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Is it Necessary?

C

cujoca

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 24, 2006
205
0
Do you think it is necessary to upgrade an iMac from 2.16 to 2.33? Do you notice that much of a speed difference? I'm seriously condering buying the 20" iMac with 2gb of ram and am not sure if i should upgrade to 2.33. Any insight would help.
Thanks!
 
that really depends on what you are doing with it.
audio / video compression will show some gains, but browsing / email and word processing will be the same. Most testing is showing about 3~10% gains. So if you aren't going to do a lot of really taking stuff, then you should save the money.
 
Transeau said:
that really depends on what you are doing with it.
audio / video compression will show some gains, but browsing / email and word processing will be the same. Most testing is showing about 3~10% gains. So if you aren't going to do a lot of really taking stuff, then you should save the money.
Click to expand...
I'll mostly be surfing the web, listening to music, watching movies, word processing. Pretty much the normal stuff! Do you think it is a good idea if I get the 2gb ram though?
 
cujoca said:
I'll mostly be surfing the web, listening to music, watching movies, word processing. Pretty much the normal stuff! Do you think it is a good idea if I get the 2gb ram though?
Click to expand...

you do NOT need 2 GB of RAM. RAM is very nice, and I hesitate to say this because it makes Macs run much more smoothly, but your needs do not call for 2 GB.

I'm on a 1 GB machine right now, and I do what you do (plus Garageband, iMovie, iPhoto, all that stuff) and my computer almost never beach balls. And I run about 7 or 8 programs at once always.

Conclusion: Get a gig of RAM, you'll be totally happy.
 
So basically what your saying is stay with the stock 20" iMac and ill be happy for years to come?
 
cujoca said:
So basically what your saying is stay with the stock 20" iMac and ill be happy for years to come?
Click to expand...

1GB runs everything smoothly. Mine only beachballs on some heavy apps when I have iTunes running, but my iTunes library is somewhat large so that might be why.

If you ever need more, you can upgrade it yourself, it's not too difficult. If you want to be on the safe side, you can always just order the 2GB one online.

There will be basically no difference between 2.16/2.33 for the things you're doing.
 
extraextra said:
1GB runs everything smoothly. Mine only beachballs on some heavy apps when I have iTunes running, but my iTunes library is somewhat large so that might be why.

If you ever need more, you can upgrade it yourself, it's not too difficult. If you want to be on the safe side, you can always just order the 2GB one online.

There will be basically no difference between 2.16/2.33 for the things you're doing.
Click to expand...

i'm pretty much a computer newbie, how hard is it to add RAM really...i was thinking about adding it myself later. How do oyu tell different RAM apart besides the size (obviously). How do you tell which is good and which is not good?
 
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