Hi, I'll just get to the point. Our family has two MacBooks, one is mine and one is just for everyone. The MacBook that belongs to me has only 1Gig of RAM (it is a 2008 model) and the family one has 2Gigs of RAM. The family computer's main use is email and internet, maybe some picture editing with iPhoto here and there but that is all. I use my computer for memory intensive programs and I use them more then one at a time. I was wondering if there would be any performance decrease in the family computer if I were to switch out the RAM's? And I know there will be a bit, but will it be noticeable?
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Upgrading/Downgrading MacBook RAM
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4GB is only ~100$ so I would buy it and upgrade your computer. RAM is the smallest and easiest but also the best upgrade you can do, it'll make it to feel like a new computer!
The only problem with that is that I have no money and my parents aren't willing to spend any on it cause they don't understand it.
Tell them that it'll make your computer fly
Upgrade to 2GB will also be okay but they may not like it that their computer will become slower. If they don't want to spend any money, just swap the RAM.BTW, what MacBook do they have? If it's too new, it uses DDR3 which doesn't work in your MacBook
As risk of sounding like a jerk, have you considered GETTING A JOB? Judging from this post:
https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=5333048&#post5333048
you're now at least 15 going on 16. A couple weekends worth of odd jobs around the neighborhood would net enough $$ for a 4GB kit...
Wow. I read about this thing called tact when I was 16. Took me awhile to get the hang of it, but it really helps me not sound like a jerk. When I was 15, I had a job working 15 hours a week making $5.25/hour and paying my own cell phone bill. When I was 16, I had to pay for all my gas and car insurance too. So maybe the kid has a job but has other responsibilities too. Just saying.
To respond to the original poster... RAM does make a pretty big difference in performance, but it's not entirely necessary. I have 1GB in my old Macbook and I use it for lots of streaming and outputting to my HDTV and it has no problems keeping up. I even play some PS1 and N64 emulators and don't see it lagging too much. Granted, all of those apps work better on my new Macbook that has 2GB of RAM in it, but still. I wouldn't recommend upgrading RAM until it's becoming a real pain to wait for programs to launch (i.e., five minutes) or for the computer to boot up. If your computer isn't ridiculously slow, then I'd hold off on the RAM until you can afford/find some new ones. DDR2 RAM is cheaper now too since it's the older brother. Newegg has some Apple-compatible RAM for around $50. It doesn't have to be specifically Apple-compatible specified though, you can ideally use any 200-pin notebook DDR2 memory.