Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Is 4GB of Ram worth it?

M

murc585

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 29, 2008
112
0
This weekend I am goign to an Apple Store and I;ve decided I want to purchase a new Macbook. I am buying the white model with superdrive and 1gb of ram. I am definately planning to upgrade the ram as soon as I get it. My question though is, do any of you think its worth it to get 4GB of ram or should i stick with buying a 2GB stick and leaving one if the originals in for a total of 2.5GB?

I used to own a powerbook G4 12" and it had 640gb of ram and at the time i felt it was quite limiting. My general use of the laptop will be office '08, i'll be using parallels with XP or vista(havn't decided yet), I use photoshop from time to time, ecode movies, used imovie sometimes...

For this kind of general use, do you think i should jsut go ahead and buy two 2gb sticks, will it make a difference for me? I havn;t used leo yet and I'm not familiar with how many resources it uses. I like my computer to respond well all the time and i'm nto very patient for when physical ram is used up. This is mostly a question to those of you who have 2gb and wish you had more. I was also curious, does loosing dual-channel really make that much a difference as well?
 
You can get 4gb of compatible ram from newegg.com for $80... At that price, I'll be buying 4gb whether I truly need it or not :)

4GB is worth it.. as long as you're not buying it from Apple
 
Yeah, i agree.
It's better to buy 4GB now instead of buying 2GB and in a couple of years buying 4GB.
The prices will probably be higher and you have to updgrade two times.
 
I just ordered 4gig of RAM from Crucial. Paid a lot more cause I need it asap but I'm totally down with 4gig.

I think I'll go pick up a Macbook tomorrow or something, if I get bored.
 
Although it really depends on what you are going to do, I would go ahead and say NO. Stick with a 2 GB ram and save yourself the extra money.
As I post before, RAM isn't everything - it is just one part of a much larger processing cycle. All it can do is store commands, so the more RAM u have the more commands you can store at once. However, unless the rest of the computer can match up, the extra RAM will be useless as the 'slower' components will cause bottlenecks everywhere. This includes, Processor, cache, bus speed etc.

Besides, I have a macbook with 1 GB RAM, and I rarely have glitches. I think 2GB will be ideal.
 
not quite sure what you need a macbook for if you already have a mbp as depicted in your sig..but ok

and if it's about size...the mbp is roughly half a pound more..not much of an issue..i bring my mbp to class to take notes on w/ no problem
 
murc585 said:
This weekend I am goign to an Apple Store and I;ve decided I want to purchase a new Macbook. I am buying the white model with superdrive and 1gb of ram. I am definately planning to upgrade the ram as soon as I get it. My question though is, do any of you think its worth it to get 4GB of ram or should i stick with buying a 2GB stick and leaving one if the originals in for a total of 2.5GB?

I used to own a powerbook G4 12" and it had 640gb of ram and at the time i felt it was quite limiting. My general use of the laptop will be office '08, i'll be using parallels with XP or vista(havn't decided yet), I use photoshop from time to time, ecode movies, used imovie sometimes...

For this kind of general use, do you think i should jsut go ahead and buy two 2gb sticks, will it make a difference for me? I havn;t used leo yet and I'm not familiar with how many resources it uses. I like my computer to respond well all the time and i'm nto very patient for when physical ram is used up. This is mostly a question to those of you who have 2gb and wish you had more. I was also curious, does loosing dual-channel really make that much a difference as well?
Click to expand...

If you're planning on buying the RAM at the Apple Store, then no, it isn't worth it.
If you buy it from newegg or crucial or memoryamerica.com, then it is very worth it.
I upgraded to 4GB a week after I got my MacBook (I ordered it right away but had to wait for the delivery), and there was a noticeable performance difference, especially when I had multiple programs open and running.
 
Freyqq said:
not quite sure what you need a macbook for if you already have a mbp as depicted in your sig..but ok

and if it's about size...the mbp is roughly half a pound more..not much of an issue..i bring my mbp to class to take notes on w/ no problem
Click to expand...

If you are referring to me it will be strictly for work. And seeing how my job has me travel 95% of the time I didn't want to take my MBP, rather a macbook for size. Weight isnt an issue.

And about the 4gig of RAM. I do a lot of VM work so thats why I require the 4gig.
 
Niko said:
Although it really depends on what you are going to do, I would go ahead and say NO. Stick with a 2 GB ram and save yourself the extra money.
As I post before, RAM isn't everything - it is just one part of a much larger processing cycle. All it can do is store commands, so the more RAM u have the more commands you can store at once. However, unless the rest of the computer can match up, the extra RAM will be useless as the 'slower' components will cause bottlenecks everywhere. This includes, Processor, cache, bus speed etc.

Besides, I have a macbook with 1 GB RAM, and I rarely have glitches. I think 2GB will be ideal.
Click to expand...

Actually NIKO, you're mistaken. Ram doesn't JUST store commands. It is a buffer for the more frequently used information, be it commands or data.

Also I have never heard of anybody refer to the computer's processing as a processing cycle.... anyways, none the less the RAM is here to remove a very important bottleneck, your hard drive.

You're conclusion that the processor, cache, and bus are the bottlenecks is once again wrong. The processor is by far the fastest piece of hardware in your system. It is almost never the bottleneck in a modern consumer computer. Same with the bus speed, and cache. In fact, the cache is on the order of 10x faster than your RAM.

So in short, don't listen to NIKO. The more RAM you have, the more the system can keep in it. This means it doesn't have to go into the hard drive as much, and will mean better performance for you when you have more applications open.

With the prices the way they are, you may as well use 4gb of RAM.
 
DaLurker said:
Actually NIKO, you're mistaken. Ram doesn't JUST store commands. It is a buffer for the more frequently used information, be it commands or data.

Also I have never heard of anybody refer to the computer's processing as a processing cycle.... anyways, none the less the RAM is here to remove a very important bottleneck, your hard drive.

You're conclusion that the processor, cache, and bus are the bottlenecks is once again wrong. The processor is by far the fastest piece of hardware in your system. It is almost never the bottleneck in a modern consumer computer. Same with the bus speed, and cache. In fact, the cache is on the order of 10x faster than your RAM.

So in short, don't listen to NIKO. The more RAM you have, the more the system can keep in it. This means it doesn't have to go into the hard drive as much, and will mean better performance for you when you have more applications open.

With the prices the way they are, you may as well use 4gb of RAM.
Click to expand...

Agreed x10. WTF is he talking about?
 
ah yes, i know very well the uses of ram, its just i have leaned toways windows lately and I havn;t use d anew mac ina while so i was curious if anybody ever reaches 2gb of ram used. The only time i use more than 2gb in vista is when I am running crysis. I don't live in the states so i can;t order frm newegg, but on ncix i can get 4gb for $80 anyways. I know very well nto to buy from apple, thats why i said i was buying the 1gb model. I guess i could pay the 80 dollars, but do any of you ever go over 2gb of ram usage??? I have 4gb of ram in my pc, and pretty much the only reason I got it was for crysis and the x64 versions seems to use a little more ram than the x86 version. If its actually worth the 40 dollars extra i guess it wou;dn;t be that bad, but if its not i;d rather stick to two. Thank you for the help.
 
murc585 said:
ah yes, i know very well the uses of ram, its just i have leaned toways windows lately and I havn;t use d anew mac ina while so i was curious if anybody ever reaches 2gb of ram used. The only time i use more than 2gb in vista is when I am running crysis. I don't live in the states so i can;t order frm newegg, but on ncix i can get 4gb for $80 anyways. I know very well nto to buy from apple, thats why i said i was buying the 1gb model. I guess i could pay the 80 dollars, but do any of you ever go over 2gb of ram usage??? I have 4gb of ram in my pc, and pretty much the only reason I got it was for crysis and the x64 versions seems to use a little more ram than the x86 version. If its actually worth the 40 dollars extra i guess it wou;dn;t be that bad, but if its not i;d rather stick to two. Thank you for the help.
Click to expand...

It all depends what you're using the computer for. If I'm running the usual gammut of firefox, pidgin, illustrator, indesign, photoshop, and bridge, having more than 2gb is almost crucial to keep things smooth.

If all you're doing is browsing the net, then no you won't need that much.
 
Niko said:
Although it really depends on what you are going to do, I would go ahead and say NO. Stick with a 2 GB ram and save yourself the extra money.
As I post before, RAM isn't everything - it is just one part of a much larger processing cycle. All it can do is store commands, so the more RAM u have the more commands you can store at once. However, unless the rest of the computer can match up, the extra RAM will be useless as the 'slower' components will cause bottlenecks everywhere. This includes, Processor, cache, bus speed etc.

Besides, I have a macbook with 1 GB RAM, and I rarely have glitches. I think 2GB will be ideal.
Click to expand...

This is pure hogwash.
Install 4GB.
 
murc585 said:
ah yes, i know very well the uses of ram, its just i have leaned toways windows lately and I havn;t use d anew mac ina while so i was curious if anybody ever reaches 2gb of ram used. The only time i use more than 2gb in vista is when I am running crysis. I don't live in the states so i can;t order frm newegg, but on ncix i can get 4gb for $80 anyways. I know very well nto to buy from apple, thats why i said i was buying the 1gb model. I guess i could pay the 80 dollars, but do any of you ever go over 2gb of ram usage??? I have 4gb of ram in my pc, and pretty much the only reason I got it was for crysis and the x64 versions seems to use a little more ram than the x86 version. If its actually worth the 40 dollars extra i guess it wou;dn;t be that bad, but if its not i;d rather stick to two. Thank you for the help.
Click to expand...

Here's my Usage pattern and I'm hitting over 2GB right now:
Mail, iCal, Safari, Address Book, Preview, Textmate, iTunes and TaskPaper.

That's not to say the OS isn't memory efficient, but its likely to leave as many things in the memory as it can.

Definitely got for 4GB.
 
does anyone have the link for the 4gb from newegg? I'm looking now and see the cheapest as $94.
 
I just want to be clear, there's NO performance difference or any other major difference between the Apple ram and the $80 ram?
 
it's basically the same thing

just apple puts their sticker on it..

APPLE DOES NOT MANUFACTURE RAM!
 
The only real difference is that RAM you buy through Apple is covered through AppleCare. If you add in RAM yourself the new RAM isn't covered by AppleCare.
 
chrisbeebops said:
The only real difference is that RAM you buy through Apple is covered through AppleCare. If you add in RAM yourself the new RAM isn't covered by AppleCare.
Click to expand...

yes

instead it has a warrenty from the manufacturer..usually a lifetime warrenty
 
The only real difference is that RAM you buy through Apple is covered through AppleCare. If you add in RAM yourself the new RAM isn't covered by AppleCare.
Click to expand...

you can't tell me that THAT is worth 620 dollars more than what I get off newegg :rolleyes:
 
i noticed no difference at all with 2.5gb vs. 4gb. everything was a bit more smooth when i went from 1gb to 2.5gb, but it stayed the same when i bumped up to 4gb. it's okay though; the 2gb stick was only like $38.
 
There have been many posts on this and I followed what most people said here and just got 4GB right away. I ran my Macbook with the stock 1GB for a little while to make sure it was OK and did the initial setup and got the Leopard updates. Once I was confident it was fine, I shut down, popped the battery and carefully installed 2x2GB modules.
 
Wait a minute

So WHERE exactly is the best place to get my 4GBs of RAM? Crucial, OCW, NewEgg etc? Sorry, new at this...

Or is memory just memory?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back