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upgrade ram on CD Macbook...worth it?

Jayhawk85

Jayhawk85

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 15, 2007
52
0
Jackson, Mississippi
I've got the 1st gen 2.0ghz Macbook with 1gb of ram. I recently upgraded to a 200 gig 4200 rpm hard drive. It was a great deal and the speed is really not a factor for me. Having the extra space is great. Now I'm looking to upgrade the ram. It currently has 2x512mb sticks. Will upgrading to 2x1gb sticks (the max that this comp can handle) give a significant boost in performance? Or should I get a faster hard drive? I could probably do 1 of these 2 upgrades, but not both considering I've already bought one new hard drive. Most of my work on the computer is word processing, Keynote presentations, music, and movies. I do some Garageband recording also but no heavy graphics work. Appreciate the input!
 
I'd think it s a good deal to go for the ram, since your drive is a 4200, then when you do something that requires more ram it won't be going into your "slow" HD your ram will take care of it, plus you just bought that drive i don't think you should replace it, had you not bought it i would have said go for a faster one.
 
I recommend buying a 2GB stick and having 2.5GB RAM :)

They're cheap, very cheap...

EDIT: Sorry, I didn't realise the limit
 
Hey, I have the same MB as you do.
Will upgrading to 2x1gb sticks (the max that this comp can handle) give a significant boost in performance? Or should I get a faster hard drive? I could probably do 1 of these 2 upgrades
Click to expand...
Yes, upgrading the RAM will give you a boost, but since you've downgraded in HD speed Im not sure. Then again, its to prevent your system from running to your HD all the time, so it could help.

I recommend buying a 2GB stick and having 2.5GB RAM
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Doesnt work, thats the problem I faced a few minutes ago when my 2GB ram arrived.

1x2GB will work
2x1GB will work
But anything over 2GB wont work on a Core Duo.
 
Best with 2x 1GB to enable dual channel mode. Otherwise the overhead of sharing the RAM with the graphics chip slows the rest of the system down.
 
From Macworld first look review at the MacBook...
http://www.macworld.com/article/50949/2006/05/macbookfaq.html

Why does Apple only sell MacBooks with RAM in pairs that use up both RAM slots? The MacBook Pro ships with one RAM module instead of two.

Like the other Intel-based Macs, the MacBook uses dual-channel memory. Although you can put RAM in just one slot, when installed in matched pairs, the RAM can achieve its maximum throughput. According to Apple, you probably wouldn’t notice much of a difference on the MacBook Pro, which has a discrete graphics card. But on the MacBook, which shares up to 80MB of its main memory with the onboard graphics system, the extra speed you pick up by interleaving two separate RAM modules is vital.
Click to expand...
 
If you're running Leopard, I'd definitely recommend upping your memory to 2 GB. It'll run quite a bit better if you like to keep several apps open at a given time.
 
I just ordered 4gb of ram from newegg for $89 :) Should be here monday/tuesday next week.
 
Alrighty then

I'm going to go ahead with the RAM upgrade, $46 from Crucial.com seems like a pretty good deal to me. Maybe if my sister decides to upgrade her hard drive I'll give her my 4200 and get myself a 7200. Thanks for the tips!
 
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