One reason NOT to have 4GB is the DVD Player bug.
Put a DVD in and you might get a kernel panic with 4GB in a MacBook.
Put a DVD in and you might get a kernel panic with 4GB in a MacBook.
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the reason why you should upgrade to 4gb ram on macbook (2008) with leopard.
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Thats more because of intentionally bad drivers on the part of Apple for Vista then the RAM.
more RAM = less battery life
more powerful processor (from the same series in general)= less battery life
higher rpm hard disk = less battery
any extra power or components are an additional drain to the battery. I believe the faster hard disk is worth it, because it is the slowest component of your system against 4 gigs of memory or a more powerful processor. Sadly apple does not offer this option.
depends on what you want .. I would probably be better off with the lower clocked mac with 2 gigs of RAM. *even though i do not own one
*
Finally, you just need to know what you want.
more powerful processor (from the same series in general)= less battery life
higher rpm hard disk = less battery
any extra power or components are an additional drain to the battery. I believe the faster hard disk is worth it, because it is the slowest component of your system against 4 gigs of memory or a more powerful processor. Sadly apple does not offer this option.
depends on what you want .. I would probably be better off with the lower clocked mac with 2 gigs of RAM. *even though i do not own one
*Finally, you just need to know what you want.
more RAM = less battery life
more powerful processor (from the same series in general)= less battery life
higher rpm hard disk = less battery
any extra power or components are an additional drain to the battery. I believe the faster hard disk is worth it, because it is the slowest component of your system against 4 gigs of memory or a more powerful processor. Sadly apple does not offer this option.
depends on what you want .. I would probably be better off with the lower clocked mac with 2 gigs of RAM. *even though i do not own one
Finally, you just need to know what you want.
More RAM = The same or better battery life due to the lack of paging
More Powerful CPU = The same or worse battery life
Faster HDD = Inconclusive
An older, faster HDD might kill your battery faster, but let's say that you don't increase your RAM, so you are still paging your HDD the same, but with a faster HDD, those read/writes get completed faster, so it is conceivable you will get better battery life.
Or, just get the max RAM for your system, and then a 320GB+ drive and it will be wicked fast just due to drive density.
More ram = Less page outs -> Agreed. But most users don't require 4 gigs at a time and generally 2 gb is sufficient to satisfy all page requests.
Besides, when you say more memory = lesser page outs , this also means your machine had to get in those pages in memory in the first place so that did not in any way reduce load on battery. Next, battery needs to be refreshed all the while (even when idle) which requires power and this happens thousands of times every second.
In fact having 4 gb is worse, consider this scenario, you turn on your machine for a couple of minutes to check email, then switch it off. During this time your mac will have read a lot more pages from disk onto memory even when they weren't required. In contrast, if you are doing video editing, compiling large programs etc., you need loads of RAM , that saves page accesses but then, you are better off with a powerful desktop.
Regarding processors, you could just see the data sheet. Faster processors from the same family have on an average higher power consumption (see the watt section). More watts = lesser battery life.
To me, it is a clear trade off between performance and battery life + memory cost. The only advantage of more memory is performance. I would prefer to have longer battery life and portability and let some desktop do the number crunching work.
To draw an analogy, its just like the human metabolism, an energetic person consumes more power even when he is at rest.
Besides, when you say more memory = lesser page outs , this also means your machine had to get in those pages in memory in the first place so that did not in any way reduce load on battery. Next, battery needs to be refreshed all the while (even when idle) which requires power and this happens thousands of times every second.
In fact having 4 gb is worse, consider this scenario, you turn on your machine for a couple of minutes to check email, then switch it off. During this time your mac will have read a lot more pages from disk onto memory even when they weren't required. In contrast, if you are doing video editing, compiling large programs etc., you need loads of RAM , that saves page accesses but then, you are better off with a powerful desktop.
Regarding processors, you could just see the data sheet. Faster processors from the same family have on an average higher power consumption (see the watt section). More watts = lesser battery life.
To me, it is a clear trade off between performance and battery life + memory cost. The only advantage of more memory is performance. I would prefer to have longer battery life and portability and let some desktop do the number crunching work.
I refer to hard disks from the same generation not different generation hard disks. Regarding battery life for a faster hard disk, energy required = work / time. lesser time means more energy, and given that hard disks are mechanical devices, classical physics still applies. Next, 7200 rpm means even when your machine is idle it is consuming more power.
To draw an analogy, its just like the human metabolism, an energetic person consumes more power even when he is at rest.
yeah I have 2 GB and only ever get page outs if I'm using handbrake and doing other tasks at the same time. I see no reason to spend $100 for no gain.
4GB MackBook
I just bit the bullet and upgraded to 4 MB. WOW! It's like I've got a new computer. ZERO page outs for the last week. As an experiment, I ran ALL applications, including iWork stuff, and still had decent speed.
I just bit the bullet and upgraded to 4 MB. WOW! It's like I've got a new computer. ZERO page outs for the last week. As an experiment, I ran ALL applications, including iWork stuff, and still had decent speed.
yea but thats not the point im saying is vista and leopard run fine on 768mb of ram
Either way the difference is so small I'd be surprised if you noticed it in real life.
shouldn't there be a FAQ or something that would explain the memory management difference between *nix and *dos?
I remember when I first time used Linux (Mandrake), I got raged about it's bloatedness. "Using 512Mb of memory without any programs running?! XP used just 50!!!" Nowadays it'sreally difficult imaginging that XP doesn't allocate all available memory to the programs that need it. I remember searching the net for Linux ramboosters (similar to what I used in windows) in vain. I think eventually someone explained how it works via IRC.
Oh the memories of taking first steps to *nix-world.
I remember when I first time used Linux (Mandrake), I got raged about it's bloatedness. "Using 512Mb of memory without any programs running?! XP used just 50!!!" Nowadays it'sreally difficult imaginging that XP doesn't allocate all available memory to the programs that need it. I remember searching the net for Linux ramboosters (similar to what I used in windows) in vain. I think eventually someone explained how it works via IRC.
Oh the memories of taking first steps to *nix-world.
ok, i didnt want to start a new thread, so i'll justy ask my question here, because the subject what somewhat mentioned in the starting post:
I have Activity Monitor running from the moment of boot, and shenever i open safari, the more i use it, the more RAM gets filled up. Why is it that Safari slowly but surely keeps taking up more RAM space?? does it keep storing info that takes up RAM space? if so, what can i do to clear that up without quitting safari??
Thanks
I have Activity Monitor running from the moment of boot, and shenever i open safari, the more i use it, the more RAM gets filled up. Why is it that Safari slowly but surely keeps taking up more RAM space?? does it keep storing info that takes up RAM space? if so, what can i do to clear that up without quitting safari??
Thanks
ok, i didnt want to start a new thread, so i'll justy ask my question here, because the subject what somewhat mentioned in the starting post:
I have Activity Monitor running from the moment of boot, and shenever i open safari, the more i use it, the more RAM gets filled up. Why is it that Safari slowly but surely keeps taking up more RAM space?? does it keep storing info that takes up RAM space? if so, what can i do to clear that up without quitting safari??
Thanks
Normally I wouldn't worry about this, but in this case Safari does have a memory leak.
If you browse a lot, you need to reopen Safari once in every few days to regain RAM used by it. I usually reopen it when it gets past 250 MB RAM usage.
This bring up the question: when will Apple fix Safari memory leak?
Apparently you don't pay too much attention to how OS X handles memory
I just upgraded my MacBook from 1GB to 2.5GB.
With 1GB my system started up with 600MB free. 400MB used. With 2.5GB my MacBook starts up with 2.10GB free. 400MB used. No difference.
You also need to look at some notebook HDD benchmarks. Theres plenty of 7200RPM drives out there that consume less power and put out less heat than 5400RPM drives. In fact, a couple of years ago, I remember looking at benchmarks where a 4200RPM 2.5" drive was eating more power than a 7200RPM drive!
HDD power consumption is a wash. It depends on the drive. A google search will show some 7200RPM drives eating more power than a 5400 while you'll see benchmarks showing completely opposite.
Faster notebook CPUs don't necessarily use more power either. And, unless you're encoding video, they're always in a reduced power mode/lower clock speed when on battery anyway. You could have a 2.6GHz MBP, but if you're running on battery and typing a paper, chances are its running at 800MHz or lower. Most of the Core 2 family use the same amount of power anyway. You'll find a difference of a watt maybe here and there. But on battery power, they'll be adjusting dynamically as needed.
Come to think of it, the newer Core 2 Duos that do run at higher clock speeds would most likely consume less power on battery. Why? Well, they have revised architecture. So lets say at 2.2GHz Merom based Core 2 Duo has to run at 1GHz to a job, that Penryn processor could get it done at 800MHz. Lower clock speed and lower battery life. Plus look at the chipset differences. Santa Rosa has an 800MHz FSB compared to Napa at 667MHz. But, unlike the Napa platform, the SR platform can clock down the RAM and FSB as needed.
To make myself clear, I mean components from the same generation. So a Penryn clocked at 2.2 Ghz consumes lesser power than a Penryn clocked at 2.4 Ghz.
Similarly, for hardisks using the same (power saving etc) technology 5400 RPM consumes lesser power than 7200 RPM. Whenever one purchase a machine, he/she *generally* has the options of components from the same generation.
Just to be sure,
did you upgrade the OS? Did you come back from a standby?
did you uninstall some software?
It may be probable that your behavior changed, meaning you stopped using some software you used frequently previously and the machine learned not to cache those programs onto memory. This is just a shot in the dark, I don't even know if the macs have this kind of intelligence.
There can be several hundreds of reasons why the caching reduced and one of them could be the increased availability of RAM. I'd be glad if someone explains the logic behind this kind of caching (or just an intuition maybe).
Similarly, for hardisks using the same (power saving etc) technology 5400 RPM consumes lesser power than 7200 RPM. Whenever one purchase a machine, he/she *generally* has the options of components from the same generation.
Very surprising. I personally can't think of how they can do this.
Just to be sure,
did you upgrade the OS? Did you come back from a standby?
did you uninstall some software?
It may be probable that your behavior changed, meaning you stopped using some software you used frequently previously and the machine learned not to cache those programs onto memory. This is just a shot in the dark, I don't even know if the macs have this kind of intelligence.
There can be several hundreds of reasons why the caching reduced and one of them could be the increased availability of RAM. I'd be glad if someone explains the logic behind this kind of caching (or just an intuition maybe).
He said after startup.
My MacBook also took only ~400 MB after startup when it had 1 GB RAM, just like now when it has 2 GB.
After OS starts up there's no caching to do yet, so it doesn't matter what you have installed on the machine.
You don't NEED it, but it sure runs better with 4gb. I noticed the
difference after adding the 4gb kit to my new MB.
Just do it.
difference after adding the 4gb kit to my new MB.
Just do it.
I thought I'd be happy with 2GB on my CD Macbook (which is the maximum it can handle), but now that I'm spending significant time running a virtual machine on a second monitor, I find that I get close to hitting the ceiling far more often than I'd like. So, 4GB at least on my next machine.
Of course, my next machine may be quite some time away. This bugger's two years old and solid as a rock.
Of course, my next machine may be quite some time away. This bugger's two years old and solid as a rock.
I think it's solved, I haven't had it occurring anymore at least. I also read some comments about it being solved but I'm not a 100 percent sure.
