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Should I get 8GB of ram?

macbook pro i5

macbook pro i5

macrumors 65816
Original poster
May 13, 2011
1,338
1
New Zealand
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in activity monitor it shows very little amount of ram is it worth the upgrade?
 
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Check the "System Memory" tab to see what your "Page ins:", "Page outs:" and "Swap used:" are and tell us what they are.

image below uses sorting by CPU as an example
Acitivty_Monitor.png

Further reading:
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simsaladimbamba said:
______________________________________________________
Check the "System Memory" tab to see what your "Page ins:", "Page outs:" and "Swap used:" are and tell us what they are.

image below uses sorting by CPU as an example
Image
Further reading:
______________________________________________________​
Click to expand...

Page ins:582.2MB
Page outs:280.3MB
Swap:70.0MB
I would just like to point out I am not a newbie at technology or computers because I build them and I am iOS dev in training so add Xcode to the list as well.
 
It is cheaper to upgrade your own RAM. You can never have too much ram. That said, you don't need any more ram for those purposes.
 
hi

im a designer, my rule of thumb is max the memory out as i may have small graphics now but if i do larger graphic extensive work i dont want my mac to slow down. just buy memory from outside and it will save you few bucks than ordering it from apple store. just make sure they are compatible.
 
md301 said:
im a designer, my rule of thumb is max the memory out as i may have small graphics now but if i do larger graphic extensive work i dont want my mac to slow down. just buy memory from outside and it will save you few bucks than ordering it from apple store. just make sure they are compatible.
Click to expand...

Can you recommend what RAM I should get
 
Same question... for 16GB.

I was looking at 16GB as these seems to be less than $200 but I am not a heavyweight user. Once in a while I was able to utilize 7gb RAM on my late 2010 dual core 2, MBP. Now I have swapped it with late 2011 i5. Hoping that I can do some of the aperture 3 work a lot quicker.

Anyone with 16gb RAM here? Any suggestions?
 
macbook pro i5 said:
Page ins:582.2MB
Page outs:280.3MB
Swap:70.0MB
I would just like to point out I am not a newbie at technology or computers because I build them and I am iOS dev in training so add Xcode to the list as well.
Click to expand...
These are fresh numbers shortly after a reboot, right? Try posting these numbers after a full day of use.

macbook pro i5 said:
My mac has slowed down considerbrly after having 2 kernel panics because of not having enough ram I would say other wise...
Click to expand...

Running out of RAM shouldn't cause kernel panics, unless you are also out of HD space.

And yes, for your usage, I would recommend upgrading RAM. It might not be a huge performance boost, but it will help in those cases where you currently use up your RAM. Swapping to a HDD slows the system down considerably.
 
Installed my 8GB of ram the day I bought my MBP, as a Graphic design myself I believe it is essential to have the ram upgraded. So yes, go for it =]
 
I believe that if your page outs are ≥ than 10% of your page ins, you need a RAM upgrade.
 
saberahul said:
I believe that if your page outs are ≥ than 10% of your page ins, you need a RAM upgrade.
Click to expand...
There is no meaningful correlation between page outs and page ins. You will always have page ins, but you may not ever have page outs. Also, you can run for weeks or months, accumulating page ins, then go through a period of intense activity for only a few minutes which produces page outs. No ratio between the two is useful. The only thing that indicates a need for more RAM is the presence of significant page outs during normal workload, regardless of the page ins.

Page outs are cumulative since your last restart. So the best way to check is to restart your computer and track page outs under your normal workload (the apps, browser pages and documents you normally would have open). If your page outs are significant (say 1GB or more) under normal use, you may benefit from more RAM.
 
mentaluproar said:
It is cheaper to upgrade your own RAM. You can never have too much ram. That said, you don't need any more ram for those purposes.
Click to expand...

Same can be said for CPU, HDD/SSD, GPU, etc etc.

4GB is sufficient if you don't do gaming - Even 2011 MacBook Air 11' with 2GB is sufficient if you just do browsing and word processing.

But for thread starter I would say it seems you need 8GB looking at applications you run - 8GB should be sufficient for next couple of years, then hopefully either 16GB or a new MacBook Pro. :D
 
Frozzie said:
Same can be said for CPU, HDD/SSD, GPU, etc etc.

4GB is sufficient if you don't do gaming - Even 2011 MacBook Air 11' with 2GB is sufficient if you just do browsing and word processing.

But for thread starter I would say it seems you need 8GB looking at applications you run - 8GB should be sufficient for next couple of years, then hopefully either 16GB or a new MacBook Pro. :D
Click to expand...
New macbook pro:D:D:D:D
 
Low RAM shouldn't cause a Kernel Panic, though if you can post a log of that (in a new thread would be better) we might be able to help you determine the cause.
If a kernel panic occurs, information is added to a log file in the folder /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports (Mac OS X v10.6)
Click to expand...

Low RAM will cause the OS to page data out to the disk, which is extremely slow compared to using RAM. As long as page outs and swap used are low and stay that way, you probably don't need more RAM, and there would be almost no benefit. For example, I have 6GB of RAM and I currently have 6GB page ins, 3MB page outs, and 3MB swap used, and I rebooted three days ago. I've seen those numbers occasionally go to 100-200MB without significant slowdown. Back when I had 4GB and I'd try to run VMWare Fusion and a bunch or other stuff at the same time I would get a GB or more of page outs and the system would stop responding for a minute or more. I'd say as long as page outs and swap used stay under a few hundred MB you don't need more RAM. You will never get them both to stay at 0, though, and that's OK.

Also, it's normal for a lot of RAM to be "Inactive RAM". According to Apple that means it is used for things like caches of recently closed programs that you might open again. They are kept in RAM that would otherwise go to waste, and the idea is that if something needs the space that RAM can be quickly freed up (It doesn't always get freed up like it's supposed to, but that's another issue). So Activity Monitor might show almost no "free" RAM when in reality there is a lot available.

That said, prices for 8GB of RAM are at an all time low right now, averaging $40 or less. At this price manufacturers are just about giving RAM away. My guess is that prices have just about hit rock bottom and won't go much (or any) lower. At some point prices might start to go back up, but it's hard to say if/when that would happen. With DDR2, IIRC prices never really increased (though I stopped paying attention) but they just replaced it with DDR3, marketed that as the next new thing, and phased DDR2 into obsolescence. For reference, 8GB (2x4gb) of laptop DDR2 costs $100-$150 right now.
 
thundersteele said:
These are fresh numbers shortly after a reboot, right? Try posting these numbers after a full day of use.



Running out of RAM shouldn't cause kernel panics, unless you are also out of HD space.

And yes, for your usage, I would recommend upgrading RAM. It might not be a huge performance boost, but it will help in those cases where you currently use up your RAM. Swapping to a HDD slows the system down considerably.
Click to expand...

Yep fresh after reboot and no I have not upgraded yet but money for me is really tight :(
 
I'm sick to death of the beachballs on both my 13" +15" 2011 MBPs with the stock 4GB of RAM.

Does this question need to be asked? For a lousy $40 it is, as they say, a no brainer.
 
I work at an advertising agency. Most of our graphic designers have only 4GB on their iMacs and haven't complained so far.

I say get 8 GB only if you run virtual machines.
 
Fubar1977 said:
It`s a pretty cheap upgrade and you can never have too much ram.
I don`t consider myself a Power User but I don`t regret the upgrade for a second.
Click to expand...

I agree. One can never have too much RAM. It speeds up everything, it doesn't just get used when you're maxing out the system.
 
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