Think the 8GB iMac 2012 is enough?

[Gelite55]

The upgrade from 2 GB will seem like a massive increase already. 8 GB should be fine, but do you want fine or amazing? You can check how much page outs you have right now. Restart the mac at the beginning of the day and then do your normal work stuff. Then check your page outs in activity monitor at the end of the day.

Right now I have no page outs and hardly ever run lower than 2-3GB to spare. I even tried to shake it running Windows 8 in a VM and gave it all 8GB of memory. I still couldn't shake it. I think this will run FCP X WELL.

Note again this is the baseline 21.5" 2012 model.

 

[fiorgodx]

Baseline = not the fusion drive? Can you tell me how you decided which hard drive to go with?

 

[Gelite55]

Baseline = not the fusion drive? Can you tell me how you decided which hard drive to go with?

Simply. I usually put my computer to sleep when I'm away for more than 2 hours. So I asked myself is the 10-12 second booting and slightly faster frequently used application I/O worth the Apple premium price. I said no.

So far this machine is running amazing. Couldn't be happier. It can do everything I want it to do and haven't paged out yet.

 

[TacticalDesire]

The fact that you have to ask probably means 8gb is more than enough for you.

 

[RichiMac]

The fact that you have to ask probably means 8gb is more than enough for you.

Whoa, not much of a snob are we???

 

[torana355]

Been running my 2012 iMac for two days now with the standard 8GB or ram and not one pageout or swap. More then enough, ive actually got more then 4GB free.

 

[atteligibility]

Been running my 2012 iMac for two days now with the standard 8GB or ram and not one pageout or swap. More then enough, ive actually got more then 4GB free.

I don't get how you guys manage to do everything you want to do with 8Gb. Opened brand new iMac 2 hours ago, set up safari and mail, not running anything else, and only got 2Gb free out of my 8Gb.

Now I know I just need to open a project in XCode or a large enough PSD in Photoshop and this thing is going to explode...

32Gb coming from Crucial in the next few days, can't wait...

 

[torana355]

I don't get how you guys manage to do everything you want to do with 8Gb. Opened brand new iMac 2 hours ago, set up safari and mail, not running anything else, and only got 2Gb free out of my 8Gb.

Now I know I just need to open a project in XCode or a large enough PSD in Photoshop and this thing is going to explode...

32Gb coming from Crucial in the next few days, can't wait...

As you can see by this screenshot, i have many more apps then just safari and mail open, i have 9 tabs open in fire fox and i have over 5GB free memory and no pageouts. I have no idea how you use so much memory on two lightweight apps.

 

[Johnf1285]

I have Safari open with 3 tabs, mail open, messages open with a bunch of chats going, calendar open, iphoto running with me working on some simple edits, and pixelmator open with 5 larger images up and running with various layers and effects. I just hit 4gb of ram used.

 

[Gelite55]

Right now with just Chrome open.
I have 4.79GB free and 729.2MB Inactive.
So 5.8'sh GB free.

 

[TacticalDesire]

Whoa, not much of a snob are we???

Snob? Not at all! My apologies if it came out that way. I was simply saying that if he actually needed more than 8gb. He'd definitely know.

 

[atteligibility]

As you can see by this screenshot, i have many more apps then just safari and mail open, i have 9 tabs open in fire fox and i have over 5GB free memory and no pageouts. I have no idea how you use so much memory on two lightweight apps.

View attachment 384240

As I said, brand new iMac:
- set up 3 email accounts in Mail
- Install couple of apps with Mac App Store (didn't run them yet)
- Open Safari, install flash player and browse through a few sites

About 2Gb Free as you can see on screenshot

 

[atteligibility]

Right now with just Chrome open.
I have 4.79GB free and 729.2MB Inactive.
So 5.8'sh GB free.

4.79 free= 4.79 free

Lot of people will claim that OSX is smart enough to release the inactive memory when it's needed, but practically that is just not true anymore.

Every time my free memory goes to 0, that's a guaranteed beach ball and slowdowns, no matter how much inactive memory I have got.

 

[torana355]

As I said, brand new iMac:
- set up 3 email accounts in Mail
- Install couple of apps with Mac App Store (didn't run them yet)
- Open Safari, install flash player and browse through a few sites

About 2Gb Free as you can see on screenshot

Ok i dont think i even have another app to open now, safari with many tabs, Firefox with many tabs, all adobe apps open, photoshop with 3 images open ect ect and i still have 3GB free lol.

 

[atteligibility]

Ok i dont think i even have another app to open now, safari with many tabs, Firefox with many tabs, all adobe apps open, photoshop with 3 images open ect ect and i still have 3GB free lol.

View attachment 384251

weird,

do you have flash player installed?

 

[torana355]

weird,

do you have flash player installed?

No not yet, im just using Chrome for flash sites atm. My point is for my needs 8GB is more then plenty as you can see. I can always upgrade to 16GB if i ever need it I survive with only 4GB of ram on my 2011 MBA and old 2008 iMac just fine awell.

 

[atteligibility]

Ok i dont think i even have another app to open now, safari with many tabs, Firefox with many tabs, all adobe apps open, photoshop with 3 images open ect ect and i still have 3GB free lol.

View attachment 384251

your inactive memory looks really low, are you running any tool to automatically free your inactive memory?

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No not yet, im just using Chrome for flash sites atm. My point is for my needs 8GB is more then plenty as you can see. I can always upgrade to 16GB if i ever need it

oh, I don't argue your point, I don't care if you get 16Gb or 32Gb...

Just trying to use the opportunity to figure out why some people swear that 8Gb is plenty, when I am nearly running out 2 hours after unboxing, having not run any of my memory intensive apps yet...

I used to go the chrome way as well (on my 2009 macbook pro), but noticed that that it was using much more CPU than the standalone flash player, laptop running much cooler now...

 

[torana355]

your inactive memory looks really low, are you running any tool to automatically free your inactive memory?

Nah, inactive memory gets used automatically by OSX. I just don't have the memory issues alot of people talk about. We were running only 6GB or ram on our prepress production Macs at work until recently!

 

[atteligibility]

Nah, inactive memory gets used automatically by OSX. I just don't have the memory issues alot of people talk about. We were running only 6GB or ram on our prepress production Macs at work until recently!

I haven't seen such nice behavior since snow leopard.
My inactive memory never gets used automatically, I get beach ball and slow downs as soon as free mem is 0, even with 3Gb of inactive memory.

 

[torana355]

I used to go the chrome way as well (on my 2009 macbook pro), but noticed that that it was using much more CPU than the standalone flash player, laptop running much cooler now...

Oh i usually install flash and use Firefox but i have not got to it yet. Im not sure why some peoples mac use more ram? Its weird hey.

 

[atteligibility]

Oh i usually install flash and use Firefox but i have not got to it yet. Im not sure why some peoples mac use more ram? Its weird hey.

if you install flash, please report again afterwards, I don't see what else I am running that you haven't open...

 

[Gelite55]

if you install flash, please report again afterwards, I don't see what else I am running that you haven't open...

It's funny if you think about it. Windows actually uses a lot less RAM. I can run Windows 8 on 700mb if I turn off defender. Macs just use more RAM. I still don't think I have to upgrade past 8GB though.

 

[atteligibility]

It's funny if you think about it. Windows actually uses a lot less RAM. I can run Windows 8 on 700mb if I turn off defender. Macs just use more RAM. I still don't think I have to upgrade past 8GB though.

Using more RAM is not always a bad thing. Sometimes it means leaks and inefficiencies and that's bad, but sometimes that means some stuff are put in RAM rather than disk, providing a much faster access.

In the case of my 2009 Macbook Pro, it's definitely a bad thing though, as I am limited to 8Gb and always fill it up...
On my iMac, 32Gb coming in a few days, so I don't care, should even have a few gigs available for a ramdisk...

 

[Gelite55]

Using more RAM is not always a bad thing. Sometimes it means leaks and inefficiencies and that's bad, but sometimes that means some stuff are put in RAM rather than disk, providing a much faster access.

In the case of my 2009 Macbook Pro, it's definitely a bad thing though, as I am limited to 8Gb and always fill it up...
On my iMac, 32Gb coming in a few days, so I don't care, should even have a few gigs available for a ramdisk...

You know u can get 16GB config and buy another 16GB from Crucial for like $80. Apple is bumping the price up from 16 to 32GB enormously. You could buy a PC for the difference.

 

[atteligibility]

You know u can get 16GB config and buy another 16GB from Crucial for like $80. Apple is bumping the price up from 16 to 32GB enormously. You could buy a PC for the difference.

I got the iMac with 8Gb, what I am getting the 32Gb from Crucial