Upgrade Ram or New Mac?

[malfaris]

I do alot of extensive work with my Quad 2.5 G5, HD video editing and canon 5DII Raw files which are 24MB in size each. I find my computer to slow down when working with each. especially raw files in aperture. so i dont myself maybe upgrading the ram will help, I currently have 5g Ram. HOWEVER when i check the ram when my computer slow do i see that there is some free ram not in use like 2g. So my question, do i upgrade to a newer mac pro or do I just need to upgrade the ram because it doesnt have do with the free Ram reads I am getting?
also one thing I also noticed is when i copy files from one place to another my computer lags horribly, the HD playback keep lagging and dropping frames. what you thing is causing that?

 

[TEG]

Get a Mac Pro. Even one from 2007/2008 would be faster for most of the work you are trying to do. The additional RAM might help a little bit, but likely not enough to write home about.

TEG

 

[Detrius]

If your processors are maxed out in activity monitor, then that's likely your bottleneck, so the fastest processors you can get would be better. If they are NOT maxed out, then it may be that RAM *speed* is your limiting factor, in which case, getting an eight core machine will not likely make a big difference over a four core, but the only way to increase RAM speed is by replacing your main logic board (i.e. get a new computer).

See if you can find benchmarks online by people that are running tasks similar to what you run.

 

[Dr.Pants]

Has it been getting slow recently? If so, it might be that your HDD is getting full or something along those lines. The machine is dated, but I haven't run into any issues with copy/paste functions running slow...

What program are you using for editing? Sounds like a 32-bit one if only 3 GB of RAM are getting used up...

 

[malfaris]

when i do my type of work the four processor usually max because i am always in need of executing more than on task at the same time, but it should easy for a power mac. and sometimes they dont get max at the same time, you see they are maxing randomly each and sometimes two at the sometime. I decide to buy new one however I intend to leave this one too, will upgrading the ram improve the overall performance or not that much especially when i always have free ram available.
thanks

 

[mac88]

You can never go wrong in upgrading the ram. This may make things a little faster for you.