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Why do you need 4GB in your Macbook Pro

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Watabou

Watabou

macrumors 68040
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Feb 10, 2008
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Saw this thread in the iMac forum and I thought this would be interesting.

What do you guys use your 4GB for/ Why did you think you needed it?
 
I know my friend has 4gb in his MBP and he does a lot of video editing and graphic design
 
I know I bought 4GB of RAM because it was cheap and I know I have absolutely no use for it.
 
ditto, it was cheap

and i use vmachines and like to dedicate 1GB per. I may run more than one at a time.
 
My first gen MBP only supports 2 GB, but I REALLY wish I could get 4 GB in there so I could run Parallels and REALbasic at the same time.

More memory is the only thing I'd like to change about my MBP, but I'm stuck unless I buy a whole new laptop.
 
e12a said:
ditto, it was cheap

and i use vmachines and like to dedicate 1GB per. I may run more than one at a time.
Click to expand...

Haha. Its running for 70. But I still can't buy it coz I have no job and I'm going off to college. Sounds surprising. I need a job now :(
 
Cheap upgrade and when running things like VMware or X-Plane the added memory is helpful. I don't have to close any running applications, too.
 
Only 3GB here, but I'd love to have 4+. Once I get IntelliJ, Flex Builder, two browsers, and the rest of my usual work environment up and running and it starts paging at the slightest provocation.
 
I have 4Gb of ram in my MacBook Pro and to be honest I don't really need it. Even doing heavy video and visual work I was working quite happily working with 2Gb.

The only reason I got it was that it was cheaper to buy 2x2Gb sticks then it was for 2x1Gb sticks (didn't make sense to me either) when I was upgrading my brothers iMac. I ended up using the 2x1Gb's that were in my MacBook Pro in his iMac (he needed it badly as he only had 512Mb :( ) and then put the 2x2Gb's in my MacBook Pro :D
 
Why do I need 4GB of RAM? One word: SPEED!!! I hate waiting and more RAM means faster operation, especially if you multitask and frequently use large or multimedia files. I've tracked with Activity Monitor and frequently have seen less than 1GB available. Not everyone does, but RAM is inexpensive enough, it made good sense for me. :cool:
 

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I use parallels a lot for a few windows musics app, logic pro, garageband, photoshop, and i just wanted it as well.

oh and WoW and gmod sometimes.
 
I tried to justify the upgrade as it wasn't that expensive. But frankly even with more than my usual load of programs I couldn't get more than 1.5 gigs used. So it seemed kinda silly to spend 70-100$ for the <1% of the time that the RAM is the bottleneck. Perhaps in the future.
 
I use Ableton Live 7 which can place audio samples straight into RAM to minimise the dependence on triggering audio off a hard drive which is already running the OS and Ableton. The more RAM I can play with, then better :p
 
Radio Monk33 said:
I tried to justify the upgrade as it wasn't that expensive. But frankly even with more than my usual load of programs I couldn't get more than 1.5 gigs used. So it seemed kinda silly to spend 70-100$ for the <1% of the time that the RAM is the bottleneck. Perhaps in the future.
Click to expand...

Yep. That's my reason to. Yeah, I run VMWare but I don't see my system slowing down a lot. I could do with 4GB of RAM but I guess I'll just buy in the future when I get a job :(
 
Draeconis said:
I use Ableton Live 7 which can place audio samples straight into RAM to minimise the dependence on triggering audio off a hard drive which is already running the OS and Ableton. The more RAM I can play with, then better :p
Click to expand...

hmm thinking about getting 4GB of ram now since i use ableton live along with a lot other sequencers, DAWs, etc :)
 
Watabou said:
Go buy a Mac Pro?

And doesn't Santa Rosa support 8 Gigs or RAM or something?
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1) That's always the answer I give, too. Then, I realize how I could use a Mac Pro and then I build one and the price tag falls on me like a ton of bricks.

2) It does, supposedly, support 8GB or RAM, but 4GB sticks are rare and they cost a LOT of money.
 
I have not upgraded from the standard 2 GB of memory that came in my MacBook Pro. I frequently run XP in VMware Fusion. It’s acceptably fast and I have been able to switch between it and OS X apps quickly and without any trouble. Thus, I guess I won’t upgrade, at least not right now.
 
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