Ram Useage Compared To A Pc?

[Sam*]

Everyone seems to be feeling that 512ram is not enough in a macbook, but i currently use a pc with 224mb of Ram and 2.59ghz processor,

anyway my question is how does a mac use ram compared to a pc, ie does it generally use more or less using such programs as iTunes, MSN, Firefox etc..

i only use firefox, iTunes, messenger and a bit torrent client on general basis and if im were to purchase a macbook with the stock 512 is that sufficent?, i was thinking it would be as now, ok iTunes may run a little slow using 256 on my pc, so surley with 512 it would be fine?

Just wondering if anyone can confirm my thoughts about 512 being enough for me as i only use those programs and rarely use anything else.

 

[someguy]

512MB is enough. 1GB is better, though.

 

[Fleetwood Mac]

Depends on wether your going to for a PPC or an Intel.

512 is more than enough for a PPC machine, but if your going for Intel and intend to use programs that run under Rosetta (MSN, Office) one 1G might be a better investment.

I have to admit, running both Mac and Windows on my mini core solo (512mem), that the Mac side is almost always using 100% memory. The thing is that you could never tell because the operating system handles high loads very well, and so, my Mac runs just as fast as my Windows under bootcamp. Windows runs using far less memory, but more memory usage on the Mac side is what you pay for a better experience.

Good luck.

 

[CanadaRAM]

The thing with both Windows and OSX is, they manage low memory situations by swapping blocks of RAM data on and off the hard drive. So they will continue to perform, just at slower speeds as the OS has to wait for the swapping to happen.

Your Celeron machine, if it is running XP, is hitting the hard drisk like crazy with the Windows Swap file, that means it is performing much slower than it should be. Windows XP doesn't start performing well until you have 512 Mb or more of RAM. (Earlier versions of Windows are more thrifty)

 

[Agent69]

Memory usage is dependent on the operating system being used. And PC does not automatically mean Windows.

 

[netdog]

512MB is enough. 1GB is better, though.

I really think 1GB is the minimum. 512MB will crawl. On a MacBook or Mini it will be even worse.

1GB = Pretty darned good
2GB = What you want

 

[someguy]

I really think 1GB is the minimum. 512MB will crawl. On a MacBook or Mini it will be even worse.

1GB = Pretty darned good
2GB = What you want

As far as Mac goes, I can only speak for my PowerBook, which got along fine with 512MB. I received the extra 1GB stick for Christmas last year otherwise I would've only considered maybe buying another 512MB. I'm not saying my machine doesn't run smoother/faster/better since the upgrade, but I wouldn't say that it crawled with 512MB either. I guess it all just depends on how fast is fast enough for each individual user.

 

[poppe]

The thing with both Windows and OSX is, they manage low memory situations by swapping blocks of RAM data on and off the hard drive. So they will continue to perform, just at slower speeds as the OS has to wait for the swapping to happen.

Your Celeron machine, if it is running XP, is hitting the hard drisk like crazy with the Windows Swap file, that means it is performing much slower than it should be. Windows XP doesn't start performing well until you have 512 Mb or more of RAM. (Earlier versions of Windows are more thrifty)

I have a Pentium III 800 Mhz processor, 128 Mb Ram, and 16 mb V card

and Acctually Firefox flies on it!
MS office works great except it has a faulty hard drive so usually you can only get about 3 sentences into word and it freezes the computer...

iTunes just as zippy, thought not as stable.

The only problem i have is getting the applications to open... Firefox takes about 15 seconds to open and iTunes takes at least 30 seconds...

But all things considerd my I'm on a Pentium 4 1.9 Ghz processor with 256 ram and iTunes struggles to open also... its like opening a PDF... FOREVER... and acts like the system is craming high end mathmatical problems (this is the same way on the Pentium III)

So I dont know how ram will perform but I'm able to do just fine for simple Internet and word things on 128mb using windows.
I acctually refuse to use iTunes because it takes so long to load and always feels a little unstable on my Pentium III (sadly).

I always have to resort to Windows Media Player to play my music and use iTunes to burn becuase it acctually burns my music excellent. To bad there isn't a mini-iTunes player that seemed more like a hub or access point to playing all your music instead of a player that holds all your music in one central spot (hard to explain).