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RAM Overkill?

nburwell

nburwell

macrumors 603
Original poster
May 6, 2008
5,620
2,504
DE
Currently I have a 2.2GHz MBP with 2GB of RAM. I normally work in Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop CS3 processing my camera RAW files. I normally am browsing the web via Safari and have iChat and Mail open, too. I was thinking of upgrading to 4GB of RAM but will I really benefit from the upgrade? I normally use my iMac to process my RAW files, but when I'm on the road, I like to do some quick processing on the go. So essentially, I'm not working in LR or CS3 all the time. I'm just trying to justify spending $100 or so to upgrade to 4GB if I really won't see much difference.

I know these questions are posted often, so I do apologize in advance.
 
Do it.

I actually think you will notice a large difference, I have a macbook and a new imac and run, mail, ichat, azureus, firefox and sometimes iphoto all at once and since the upgrade I am very pleased, no more little colorful beachballs.
 
Do you notice any slowdowns when you are doing the things you do? If you do, then do the upgrade.


I'm a future switcher (waiting on that damned MBP update, if it comes :D) but I have 2GB of RAM in my gaming PC with Vista Business x64. I never notice a need for more RAM apart from newer games and it typically never uses more than 60% of the RAM doing anything. But I also don't work with photos or that sort of thing much at all. Regardless of not having a need, I'm getting a 2x2GB upgrade for it (resulting in 6GB total) because RAM is way too cheap to pass up the opportunity.

If I was in your shoes (and I will be soon), I'd go ahead and get it.
 
I think you can get 4 GB cheaper than 100...

a reason is that RAM is so cheap there's no reason not to get 4 GB. It was the first thing I did with my 2.4 SR MBP.

I also run VMware virtual machines, sometimes 2 at a time. Its great to allocate 1GB RAM per machine.
 
Eric. said:
Do you notice any slowdowns when you are doing the things you do? If you do, then do the upgrade.
Click to expand...

I experience minimal slowdowns when I have both LR and CS3 open. But with the size of the RAW files I work with, I always thought the 4GB of RAM wouldn't hurt.

Thanks for the advice, everyone.
 
If you run Safari, then you want to estimate that it will use up to 500mb of memory. It can be quite a hog! Also, if you'd rather leave all your regular apps running, even when you're not using them, then you'd probably need another half gig or so to cover them. With 4gb of ram, OSX will take around 500mb, so adding it altogether that's around 1.5GB memory usage just for browsing.

When I'm working with a few apps (photoshop, dreamweaver, ms word etc), I'm usually using around 2.5-3.5GB.

RAM is cheap, so go for it.
 
+1 for getting the RAM. I use Aperture 2 and PS CS3 to PP RAW images. Its worth it.

Then again I am always running an XP Pro VM in VMware Fusion with 512MB of RAM dedicated to it.

Even if I didn't use VMware, I would still buy the RAM.
 
perhaps he got a school issued license? Colleges license Vista Business...

also it is the next cheapest "non-Home" edition. The "Ultimate" without all the junk.
 
e12a said:
perhaps he got a school issued license? Colleges license Vista Business...

also it is the next cheapest "non-Home" edition. The "Ultimate" without all the junk.
Click to expand...

My college licenses Vista Enterprise... Ultimate minus the home media part.
 
If you plan to/do run windows as a virtual machine in OSX then the 4GB can be useful. For example I run XP with VMware Fusion and give it 2GB leaving OSX with the other 2. If you had only 2gB splitting it 1/1 could be limiting. Bottom line: $100 dollars on top of a $2000+ computer is a a small price to pay for peak performance and futureproofing.
 
what version of the MBP do you have? Isn't it true that earlier versions of the MBP don't support more than 3GB of memory?
 
JBLinkinsop said:
I actually think you will notice a large difference, I have a macbook and a new imac and run, mail, ichat, azureus, firefox and sometimes iphoto all at once and since the upgrade I am very pleased, no more little colorful beachballs.
Click to expand...

I second that

I noticed a huge difference!:D
 
e12a said:
perhaps he got a school issued license? Colleges license Vista Business...

also it is the next cheapest "non-Home" edition. The "Ultimate" without all the junk.
Click to expand...

You're on the right sort of track. Its a legit license given to me by a friend who didn't need it for his college. Technically its breaking rules, but its not like its pirated or anything.

I'm leaving it at that, don't go flaming me for explaining myself.


Also, I prefer Vista over XP now for the most part. Apart from some programs (usually something made by an individual or something for XP) that don't always work exactly right, gaming has been the only area where I see a (MAJOR) slowdown. So an 8800GTS 512MB and 4GB more RAM is in order since I just got some unexpected cash.
 
Eric. said:
You're on the right sort of track. Its a legit license given to me by a friend who didn't need it for his college. Technically its breaking rules, but its not like its pirated or anything.

I'm leaving it at that, don't go flaming me for explaining myself.
Click to expand...

no issues here. I would do the same thing.
 
Once again, thanks for the advice everyone. Upon reading the replies, I went ahead and ordered 4GB of RAM. Thanks again!
 
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