Ram Upgrade for G4 Mini

[mattyb240]

My parents have G4 Mac mini running 512mb Ram running leopard. They are finding it increasingly frustrating with the spinning beach ball coming more apparent in a lot of applications. Would upgrading to 1gb Ram be worth it? Or will it be negligible?

They are not heavy users, just safari, mail, iPhoto, and iTunes being the main applications.

 

[haruhiko]

My parents have G4 Mac mini running 512mb Ram running leopard. They are finding it increasingly frustrating with the spinning beach ball coming more apparent in a lot of applications. Would upgrading to 1gb Ram be worth it? Or will it be negligible?

They are not heavy users, just safari, mail, iPhoto, and iTunes being the main applications.

But the problem is... can you find the correct RAM for that?

 

[AdrianK]

Would upgrading to 1gb Ram be worth it?

Yes, yes and also yes. It's a shame that you're limited to a max of 1GB, but it will make things a lot better.

 

[YanniDepp]

Yes, it will make a difference. I did the same thing about 4 years ago. Don't expect it to be as fast as a new machine though. It won't be.

 

[mattyb240]

Getting the ram isn't a problem as I can get it from crucial, but its about the same price as 4gb for a MBP! So you guys noticed a big difference? It just seems the system is locking up more with the beach ball. I know it won't be a new machine but they can't/don't want to buy a new machine. So I suppose this is the next step!

 

[AdrianK]

That does sound pretty expensive. 512mb is barely anything but ~40$ is insane for an upgrade of 512mb. I wouldn't buy that, but then again, it could make the machine a lot more useable for you.

I shouldn't have said it was worth it before without taking price in to consideration, sorry about that.

 

[aidanpendragon]

1gb absolutely will be worth it, and was considered the right amount even under Tiger/10.4. I've seen similar G4 Minis bumped from 512mb to 1gb and it definitely helped, esp. if you keep a lot of applications open at once.

 

[YanniDepp]

That's the memory cycle for you. DDR 3 is dirt cheap, DDR 2 isn't too hard to get hold of. DDR is pretty expensive, and you really don't want to see SD-RAM prices.

- New memory technology comes out. It's expensive any only high-end machines use it.
- Standard has caught on and pretty much every new machine uses it. It's pretty cheap to get hold of.
- Newer technology comes along and new machines start using that. About this time, people with the older technology are upgrading their RAM. This is the cheapest time to buy this RAM.
- Technology is pretty old now. It's been replaced, and even its replacement has been replaced. Nobody makes the RAM any more, all the factories are making the newer standards. All that's in stock is what Crucial have had sitting in the back of a cupboard for 10 years. It's hard to get hold of, and it's expensive when you find it. You are here