how much better is 2gb in a powerbook

[Sic]

i might have found some extra money to get an extra gig of ram for my new PB...is it really worth it....obviously i'll notice the difference, but is it like...waaaaay better?

 

[crazydreaming]

Well, I have 1.5 in my 15" PB (see sig) and compared to the 512mb standard... it's like having a whole different machine. OS X will eat as much ram as you give it from what I understand. I have not run into a situation now where I feel I need more ram.

 

[JDOG_]

Not really for the price I'd think. 1.5 should be plenty. As crazydreaming said though, the more the merrier in Mac RAMland. 😀

 

[Veritas&Equitas]

I agree, 1.5 gb in my Powerbook works just fine.

 

[deanwaterman]

i might have found some extra money to get an extra gig of ram for my new PB...is it really worth it....obviously i'll notice the difference, but is it like...waaaaay better?

From my understanding, when you put memory in you have to do it in pairs... is this true? I checked with Crucial about my new PB (latest revision) and then suggest one 512MB to go with the 512 I have, to total 1 GB, or I have to go with two 1 Gig memory units for a total of 2 Gig. At a price of $275 this does not seem bad. But can you throw a 1 Gig unit in along with the 512 in there? I might be wrong, and Crucial might be wrong... I don't know what Apple says yet.

 

[jaduffy108]

The obvious answer is...

i might have found some extra money to get an extra gig of ram for my new PB...is it really worth it....obviously i'll notice the difference, but is it like...waaaaay better?

it depends...
In general, OSX is very RAM hungry...and... if you do any multimedia work like Photoshop, After Effects(!), etc...then the extra RAM will help a LOT. If you just surf the net and use Word (for example)...1 gb is plenty. Good luck...

 

[dubbz]

From my understanding, when you put memory in you have to do it in pairs... is this true?

Not with Powerbooks.

 

[hayduke]

Impossible to answer...

Unless you tell us what your RAM requirements are its impossible to say how much you need. I currently have 20 applications open and everything is running smoothly, while only engaging 1Gb "actively" When I return to my simulation work, I will initialize variables that are >100Mb. So, then I'll need more RAM and thankfully I have 2Gb.

My point is that you should use the Activity Monitor to determine how much RAM you are using during normal operation and do some thinking to figure out how much more you need to perform task more quickly if/when your RAM is maxed out.

If you only ever have Mail and Safari open, you shouldn't need more than 1Gb. If you are getting into heavy movie and photo manipulation then more RAM can help, but only if your current RAM is being used.

 

[Sic]

i guess you've answered my question already...thanks. but, just fyi...i'll be running, at any one time, up to:

photoshop cs2 (up to maybe 30 RAW photos at once)
dreamweaver studio8 (up to like 20 windows at once)
thunderbird
azureus
dashboard
itunes
MSN
camino
transmit
ical
aperture, when it's released....oh i cant wait 😀

 

[Veritas&Equitas]

If you're going to be running AP CS with at least 30 RAW photos at once, in addition to make iTunes and some other programs, you are going to need as much memory as you can get. That stuff is usually pretty RAM intensive...you'll need at a minimum 1.5 gbs IMO to run all of that somewhat smoothly...