Will more Ram be worth it? 2008 24" iMac

[Ukeman]

I have an early 2008 3.06 ghz 4Gb Ram 24" that is working just fine. Although I am interested in upgrading soon to the 27" 2011 or waiting for the '12, I notice that what i have can be upgraded to 6gb Ram by simply adding a 1x4gb chip into one of the slots.

I don't do games or video or photo editing. Just movie streaming, email, surfing etc. Some basic GarageBand and other music mixing and recording.

1. Will the added 2gb make a difference in the 2008's performance?

2. Will getting a 2011 or '12 with similar Ghz and at least 8gb Ram make a difference over the 2008's performance?

 

[GGJstudios]

To determine if you can benefit from more RAM, launch Activity Monitor and click the System Memory tab at the bottom to check your page outs. Page outs are cumulative since your last restart, so the best way to check is to restart your computer and track page outs under your normal workload (the apps, browser pages and documents you normally would have open). If your page outs are significant (say 1GB or more) under normal use, you may benefit from more RAM. If your page outs are zero or very low during normal use, you probably won't see any performance improvement from adding RAM.

Mac OS X: Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor

 

[Ukeman]

To determine if you can benefit from more RAM, launch Activity Monitor and click the System Memory tab at the bottom to check your page outs. Page outs are cumulative since your last restart, so the best way to check is to restart your computer and track page outs under your normal workload (the apps, browser pages and documents you normally would have open). If your page outs are significant (say 1GB or more) under normal use, you may benefit from more RAM. If your page outs are zero or very low during normal use, you probably won't see any performance improvement from adding RAM.

Mac OS X: Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor

I checked the activity monitor (the imac has been on about 12 hours, and used about 8 hours) .. it shows no Page outs at all. After restarting and opening the 4 or 5 programs (mail, itunes, safari, firefox google mail, a dvd) it shows 2.8 gb Free, and 3/4 green of the 4gb circle graph. and no Page outs.

 

[GGJstudios]

I checked the activity monitor (the imac has been on about 12 hours, and used about 8 hours) .. it shows no Page outs at all. After restarting and opening the 4 or 5 programs (mail, itunes, safari, firefox google mail, a dvd) it shows 2.8 gb Free, and 3/4 green of the 4gb circle graph.

If that's indicative of your normal workload, it's unlikely that you'll see any benefit from adding RAM, since you're not fully using all the RAM you have.

 

[Ukeman]

If that's indicative of your normal workload, it's unlikely that you'll see any benefit from adding RAM, since you're not fully using all the RAM you have.

thanks much... i have a lot to learn; and in terms of considering a new computer just because I can.

 

[Bear]

I have an early 2008 3.06 ghz 4Gb Ram 24" that is working just fine. Although I am interested in upgrading soon to the 27" 2011 or waiting for the '12, I notice that what i have can be upgraded to 6gb Ram by simply adding a 1x4gb chip into one of the slots.
...

From what it sounds like, you don't need the memory right now. And also from what you said in the thread, it sounds like you may as well wait for the next iMac model.

 

[harcosparky]

I checked the activity monitor (the imac has been on about 12 hours, and used about 8 hours) .. it shows no Page outs at all. After restarting and opening the 4 or 5 programs (mail, itunes, safari, firefox google mail, a dvd) it shows 2.8 gb Free, and 3/4 green of the 4gb circle graph. and no Page outs.

Is there anything else you do, any photo/video editing?

I found during a normal 'slow' day no page outs.

However when I began opening up image in Photoshop Elements or cruising through then in Lightroom and/or iPhoto I began to see Page Out.

Then during my daily and weekly backups of certain folders more page outs occurred.

I would fire up the system, start System Monitor and run it for several days at least, maybe even a solid week to see what you usage really is.

2. Will getting a 2011 or '12 with similar Ghz and at least 8gb Ram make a difference over the 2008's performance?

Maybe not if all you do is this ---> (mail, itunes, safari, firefox google mail, a dvd)

If that is all you do, you already have way more computer than you need.


I owned a 2007 24" iMac but found that today the same work I am doing as when I bought that one is really more. Images files I work with today are way larger than image files I worked with in 2007.

I bumped my 2007 up to 6 GB RAM and that helped but still saw page outs more than I wanted.

I bought a 2011 27" 3.4 Ghz i7 iMac and even with 8GB RAM I was seeing page outs during intense work sessions. I bumped it up to 16GB and am happy that page outs have been reduced to 'on rare occasion when heavy copying between drives goes on'.

 

[Ukeman]

thanks Bear and Harco, I'll run the Activity Monitor for a while.

All I have to consider is whether I want to experience the advantages of the newer Sandy/Ivy Bridge systems over the 2008 versions.