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Moved from a whitebook 2.4 to mbp 2.26, not impressed with the speed ..help

D

djarsalan2006

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 14, 2009
160
0
New York City
hey guys
i have owned a whitebook 2.4 with 4gb ram , i recently got a macbook pro 2.26 with 2gb ram ..
im not totally impressed with the speed overall, it seems to be slower than the one i have owned .....do you guys think switching the ram to 4gb will help and make it that much faster ?
what i mean is that, is there gonna be a huge difference in the speed because of switching from 2gb to 4gb ? if yes recommend me a cheap 4gb ram
thank you
 
The new machine has a somewhat slower processor. RAM is cheap but I don't think you're going to see a significant gain in responsiveness.
 
A fast way to check that would be to open up Activity Monitor and check how much RAM you're using. If you have little to no free RAM, then yes, upgrading the RAM to 4GB would give you a noticeable speed improvement.
 
After you have been using the computer for a while, look at page outs (under system memory) in Activity Monitor. If page outs is high, like 1gb or more, you will probably benefit from more memory.

You might still notice a difference even if page outs are low since OS X can use the extra memory to cache programs when you close them, making reopening them very fast.

Also, what kind of disk do you have in each computer? Disk speed will make a big difference in how fast the computer "feels" for everyday tasks. Higher capacity disks are generally faster because of higher data density, and the 160gb that comes with the 13MBP2.26 is rather small these days. You could upgrade to a 320GB 7200 RPM (like the Seagate 7200.3) or a 500GB 5400 RPM (like Western Digital Scorpio Blue) to get a faster drive. Of course, a SSD would be the ultimate option for disk speed, but they are expensive.
 
iBookG4user said:
Click on the "system memory" tab and then see how much "free" memory you have. If you have a low amount of free memory, then you would benefit from adding more RAM. As well as checking the Page in to Page out ratio.
Click to expand...

Ok , all im doing now is surfing the web ....free memory is 477 MB
page in 548
page out 247
what do u recommend ?
 
Well, you have enough free memory and not too many page outs. More memory will make it only slightly faster.

A faster hard drive will probably help quite a bit. Either of these will be faster than what you have. The first one is arguably the fastest mechanical disk you can get, and the second one is a bit cheaper, a bit slower, and has more vibration (though I have one in my MBP because it was the best you could get at the time).

Scorpio Blue 500gb
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136314

Seagate 7200.3 320gb
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148336

It's not too hard to upgrade the drive yourself. There are instructions online (try ifixit.com) or maybe in the user's manual. To copy the data over, you can back up your current disk with Time Machine then use the OS X restore disk to restore from the Time Machine backup onto the new drive.
 
djarsalan2006 said:
Ok , all im doing now is surfing the web ....free memory is 477 MB
page in 548
page out 247
what do u recommend ?
Click to expand...


This is what having 4 GB looks like :D

I'm thoroughly satisfied with my 2.53 and im sure theres no big difference in the 2.26
 

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Ok, I'm sorry. I know this isn't going to be helpful to you at all, but...

You went from a 2.4/4gb machine to a 2.26/2gb machine and you're here in the forums complaning because... It's slower?

OMG that was the laugh of the day I needed. Wow.

Upgrade your ram first. Then your hard drive. Or try and get your whitebook back.
 
Eidorian said:
The new machine has a somewhat slower processor. RAM is cheap but I don't think you're going to see a significant gain in responsiveness.
Click to expand...

Its a newer generation processor, wont necessarily be slower even though it has a slower clock speed.

Ram wont make a big difference unless you run ram hungry programs like photoshop and other creative apps. MS office suite is reasonably hungry on resources.

I personally would put a fast harddrive (7200rpm or SSD) in it before i put 4gb of ram. Later on as apps need more ram i would do the upgrade then./
 
Assuming they are both Core 2 Duos, the new one at a lower speed won't be any faster. The new one might have more or less L2 cache (I don't feel like looking it up right now), but that might make a 1% difference at most. Of course, the 2.4 is only 6% faster than the 2.26 based purely on clock speed, so I don't think you would really notice that.
 
djarsalan2006 said:
i have owned a whitebook 2.4 with 4gb ram , i recently got a macbook pro 2.26 with 2gb ram ..
im not totally impressed with the speed overall, it seems to be slower than the one i have owned
Click to expand...

Because it is slower than your whitebook?

I mean, for graphics stuff it'll trounce your whitebook, but the processor is slower...
 
Its not a "new generation" of processor. It's a spec bump.

OP went from a 2.4/3MB/667 to a 2.26/3MB/1066. The slight FSB increase is not going to make up for the 140mhz in clock speed.

There are plenty of other advantages in moving from a whitebook to a unibody, though.

Also, I'm not quite sure what you're using where you'd notice a significant performance difference.
 
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