cache and RAM usage per application in different environments. So all Activity Monitor is going to show you is what's happening within the current environment. The more RAM you give to OSX the more efficient and faster it and the applications behave. All I meant was that ignorance of this fact might lead someone to believe that 2 or 4 GB was "overkill" when in fact it's actually not enough.
After a few hours of browsing and with 8 or 10 tabs open my Safari can easily use 6GB and occasionally hits the 8GB mark. This is in a 12GB system. In a 4GB system which I also operated, Safari alone (in combination the OS X's caching for it specifically) can use 95% of the available RAM and start to produce page-outs 30min or an hour into an aggressive session of surfing.
My iTunes is similar but less dynamic. With only 50,000 songs it wants about 2GB to 3GB to operate smoothly through all operations (searches, group renaming, sorting, subscribing, etc.). And all my songs are MP3s at between 160 and 320 Kb/s - so rather small.
We're already up to 8GB just with those two. Something like PhotoShop can use up 95% of your RAM no matter how much you have installed. Of course there's a trade-off between how much you're willing to spend on memory and how much lag you're willing to put up with. 4GB isn't too bad but as I said before - just barely cuts it with the specified applications. 2GB is pretty ridiculous and with just those apps running, will make your $3000 dollar machine feel like a $500 PC. So, it's worth it to me and should be to most folks, to spend $160 on an 8GB upgrade kit that will allow you to enjoy your $3000 machine as it was intended. Otherwise, buy a mini and use it - that's what they're for and you won't be paying $2200 more for the
SAME experience. See?
I run those on my Dell Mini ...
What does that have to with anything being discussed? Different machine, different platform, doesn't really apply.
Right. That's what I said before. I was trying to show you or tell you why.
It seems more likely that you like having a large amount of RAM for bragging rights.
Naw, Although I did mention that I had 12GB I don't think that's enough to brag about. Maybe 64GB or 128GB would be tho. 16GB is extremely common now. 8GB more-so. 16GB new only costs about $320 - really nothing to brag about.
If that's the case, so be it; there's nothing wrong with that. But, making statements such as your own that simply aren't true is not the way to do it.
I think they're not true for you because you haven't tried it. So you have nothing to compare with. That was the real intent of my post. Not to look like some idiot-savant or brag about my system; but rather to offer you and others reading on a real comparison in testimonial form which can be backed up with documented facts about the system we're talking about here: OS X, Mac Pro.
EDIT: It appears I went off on a rant here. My apologies; that was not intended, but I just cannot see the justification in your statements.
Eh, NP. I do the same thing sometimes. I used to believe strongly that if my counter-questioning wasn't at least a little provocative then the questions or concerns wouldn't get addressed as thoroughly. I still believe that but just a lot less strongly.
I think it will depend on the amount of your data and not solely on the applications themselves.
My Mail database is 2.5GB with 20,000+ emails gathered over the last 15 years (including lots of emails with images) and Mail is dreadfully slow on my machine.
My iTunes database holds 9,000+ songs and is 240GB (all in Apple Lossless) and it is also dreadfully slow.
Safari 4 with 10+ tabs, each showing some Flash animations in ads and such is really not that fast either.
Those 3 would easily fill up 2GB of working RAM, no?
4GB would definitely seem better in my case.
Yup, another perfect example and case-in-point.. And 8GB added to the system would be even better! Trust me. (famous last words
) It's so cheap now there's really no reason why not to. $160 ~ $170 is the going rate for 4x2GB sticks. Well worth it in my experienced opinion!
