Will more RAM speed up AAC encoding in iTunes?

It's very unlikly that this will make any difference (unless your system is paging). AAC encoding is primarily CPU bounded. The best way to get faster encoding would be to get a faster mac (say a G4).

 

Dude, just get the RAM. You don't need an excuse. Its relatively cheap, and having a faster system always gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling in my stomach.

Or maybe its a sign that I should run to my nearest toilet.

 

I would guess that the drive is not an issue, but it's good to make sure. Encoding AACs is much more computationally intensive than encoding MP3s. You can decide to give up more disk space in favour of spending less time encoding by switching to MP3s.

Or, as Arn suggested, if you have a batch of CDs to import, import to AIFF first and let the laptop do the encoding to AAC overnight.

 

Get the RAM. Definitely. Even if your system runs good now in a year or two you'll need more RAM, it's just how things go. Get it now while it's cheap.

Remember the good old days when the built-in RAM module on computers went from 256K to 512K adn all the programmers said, "Holy ****! We're never going to need more RAM than that!"

 

More RAM is always worth it, but it is not going to increase encoding speeds. That almost entirely depends upon the drive and the processor. On my 1 GHz TiBook, 160 Kbps AAC is encoded at an average of 9.6, and that's with a fuil GB of RAM. But get the RAM anyway. It's always good