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vomer

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 13, 2007
51
0
Hi guys,

so I was planning on buying the 13" i5 MBP soon and was wondering if I should do the ram upgrade.

I would be upgrading it myself as RAM is often cheaper to buy and install myself.

Would I see any benefit?
 
Hi guys,

so I was planning on buying the 13" i5 MBP soon and was wondering if I should do the ram upgrade.

I would be upgrading it myself as RAM is often cheaper to buy and install myself.

The upgrade is very straightforward and simple, and you are correct that it is much cheaper to get RAM from somewhere other than Apple.

Would I see any benefit?

That question is relative. If you use several programs at once or RAM intensive programs then yes you will see benefit. If you only browse the internet and use a word processor than no you will not.
 
If you describe your uses, that would be helpful in determining how useful the upgrade would or wouldn't be. My guess is that it's not necessary, as 4GB is plenty for the vast majority of users.
 
I'm curious also. Does RAM need to be upgraded if one will be running Parallels, Bootcamp, etc?
 
I'm curious also. Does RAM need to be upgraded if one will be running Parallels, Bootcamp, etc?

It will typically improve performance in parallels, as the RAM has to be shared between two OS. With bootcamp, it won't make a difference unless you're running software that would benefit from it.
 
I upgraded to 8GB in my 2011 and it helped on the mac side, however my 32 bit Win7 in bootcamp says I only have 2.17GB available. 32 bit only recognizes 4 GB and win7 uses almost 2GB just to run itself.
 
I always max out my systems with the most RAM possible. Boosts things up and it's cheap nowadays for the new stuff. It's worth it, trust me. I work on these things for a living, and RAM is a great upgrade for the money.

I put 8GB in my 17 inch 2011 MBP from 4GB, using these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231266

$79.98 shipped, and it's 1333 speed, fastest you can get for the new MBP's. You don't need "Apple Memory", just do your homework, read the reviews, and at the end of the day, RAM is RAM. It'll work unless it's defective.
 
My main uses would be :

- web browsing
- downloading
- video (HD and non HD)
- archiving/extracting
- documents
- occasional photo editing

Would you think 8GB would help? Sorry I should have listed those when i posted. I read some posts here and based on that the i5 would be more than enough for my needs. Just was not sure about ram.
 
I doubt you'd see much improvement for the things you mentioned. Video editing, virtual machines and even photo editing can be memory intensive and those are likely where you'd see improvements. More memory only improves performance if you don't have enough and it sounds like you probably do.

Memory is pretty cheap right now though and you might be able to buy 8gb and sell your existing memory on eBay and recoup most of the cost. I kept my original 4gb in case I buy an iMac I can upgrade it to 8gb too.
 
I always max out my systems with the most RAM possible. Boosts things up and it's cheap nowadays for the new stuff. It's worth it, trust me. I work on these things for a living, and RAM is a great upgrade for the money.

I put 8GB in my 17 inch 2011 MBP from 4GB, using these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231266

$79.98 shipped, and it's 1333 speed, fastest you can get for the new MBP's. You don't need "Apple Memory", just do your homework, read the reviews, and at the end of the day, RAM is RAM. It'll work unless it's defective.

1600 is actually the fastest
 
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