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RAM and needs

rye9

rye9

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 20, 2005
1,347
77
New York (not NYC)
I would be using an iBook for Mac OS X Tiger (Dashboard, etc...), internet, word processing, iTunes, and maybe see what this GarageBand every likes is. No video editing for me, I will delete iMovie and iDVD the second I get the iBook. Oh, also storing about 200 pics, maybe editing 5 pics a year. Would the 512 MB RAM be sufficient?
 
Aim for 1GB. I find 1GB is the best trade off between cost and performance for the average user. Of course, 512MB will be fine and it's not like you can't upgrade it down the track. :)
 
I use a G4 1.33 w/512MB... I was using it with Tiger, but decided to install Panther after a reformat since the performance was lagging. I wouldn't recommend running anything higher than Panther with 512MB of ram as you won't even hit 100MB free while idle
 
Memory is cheap, you can never have enough of it, and having 1 GB is at a sweet price point right now. Although 1 GB might be a bit more than what you require, it never hurts to have a bit too much - that way you can grow into it as well as your needs grow. :cool:
 
~Shard~ said:
Memory is cheap, you can never have enough of it, and having 1 GB is at a sweet price point right now. Although 1 GB might be a bit more than what you require, it never hurts to have a bit too much - that way you can grow into it as well as your needs grow. :cool:
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Well said ~Shard~, more RAM is always a good choice.

For your needs rye9, you can skate by on 512MB, but I would recommend 1GB+ for optimal performance. Mac OS X loves RAM, and lots of it. :)

I currently have 512MB in my iBook G4 (in signature) and although performance is fine with 512MB of RAM, I will be upgrading it shortly to either 1GB or 1.5GB of RAM.
 
~Shard~ said:
Especially Tiger (which is one of the reasons I'm still a happy Panther user.) :cool:
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Just went back today :D I think Im gonna save my RAM-money towards my mactel
 
~Shard~ said:
Not a bad decision whatsoever. :)
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I went back to Panther yesterday. Tiger was great. It was always very stable for me and I never had any problems with it, but I realized that Panther is fine for me and I gave my copy of Tiger to my friend for Christmas. (After I took it off my eMac, of course.)
 
FadeToBlack said:
I went back to Panther yesterday. Tiger was great. It was always very stable for me and I never had any problems with it, but I realized that Panther is fine for me and I gave my copy of Tiger to my friend for Christmas. (After I took it off my eMac, of course.)
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That has always been my reasoning as well. Tiger looks great, but it's nothing amazing enough for me to warrant getting rid of Panther. Spotlight is cool, yes, but I don't have a ton of files on my machine and I keep everything neat and tidy, not messy. Dashboard is cool, but I don't need a ton of widgets running in the background sucking up my valuable RAM. Google works just as fine for me to fins out those types of things. Safari RSS? I never use RSS... So, I just don't have a huge driver to move - and knowing that people have had issues with it (some minor, some major) and that it is more resource intensive, I just don't see myself moving anytime soon. Perhaps I will make the leap directly to Leopard in 2007... :cool:
 
rye9 said:
I would be using an iBook for Mac OS X Tiger (Dashboard, etc...), internet, word processing, iTunes, and maybe see what this GarageBand every likes is. No video editing for me, I will delete iMovie and iDVD the second I get the iBook. Oh, also storing about 200 pics, maybe editing 5 pics a year. Would the 512 MB RAM be sufficient?
Click to expand...

I'm running the latest G4 ibook with the same apps, with none deleted; I have close to 2000 photos in iphoto. I figured on upgrading the RAM within a month of the purchase in August, but I have not upgraded yet-- I don't need to. I understand from reading the forums that it would be better to have more RAM, but I certainly don't suffer from 512-- the only place I can tell is the beachballing when the photos initially load. 512 is fine.
 
~Shard~ said:
That has always been my reasoning as well. Tiger looks great, but it's nothing amazing enough for me to warrant getting rid of Panther. Spotlight is cool, yes, but I don't have a ton of files on my machine and I keep everything neat and tidy, not messy. Dashboard is cool, but I don't need a ton of widgets running in the background sucking up my valuable RAM. Google works just as fine for me to fins out those types of things. Safari RSS? I never use RSS... So, I just don't have a huge driver to move - and knowing that people have had issues with it (some minor, some major) and that it is more resource intensive, I just don't see myself moving anytime soon. Perhaps I will make the leap directly to Leopard in 2007... :cool:
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That pretty much sums up the way I feel about it, man. I'm extremely organized and while Spotlight is VERY cool (especially helpful when deleting applications and getting all the files like preferences, etc.) I can do without it because I'm already really organized. I didn't really use Safari RSS either, since I use Firefox. I never had any problems with Tiger, though. It was always very stable for me and a great OS, but Panther is fine for me and I will most likely stick with it until it comes time to buy a new Mac.
 
~Shard~ said:
Especially Tiger (which is one of the reasons I'm still a happy Panther user.) :cool:
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As long as you use Mac OS- who cares what version (well Mac OS 6 might be pushing it a bit ;) ). :)

I think that Panther is an awesome version of Mac OS, but since both of my Macs came with Tiger (and I don't have a disk for Panther) thats what I use.
 
dmw007 said:
As long as you use Mac OS- who cares what version (well Mac OS 6 might be pushing it a bit ;) ). :)

I think that Panther is an awesome version of Mac OS, but since both of my Macs came with Tiger (and I don't have a disk for Panther) thats what I use.
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Agreed - as long as you're using a Mac OS, things can't be too bad, all things considered... ;)
 
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