Should I upgrade memory?

[DanielDMB]

Hi everyone,

I have a 15" Mid-2009 Macbook Pro with 4GB of memory (2GB in two slots: 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3)

I use this computer a LOT for video editing and motion graphics. The computer is great editing with Final Cut Express, but as projects get bigger and longer and with more filters, it begins to slow down. Same goes when creating motion graphics in Motion 5. I was considering just upgrading the whole computer to a 2012 Macbook Pro with an i7 quad core processor with 8GB of ram, but that's not in the budget right now.

Would upgrading my current Macbook Pro's memory from 4 to 8GB be a good investment or is it not worth it?

Thanks in advance,
Dan

 

[GGJstudios]

Would upgrading my current Macbook Pro's memory from 4 to 8GB be a good investment or is it not worth it?

To determine if you can benefit from more RAM, launch Activity Monitor and click the System Memory tab at the bottom to check your page outs. 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. If your page outs are zero or very low during normal use, you probably won't see any performance improvement from adding RAM.

Mac OS X: Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor

 

[Dangerous Theory]

May as well grab the RAM now, and when you eventually can afford the new laptop just switch it over (assuming you can use RAM with a higher clock than 1067 in yours).

In any case, you'll see a huge performance leap from a C2D to an i7.

 

[T5BRICK]

Would upgrading my current Macbook Pro's memory from 4 to 8GB be a good investment or is it not worth it?

I picked up a 2 x 4GB kit for my mid 2009 13" MacBook Pro a while back and I definitely noticed a difference. I ended up buying 1333MHz RAM instead of 1067MHz and noticed that it actually runs at full speed in my laptop. It was similar to this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145281

 

[DanielDMB]

If your page outs are significant (say 1GB or more) under normal use, you may benefit from more RAM.
Mac OS X: Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor

Upon testing this, I found that during normal editing with Final Cut, it hovers around 150mb of memory. When I need to render a clip or export, it hovers around 180mb, but occasionally rises to 200mb+ and once went up to 1.2gb, but dropped a few seconds later.

With Motion 5, it starts around 200mb and just goes up as I work with it. The highest it went up was 930mb.