Looking to upgrade my ram from a 2 gigs to 4 gigs. Was wondering if it would make a noticeable difference. I dont do anything graphic heavy. I only use the laptop for one or two games (sims 3, roller coaster tycoon) and alot of youtube and web surfing. Would upgrading to two gigs be beneficial for me?
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Increase in Ram Difference?
- Thread starter theturtle
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celticpride678
Guest
It would make the computer faster and be able to handle things better. If you have Windows in a virtual machine, I would recommend it all the way. But if not, it is your call. Is the computer fulfilling your needs right now?
so would the speed be noticable? and would it allow me to run my games smoother or would i not be able to tell the difference?
neilhart
macrumors 6502
Use Activity Monitor
You can launch Activity Monitor and view the memory used as you run the applications that you would normally have running at one time. If you still have free memory then adding more is not going to help you. Most casual users do not need 4GB of memory. However if you are one that never closes an app and keeps opening more tabs in a broswer, then more RAM is better.
Neil
You can launch Activity Monitor and view the memory used as you run the applications that you would normally have running at one time. If you still have free memory then adding more is not going to help you. Most casual users do not need 4GB of memory. However if you are one that never closes an app and keeps opening more tabs in a broswer, then more RAM is better.
Neil
belvdr
macrumors 603
Where's the definitive evidence? I don't believe either of those games are RAM hungry. Actually, almost all games are more graphic bound than RAM.
You need me to point out definitive evidence that added RAM will increase performance?
NC MacGuy
macrumors 603
I don't do much gaming beyond Sudoku's.😱
But I can say that if you have a 13" or newer 15" with or without dual graphics you already are down 256MB if not using the 9600. If I open Safari, iTunes, Word, Preview and iPhoto I'll definitely notice a slowdown w. 2GB RAM. I keep flushing the cache in Safari and keep watching the RAM usage or things really slow down. Added 2GB more and no problem.
But I can say that if you have a 13" or newer 15" with or without dual graphics you already are down 256MB if not using the 9600. If I open Safari, iTunes, Word, Preview and iPhoto I'll definitely notice a slowdown w. 2GB RAM. I keep flushing the cache in Safari and keep watching the RAM usage or things really slow down. Added 2GB more and no problem.
belvdr
macrumors 603
Yes. 2GB is plentiful for any normal user. You're saying increasing from 2GB to 4GB will yield a definitive performance increase, especially with gaming. I have never seen definitive proof that the OP's games or general computer usage will see any noticeable performance gains going from 2GB to 4GB. Just adding RAM to a system does not automatically mean the performance will increase.
While a nice program, iPhoto is a memory hog in and of itself, especially with a lot of photos. Whatever your RAM usage is, you cannot go by free memory in Unix. Keep that in mind.
That said, I didn't see that in the list of choices by the OP. My advice to the OP is that if you notice a slowdown and memory usage is high, then get additional RAM. Otherwise, don't worry about it.
shambo
macrumors 6502a
belvdr
macrumors 603
Which system do you have?
I think he means where can he buy it for $50 shipped.
we need more information to recommend ram. what model do you have and what country are you in? if you are in the us go to newegg.com for ram. ddr2 is less than $50 ddr3 about $65
US. Running a 13' mbp. All i hear about is crucial. if there is another 4gb ram company that is just as good but cheaper, please share! haha 😛
Ummm, actually, like most Unix OS's, adding RAM will pretty much improve general performance. Mainly because more RAM is available to the file system cache. Also, it's much less frequent that the OS has to reclaim memory from the cache or "dirty" memory that's no longer in use. All of those operations take CPU cycles, context switches, etc.
It also improves performance in allowing more applications to run without paging memory out to swap which resides on the physical hard drive.
Though I take all benchmarks cun grano salis:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/apple/memory/Macbook_Memory_Benchmarks
Finally, as one who runs a lot of apps and VM's, the more RAM the better. More people are doing that these days, and considering the rather low price of RAM, going to 4gb just makes a hell of a lot of sense. (Actually, I'm up to 6gb in my MBP).
Finally, as a Unix engineer who spends a lot of time dealing with performance issues, it's true that for any given specific problem, throwing more hardware at it may not fix the problem. But it's also generically true that more RAM is much more likely to help performance. Mind you, CPU, GPU and Hard Drive all come into play.
