RAM confusion!

[Zonita]

I thought a mac would be a million times faster than my £399 dell inspiron 1545, but my dell has 3GB RAM and the macbook has 2GB RAM?

I'm thinking about upgrading to 4GB anyway, but am i being stupid or does this mean that my dell would be faster than a 2GB macbook?

Thanks!

 

[iBookG4user]

RAM is not the only indication of speed on computers. Hard drive speed, graphics cards and Processors also play a role.

 

[Zonita]

RAM is not the only indication of speed on computers. Hard drive speed, graphics cards and Processors also play a role.

but it is a pretty good indicator, no?

 

[iBookG4user]

but it is a pretty good indicator, no?

While 2GB is a bit low nowadays, it is pretty cheap and easy to upgrade it to 4GB. So the base RAM should be a non-factor in deciding which computer is faster, at least in my opinion.

 

[Giuly]

If the RAM is full and the pages get swapped to the hard drive, the system slows down. The slower the hard drive, the worst it gets. 2GB is not enough, couple of tabs in Safari, watching a video - RAM full. Get 2x2GB RAM and you'll be fine, if you can get 2x4GB and you will never run into trouble. At least for me, I sometimes swap over 4GB, but this is not really often.

Regards

 

[SidBala]

Regardless of what the specs say. Does your dell faster than your mac?

Also ram size doesn't really indicate speed very well. It is true that if you have very little ram, your computer will be slow. Above 2GB, it shouldn't really matter.

 

[drjaymez]

It has become apparent to me that the biggest bottleneck in modern computing seems to be hard disk I/O. the night and day performance difference from an SSD needs to be seen to be believed. That said, upgrading to 4GB RAM is cheap and will leave you rarely swapping out. If you really want to see your computer fly, put in an SSD.