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the reason why you should upgrade to 4gb ram on macbook (2008) with leopard.

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xenostorm

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 12, 2008
1
0
hi all.
I just purchased a macbook black 2.4 ghz 2008 version in hongkong and had 4gb of ram installed. I remember someone asking what is the use of so much ram. however, today as I was checking the activity monitor \system memory info, this is what I saw:

I got that on leopard with just safari running:

total memory 4 gb

free: 1,19 gb
wired: 548.30 mb
active: 847,93 mb
inactive: 1.43 gb (for swapping)

total used 2.79 gb

2.79 gb used by the system and I am not even using programs. that leaves me only with just about 1 gb of memory for applications. I can't even imagine how on earth a macbook with 1gb ram can run properly!?

so now, if you are questioning yourself about wether or not upgrading to 4 gb ram on a new macbook, don't hesitate, just do it because it seems to be a basic need for new macbook (2008) with leopard installed.
 
It helps because of the aggressive caching that OS X does, but it isn't required. If I get a macbook, I do really want to get one with 4 gbs though.
 
StuBeck said:
It helps because of the aggressive caching that OS X does, but it isn't required. If I get a macbook, I do really want to get one with 4 gbs though.
Click to expand...

lol

im sure most people who have macbooks with 2 gigs of ram still get very few page outs if any

as i said those who need it will know they do and this tends to be if you are working with large files, video tasks, etc. for the avg person 2 gigs is well more than enough


to see if you need more ram, check activity monitor and see the ratio of page outs to page ins. if the ratio approaches about 10% page outs to page ins, then i would look at more ram but thats me


also to the OP, free and inactive ram are both available ram so you have about 2.6gigs of ram free
 
You have to use 'top', not Activity Monitor which only gives you totals to properly gauge swapping.
 
I used my macbook for a week and half intensively with the stock 2GBs of ram and it ran really fast and smooth. however being that ram is so inexpensive with third parties and being that having more ram doesnt hurt i upgraded to 4GB's... because i figured why not max out the system if you have the money lying around, but not because i really needed it.
 
I have mine with 2GB, this thing runs like a bat out of hell. Really it has no trouble what so ever... Like others have said - If you have the space, why not max it out for under $100?
 
I edited some Hi-Def video on my Penryn Macbook using iMovie with the stock 2GB of RAM and didn't have any issues.

4GB would be nice but now I'm puting off the purchase after having no problems editing the video.
 
I run 4gb on mine because of vmware. I assign 2gb to xp when I have it running. Mine came with 1gb stock, and simply wasn't enough for what I needed.
 
i can understand why people would like to have, the faster the better i suppose.

but i think it would be better if people were writing in their signatures how much ram they dont use, lowest being better, instead of how much theyve actually got. that way you're basically saying 'hey, look at me, i have just the right amount of RAM'
 
xenostorm said:
I got that on leopard with just safari running:

total memory 4 gb

free: 1,19 gb
wired: 548.30 mb
active: 847,93 mb
inactive: 1.43 gb (for swapping)

total used 2.79 gb

2.79 gb used by the system and I am not even using programs. that leaves me only with just about 1 gb of memory for applications. I can't even imagine how on earth a macbook with 1gb ram can run properly!?
Click to expand...

My old Powerbook 15" 1.67Ghz have 1 gb:

free: 96,34mb
wired: 139,34mb
active: 537,96mb
Inactive: 249,34mb

I'm running Firefox, Activity Monitor, VirtualPC (windows 2000 with 256MB Ram)... so I'm actually running applications... VirtualPC Reports 256MB for the virtual Machine plus 4MB of vram (video ram) plus code cache 17,9MB.

1 GB will get the job done... remember that inactive can be considered like free memory, because when you close a program, the ram it uses is converted to inactive ram in case you reload the program... in that way the program will reload faster.

In the other hand you have 874MB of active memory only with safari... are you sure you are not in youtube with a large video or something like that?

In my experience 512MB of ram is only good for email and to hear music :)

Finally I can tell you that have a lot of memory is very good for video/audio/photo editing.

clemare
 
Agreed with the point that activity monitor is not being accurately used in this context.
 
I had 1GB on my Mid-2007 MacBook until last Thursday. The only time I ever "felt" it was when running VMWare with XP set to 256MB inside of Leopard. But now I have 2.5GB and it flies no matter what I do. Now if only it had a respectable GPU.
 
dukebound85 said:
lol

im sure most people who have macbooks with 2 gigs of ram still get very few page outs if any

as i said those who need it will know they do and this tends to be if you are working with large files, video tasks, etc. for the avg person 2 gigs is well more than enough


to see if you need more ram, check activity monitor and see the ratio of page outs to page ins. if the ratio approaches about 10% page outs to page ins, then i would look at more ram but thats me


also to the OP, free and inactive ram are both available ram so you have about 2.6gigs of ram free
Click to expand...

Whats funny about what I said?

I agreed with you, for most people it is fine. The only problem I ever had with OS X was Leopard not freeing up RAM when I was using VMware to run windows.
 
Im glad i saw this. Not cause it helped me find out wether or not to upgrade to 4g or not, just cause i know that for 100 bux (or 2 xbox games) i can max this bad boy out (2.2 MB SR) and give it to my girlfriend for EXTREME emailing and web browsing...

*sigh*
 
MacBook 2 GHz 2 GB RAM:

10 days 16 hours uptime running

- Safari
- Mail
- Adium
- Dictionary
- Pages
- Word 2008
- iGetter
- iTunes
- Handbrake
- Sometimes run a game like KOTOR or UT2004 with all of the above (except handbrake of course) on as well.

From Terminal:

PhysMem: 317M wired, 958M active, 101M inactive, 1377M used, 663M free.
VM: 11G + 373M 181171(0) pageins, 14(0) pageouts
Click to expand...

Tell me, why do I need 4 GB for Leopard, again?
 
inactive memory can get big

last night I checked activity monitor and saw the following:

2.7 gb of inactive memory
72 mb of free memory
1gb of active memory
228 mb of wired memory

even had some page outs
Macbook pro 2.4 ghz 4gb RAM and I was running only safari and logic pro were still open, but no logic project was open.

I must say, at that point, the computer was acting really slow, don't know what went wrong. Restarting the computer cured it.
 
Yeah, i have 2GBs and i do a ton of photo, video, and audio editing with NO problem. :cool:
 
I've been running my MBP (rev1 2.0 Ghz Core Duo) at its max of 2GB ram for 2 years now, and only started to hanker for more power after Leopard and CS3 upgrades. But now I want to wear swim shorts to go with the beach balls I see bouncing everywhere.

Hopefully I can hold out until my Applecare runs out in March '09.
 
look at what i use 768mb of ram and leopard and vista home premium run fine although the fans are going on highness on vista

anyway they wouldnt have min requirements 512 for a reason
 
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