Upgrading Macbook From 2 To 4 GB RAM

[JPM42]

I have an early 2008 white Macbook (2.1 GHz) and about a year ago, I upgraded the RAM from 1 to 2 GB. With Firefox taking up nearly half my RAM, it was definitely needed. And I noticed an improvement in speed and overall performance. In that time, I also upgraded my HD from the standard 120 GB that came with it to a 500 GB (7200 rpm). Also helped.

However, in recent times, the overall performance bottlenecks if I have too many tasks going. My uses are generally listening to music (I have an extensive iTunes library), surfing the web, using Photoshop/CS5, and iPhoto '11 (another extensive library). iPhoto, in particular, has run incredibly sluggish on my system.

While more RAM is, of course, always good, would doubling my RAM from 2-4 GB solve, or at least, help these issues?

Another factor is Lion. While 2 GB should work, I fear that it might not run as well as 4 GB. So, given all these concerns, would it just make sense to upgrade the RAM?

Thanks!

 

[-tWv-]

Yes it would definitely make a difference if you went to 4GB, especially if you have multiple things going at the same time. It wouldn't cost that much and would definitely help. This would just give more RAM for all of those programs to use which can only help. It is fairly inexpensive to do this upgrade, so if you have the money, I would definitely go for it.

I upgraded my macbook from 2 to 4gb a while ago and noticed a definite performance boost afterwards. I get all the Mac stuff I need like HD,RAM etc. from macsales.com, they normally have really good prices and have great customer service, would recommend to anyone.

 

[Sweener88]

Ram is so cheap now a days (doubled what u get for what you pay for in last year in fact) that i would max out your mac book. i was going to go from 2gb to 4gb but for 100$ on new egg i bought 8gb lol

 

[JamesCotte]

Yes it would definitely make a difference if you went to 4GB, especially if you have multiple things going at the same time. It wouldn't cost that much and would definitely help. This would just give more RAM for all of those programs to use which can only help. It is fairly inexpensive to do this upgrade, so if you have the money, I would definitely go for it.

I upgraded my macbook from 2 to 4gb a while ago and noticed a definite performance boost afterwards. I get all the Mac stuff I need like HD,RAM etc. from macsales.com, they normally have really good prices and have great customer service, would recommend to anyone.

I upgraded my Mac to 4Gb as well, but it doesnt change the speed at all on my Mac. Start up time is exactly the same as when I have 2 Gb, or even a bit slower. It took ages to open photoshop 5

 

[Sweener88]

I upgraded my Mac to 4Gb as well, but it doesnt change the speed at all on my Mac. Start up time is exactly the same as when I have 2 Gb, or even a bit slower. It took ages to open photoshop 5

boot time has more to do with harddrive speed then ram. getting an ssd would make ur mac boot within 15 seconds. the main speed increase ull notice is when multitasking and opening/doing multiple things within one/more applications. such as having 6+ apps open and flowing between spaces quickly while having multiple tabs open, music playing, doing edits on a document/photo all at once sorta thing. if an app need to access the harddrive (as it does to launch and when ur mac boots) the only thing that will make significant difference is getting a faster harddrive.

At least thats what iv experianced

 

[-tWv-]

boot time has more to do with harddrive speed then ram. getting an ssd would make ur mac boot within 15 seconds. the main speed increase ull notice is when multitasking and opening/doing multiple things within one/more applications. such as having 6+ apps open and flowing between spaces quickly while having multiple tabs open, music playing, doing edits on a document/photo all at once sorta thing. if an app need to access the harddrive (as it does to launch and when ur mac boots) the only thing that will make significant difference is getting a faster harddrive.

At least thats what iv experianced

Agreed

 

[JamesCotte]

boot time has more to do with harddrive speed then ram. getting an ssd would make ur mac boot within 15 seconds. the main speed increase ull notice is when multitasking and opening/doing multiple things within one/more applications. such as having 6+ apps open and flowing between spaces quickly while having multiple tabs open, music playing, doing edits on a document/photo all at once sorta thing. if an app need to access the harddrive (as it does to launch and when ur mac boots) the only thing that will make significant difference is getting a faster harddrive.

At least thats what iv experianced

Thanks, it makes more sense to me now. I actually can play game with better speed now