Mid 2012 MBP non retina memory issue

[phillyred79]

I recently upgraded from the stock 8gb to 16gb because I was noticing processes starting to stutter and lag especially with multiple tabs open across firefox and chrome. I checked my activity monitor and noticed I was getting quite close to the used memory out of the 8gb available. The chrome/firefox helper processes were the biggest drain. Now, even after upgrading to 16gb I still see the memory used going up to and sometimes past 80% of what is available. Maybe it's naive of me to think it, but I just assumed memory consumption would be less? I notice an audio stutter as well when the memory gets stressed. Most of my usage is general surfing of the internet and streaming videos from the usual suspects netflix, hulu, youtube etc..

 

[Samuelsan2001]

I recently upgraded from the stock 8gb to 16gb because I was noticing processes starting to stutter and lag especially with multiple tabs open across firefox and chrome. I checked my activity monitor and noticed I was getting quite close to the used memory out of the 8gb available. The chrome/firefox helper processes were the biggest drain. Now, even after upgrading to 16gb I still see the memory used going up to and sometimes past 80% of what is available. Maybe it's naive of me to think it, but I just assumed memory consumption would be less? I notice an audio stutter as well when the memory gets stressed. Most of my usage is general surfing of the internet and streaming videos from the usual suspects netflix, hulu, youtube etc..

Apples OS X will use all of the system RAM it can unused ram is wasted ram as its the fastest memory on your system. OS X will keep may things loaded to ram while they are not still in use but hold that ram available for immediate use until its needed for what you are currently using. Basically this means that if you go back to something still in ram its available instantly but that will be purged and reused the instant its more useful to your current work. As long as your ram pressure graph stays predominantly green you are golden.

If you have yet to upgrade to an ssd this will make a much bigger difference to the overall speed and responsiveness of your mac especially if you are on a more modern OS (EL Capitan and up).

 

[leman]

I checked my activity monitor and noticed I was getting quite close to the used memory out of the 8gb available

The total used memory figures are not really informative, as Samuelsan2001 has explained. You should look at memory pressure instead. If it is green when the sluggishness occurs — its not the lack of RAM.

 

[elf69]

I have a 2012 macbook pro not retina with only 4gb ram.

little to no stutters but loading word for example is bit slow.

my ram graph is amber.
in activity monitor 3.86GB or 4GB used BUT toe the right of that is wired and app memory. Together is only 2.3GB.

So as said the graph and the numbers to RIGHT (wired and app memory) are to be looked at.
Ignore used memory it means nothing is OSX.

I'm running high sierra and a 240GB ssd

 

[makinao]

If you're still on an HD, then that's where your bottleneck is. I too upgraded RAM before my HD, but it didn't make that much difference in overall speed. When I upgraded to an SSD, everything flew.

 

[leman]

my ram graph is amber.

If its amber, you don't have enough RAM — its that simple. It means that the OS needs to work extra hard to satisfy the memory allocation requests from the applications.

 

[elf69]

Yes i get that and will upgrade to 8GB soon.
but it is still usable if a little laggy opening MS office etc.

 

[Fishrrman]

IF it's a non-retina MacBook Pro, and...
IF it still has a platter-based hard drive, then...
It's NOT "the RAM".
It's the DRIVE.
Replacing the HDD with an SSD will do far FAR "more" for a non-retina MBP than will replacing RAM...

 

[phillyred79]

Thanks for the info everyone!