RAM Upgrade

[arclenin]

I have 2.66Ghz Mid/Late 09 MBP and 7.2k HD.

I'm thinking of getting this for it: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148276
Would the performance increase be noticeable and where?

 

[rkaufmann87]

Wow good buy!

Overall you would see the whole machine just be snappier.

It's a little difficult to answer the whole question though because you aren't giving any clues. You're asking if the performance would be better (yes) and where? We can't answer the where if you don't tell us what you use the machine for. So the answer is "yes."

 

[arclenin]

Wow good buy!

Overall you would see the whole machine just be snappier.

It's a little difficult to answer the whole question though because you aren't giving any clues. You're asking if the performance would be better (yes) and where? We can't answer the where if you don't tell us what you use the machine for. So the answer is "yes."

I have a few main uses:

iPhone Development
Photoshop CS5
StarCraft 2 + a few Steam Games
Internet (Youtube, Facebook, MacRumors, etc)
iTunes
Office 2010
On a side note, my entire dock is usually open, because I need all of those (with the exception of games)

 

[Kyffin]

I have a few main uses:

iPhone Development
Photoshop CS5
StarCraft 2 + a few Steam Games
Internet (Youtube, Facebook, MacRumors, etc)
iTunes
Office 2010
On a side note, my entire dock is usually open, because I need all of those (with the exception of games)

In which case, yes!!!

 

[Vantage Point]

I can tell you that performance with CS5 can be very noticeable. Take a look at the screen shot below from my MBP w/8GB

 

[chaleyer]

I bumped mine to 8Gb about 6 weeks ago because I need to have 2 or 3 VMware Fusion images of W2K3 Server and XP open concurrently. There was a BIG improvement for tis use case, but for general Office 2011, web surfing, etc, nothing really noticeable.

 

[arclenin]

I bumped mine to 8Gb about 6 weeks ago because I need to have 2 or 3 VMware Fusion images of W2K3 Server and XP open concurrently. There was a BIG improvement for tis use case, but for general Office 2011, web surfing, etc, nothing really noticeable.

Forgot to mention that I do use a Virtual Machine. Sounds like my wallet is $100 short now.

 

[FireAttack37]

Wow good buy!

It isn't spectacular. OWC always has their 8GB kits for the MBP at around that price and it is RAM that is known to work in MBP's since OWC caters to the Mac world. http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/8566DDR3S8GP/ or http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer Technology/8566DDR3S8GP/

I upgraded my mid-2009 MBP to 8GB on Christmas Eve (RAM was delivered then) and it was a noticeable difference when I had multiple programs open. Before with the 2GB of RAM, with Firefox, Outlook, Quicken, and Excel open I would have about 256MB of free RAM. Now with the same programs running, I have right at 6.75GB of free RAM.

You should also upgrade your hard drive to a 7200 RPM or SSD drive if you haven't yet. I did that last week with a WD 320GB Black 7200 RPM hard drive and my boot times went from 1 minute 20 seconds to right at 35 seconds. I couldn't even imagine a SSD boot times. When the SSD drive prices drop, I will upgrade again.