I am on 4gb RAM now. Will I see any performance increase with 6GB? Will I get more bang for the buck upgrading the HD to SSD? Thanks guys!
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will I see any performace improvements with 6gb of RAM?
- Thread starter HiFiGuy528
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check your page ins/ page outs and see if you have a lot of page outs. If you do, then 6gb will help you.
I am asking because my Mac Mini has one dead 2GB RAM so I want to pull out one from my 13" MBP to use in the Mini. I was thinking of a 4GB RAM chip instead of buying another 2GB to put in the MBP since 2GB is on its way out in the market.
How do I check the page in/out?
How do I check the page in/out?
I run VMware fusion 3.02 with Windows 7 in a virtual machine. When I had only 2 gig of RAM I had a lot of trouble with both Windows' speed and stability. Recently, however I increased my MBP's RAM from 2 to 6 gig. The improvement was so dramatic that I now routinely run Fusion in Unity mode so that I may reach ever Windows application from the OS X desktop. I have no idea whether this would have been possible had I upgraded my RAM from 2 to only 4 gig.
I have had no personal experience with SSD drives. My research, however, has convinced me that one would provide a significant performance boost, albeit as a very steep price. For the moment, at least, SSDs have not reached a price point to make me seriously consider buying one.
What generation is your MacBook Pro? Depending how old it is, it may not support more than 4GB memory anyway. If it can support >4GB, then it's a judgment call based on checking the page outs in activity monitor as has already been suggested and considering the price difference between a 2GB and 4GB DIMM. If it's a small price difference and the machine supports the extra, may as well do it anyway.
All but a few MBPs, even the early ones, will support 6 gig of ram. OCW's Web site will help you to determine which models support 6 gig and which only 4 gig of RAM.
I am on the newest 13" MBP so it should support up to 8GB RAM.
From my research, one 4GB RAM stick cost about $130. I know I can get a 2GB stick for a lot less, but since I can upgrade to 8GB in the future it would be wiser to get 4GB now and add another 4GB later, right?
I also have a OCZ 30gb Vertex Turbo around the house. I have two hard drives bay in the MBP so I can put the OS on the SSD and the files on 500GB HD.
Your thoughts on the setup?
From my research, one 4GB RAM stick cost about $130. I know I can get a 2GB stick for a lot less, but since I can upgrade to 8GB in the future it would be wiser to get 4GB now and add another 4GB later, right?
I also have a OCZ 30gb Vertex Turbo around the house. I have two hard drives bay in the MBP so I can put the OS on the SSD and the files on 500GB HD.
Your thoughts on the setup?
Where can you get a 4GB module for $130? Are you sure the one you're looking at is compatible with your MBP? OWC has it for $186.99 and Newegg has "Apple" RAM from $199.
It's not that I'm doubting you, I'm actually curious where you're seeing 4GB modules for $130... even the cheapest laptop 4GB module for PCs that I've found so far starts at $169.99 (Newegg).
The OP's machine has a 2.16GHz processor, which means it's quite likely that the machine only supports up to 4GB RAM, which is why I raised it.
Edit: I was looking at the processor in his signature, hence the confusion. But yes, I was aware of the situation.
I felt sure that you were aware of the situation. I posted as I did only to make sure that the OP knew to check OWC or a similar site to confirm how much RAM his machine was capable of handling.
There is a video around the internet somewhere that shows two identical computers, one with a HDD and the other with a SSD both launching the same 10 applications at once. The computer with the SSD was significantly faster.
It's my understanding from reading this forum, blogs, and other sources from the internet is that upgrading to a SSD is the most significant upgrade you can do.
It's my understanding from reading this forum, blogs, and other sources from the internet is that upgrading to a SSD is the most significant upgrade you can do.
For improving IO bound transactions. Once the data/application is in ram, there's no benefit. Also the cost per gigabyte is excessively high. While I'll not counter the fact that SSDs are much much faster the HDs the question is whether they're worth the cost at this stage.
Many people don't need that type of speed, especially for the price, many folks just use their laptops for surfing the intarweb and writing documents.
SSD would be nice, but as of now the price to performance ratio is wayyyy off.. they are still too expensive for the performance boost they give.. Unless of course you have an extra $800 just waiting to be spent, then I'd say jump all over the SSD...
You have a point there.
Should I just buy another 4GB RAM and install the OCZ Vertex Turbo SSD I have sitting around the house?
True, but the speed loss from dual channel is only minor, he would also gain speed from having the extra GB's..
If you only ever use one or two small programs and keep the total RAM consumption below 4 GB, then you won't see much, if any benefit from the extra GBs. Where the 6 GB configuration gains speed is when you are multitasking heavily so you exceed 4GB of RAM usage, and when you use programs such as Photoshop, VMWare, graphics, digital audio and digital video programs, all of which benefit from more than 4 GB RAM.
6Gb
I added a 2gb stick to my iMac base model (fall2009) to bring it up to 6gb total.
I have to say, it feels much more responsive
I added a 2gb stick to my iMac base model (fall2009) to bring it up to 6gb total.
I have to say, it feels much more responsive
I completely agree in regards to the last sentence. The price point is absolutely an issue, as is the lack of support from the OS X perspective (no TRIM, though garbage collection helps). Still, I will say that having experienced an SSD installed in one of my MBP's, I will say that the performance increase is nothing less than jaw-dropping. It is the most fundamental performance upgrade available to us. It simply alters how you feel about your machine's performance in a rather dramatic way.