I have a Late 2006 2.33GHz Core 2 Duo 20-inch iMac with 2GB of RAM. I can install 4GB of RAM but the computer will only recognise 3. Sometimes my computer can slow down when I have lots of applications running or when Lion does one of it's fancy transitions. Should I upgrade my RAM?
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Should I upgrade my RAM?
- Thread starter lufc4ever
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I also have an end 2006 c2d 20" iMac with 2gb RAM. I thought about upgrading the RAM, but I think I prefer to avoid the hassle/cost of ordering/installing new RAM. I think that Lion's performance with 2gb RAM is quite acceptable anyway. Did you end up doing the update from 2 to 3? Are you happy about the upgrade?
You can never go wrong with having the maximum amount of RAM you can afford for your machine. I have 8GB on my MacBook Pro. These days RAM is the cheapest way to increase system performance.
For the transitions, probably not because thats more of a graphics performance issue and I believe that your iMac has discrete graphics (which means that freeing up memory won't increase your graphics performance).
As for general slowdown, yes there is a very good chance that having more RAM installed will increase the overall responsiveness of your computer. But lets not guess, there is a very easy way to know for sure:
Open the applications that you might be using during a heavy load, and then open Activity Monitor. Go to the "System Memory" tab at the bottom. You should see this:
Free memory is completely unused
Wired memory is in use by the OS
Active memory is in use by active applications
Inactive memory is cached data from recently closed applications
All I have open is Chrome, Illustrator, and Activity Monitor, and just with that I'm using about 2.2GB of memory between the OS and active apps, plus the computer is cashing another 800MB of application data so that in case I reopen a recently used app, it can load straight from the memory (much faster than having to load from the hard drive).
In my case, 2GB of RAM wouldn't even be enough for the Wired and Active memory. This means that my computer would have to use the hard drive as virtual memory, drastically slowing down the computer. The fact that I can often load apps straight from my unused RAM also makes the computer feel a lot faster.
Maybe apple has programed OS X Lion so that if it knows you only have 2GB of memory, it will load fewer resources in the Wired memory by default, but this just means that you're going to have to go back to the hard disk more often to load whatever files you specifically need.
Considering that I am using 2.2GB of memory with just 2 or 3 apps open, I really think that it would be worth the low cost to upgrade your memory to 3GB. But you can check your Activity Monitor for yourself.
I'm convinced - I will place my order with crucial today.
It does feel a bit stupid to invest in a computer that is five years old, but it is not a waste because I am sure that I will use it for another year or two... and it is just 23 euros anyway.
It does feel a bit stupid to invest in a computer that is five years old, but it is not a waste because I am sure that I will use it for another year or two... and it is just 23 euros anyway.
Yep if it's just 2 GB more will definitely help, see this video to determine usage of RAM in OS X and if you need more
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iiw397iCv8o
I fee 4GB is more than enough for normal task but if you do something like video editing or heavy apps then more is better, I do some video editing often and with 4 GB I was paging a lot now on 8 GB and it made a huge difference now I am planning to upgrade to 16 GB coz I still I get a bit of paging and RAM pricing is at all time low.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iiw397iCv8o
I fee 4GB is more than enough for normal task but if you do something like video editing or heavy apps then more is better, I do some video editing often and with 4 GB I was paging a lot now on 8 GB and it made a huge difference now I am planning to upgrade to 16 GB coz I still I get a bit of paging and RAM pricing is at all time low.
If you do not use a lot of apps simultaneously (multitasking) more RAM is not important see my video that I posted in the earlier thread In which I show how to check if you need more RAM...... It is best of check it after using your Mac for a couple of hours to determine if additional RAM will be helpful.
It's off topic, but if that iMac is your only machine, then I would suggest that you upgrade your computer to something like MBA, MBP, or even the 799 Mac Minis. They should be way more powerful than your current machine. If you can't, then yes, go with the RAM upgrade.
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I just recently installed some ram in my iMac. It shipped with 4 gigs to begin with, and I swapped it out for 16 gigs. Really, there's literally no difference in performance until you use the most memory intensive apps - like Parallels and virtualization stuff. Then, it becomes noticeable.
However, if you're upgrading a machine that had 2gb by default when it shipped, chances are that other components in the machine are somewhat dated. Although RAM is dirt cheap, I don't see the logic in upgrading a machine that should probably be replaced soon. If your Mac is from 2006, if it was a person, it'd have learned to walk, talk, and go to kindergarden at this point. Five years is an awful long time in the world of computing. Time to move on, maybe?
However, if you're upgrading a machine that had 2gb by default when it shipped, chances are that other components in the machine are somewhat dated. Although RAM is dirt cheap, I don't see the logic in upgrading a machine that should probably be replaced soon. If your Mac is from 2006, if it was a person, it'd have learned to walk, talk, and go to kindergarden at this point. Five years is an awful long time in the world of computing. Time to move on, maybe?
This old iMac is indeed the only computer in the house, shared between my wife and myself. That works very well.
If I would get a MBA, I would probably keep it for myself, and let my wife have the iMac. From that point of view, the extra 1GB of RAM would still be useful for her...
Similarly, if I were to decide to get a new iMac or mini, which would then probably take the spot of the old iMac in the living room, the old iMac would probably move to another room in case we both need access to a computer at the same time...
In short, I am more convinced than ever that the extra gig of RAM will still be useful...
I do not really think extra 1GB will change anything dramatically. For example, in my case, I had two RAMs to test out. 2x2GB and 2x4GB on my Macbook Pro. I stuck with the 8GB because it was significantly better, and no matter how many GBs of RAM I installed, the computer always used 50% of it, so I thought extra 4GB will benefit me.
In your case, maybe the Mac Mini. You could, then, hold onto your money and buy the redesigned MBPs or MBAs in 2012.
