Increasing RAM - will I see a difference

[lalanda]

Hi,

I have a 17" 2010 MBP with the standard 4 GBs of RAM.

I'm interested in upgrading the RAM to 8GBs because I'd like the computer to be at its optimum and I'm jealous of the 2011 MBPs.

However, will I actually notice the difference? I don't do anything graphics intense (photoshop, video editing, etc.) but I do have many programs open at once and switch between them.

Activity monitor tells me this during average use:

Free: 83MB
Wired: 779MB
Active: 2.19 GB
Inactive 864MB

Used 3.79 of 3.88

I see I have some free RAM there, so would the computer even get to using the extra 4GB?

If I did see a difference, where would I see it? Application launching? Web page loading? Etc.

Thanks.

 

[ECUpirate44]

Hi,

I have a 17" 2010 MBP with the standard 4 GBs of RAM.

I'm interested in upgrading the RAM to 8GBs because I'd like the computer to be at its optimum and I'm jealous of the 2011 MBPs.

However, will I actually notice the difference? I don't do anything graphics intense (photoshop, video editing, etc.) but I do have many programs open at once and switch between them.

Activity monitor tells me this during average use:

Free: 83MB
Wired: 779MB
Active: 2.19 GB
Inactive 864MB

Used 3.79 of 3.88

I see I have some free RAM there, so would the computer even get to using the extra 4GB?

If I did see a difference, where would I see it? Application launching? Web page loading? Etc.

Thanks.

Most likely no. If you were encoding video, on the webcam, safari, and streaming something else at the same time then I would suggest it, but its not going to make safari loading or application launching any faster. Application launching speed has more to do with the HDD than anything.

 

[TopHatPlus]

I think you would, i am in the same boat i get down to 10-40 MB of my 4 GB and things start to get choppy! its not going to load things faster things will just run smoother when you have all of them open.

 

[v66jack]

For what you do with the computer I doubt there would be much difference at all.

 

[Miss Terri]

Would that change if a person had the habit of keeping, say, 75 tabs open in Firefox? Not saying I *know* this person, mind you

 

[man02195]

Hi,

I have a 17" 2010 MBP with the standard 4 GBs of RAM.

I'm interested in upgrading the RAM to 8GBs because I'd like the computer to be at its optimum and I'm jealous of the 2011 MBPs.

However, will I actually notice the difference? I don't do anything graphics intense (photoshop, video editing, etc.) but I do have many programs open at once and switch between them.

Activity monitor tells me this during average use:

Free: 83MB
Wired: 779MB
Active: 2.19 GB
Inactive 864MB

Used 3.79 of 3.88

I see I have some free RAM there, so would the computer even get to using the extra 4GB?

If I did see a difference, where would I see it? Application launching? Web page loading? Etc.

Thanks.

If you're running multiple apps, extra memory can help.

What are your page ins & page outs?
If the page outs are a very large number, or even close to the page ins, extra memory could help.

 

[lalanda]

Page In: 152.11
Page Out: 6.17