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    Default Macbook ok?

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by M@lew, Oct 10, 2006.

  1. M@lew

    M@lew Notebook Evangelist

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    I can only just afford the standard Macbook with 1.83 ghz, 512 RAM and 60 gig HD. I cannot get 1 gig RAM or a bigger HD at the moment because I am pretty tight on money. Would the standard Macbook be good enough if I wanted to run windows? Because I know I have to partion off some HD space and well, 60 gigs isn't really that much.

    Also if I choose to get parallels in the future, would 512 RAM be sufficient enough?
     
    M@lew, Oct 10, 2006
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  2. zadillo

    zadillo Notebook Virtuoso

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    Parallels requires you to allocate some system memory to run Windows, so 512 megs total RAM on the system would not really be enough to run Windows well inside Parallels.

    In terms of running Windows using Boot Camp, it would basically be like trying to run Windows on 512MB of RAM on a PC notebook.

    You'd be able to get by, but you'll definitely find that you won't have much HD space left over and with 512 megs of RAM you won't necessarily get the best performance under OS X or XP.
     
    zadillo, Oct 10, 2006
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  3. M@lew

    M@lew Notebook Evangelist

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    So it basically wouldn't be a very good idea? Which would be a better upgrade then? 80 gig HD or 1 gig RAM?
     
    M@lew, Oct 10, 2006
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  4. zadillo

    zadillo Notebook Virtuoso

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    Upgrading to 1GB (2x 512MB) or 2GB (2x 1GB each) would be best in terms of overall performance. You could always upgrade the HD later. 60 gigs isn't a lot, and you'll probably need to get rid of some of the preinstalled softwware, but you could get by until you could get a larger HD later. You'd still have enough room to install Windows on a small partition and install some apps, etc.
     
    zadillo, Oct 10, 2006
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  5. Blake

    Blake NBR Reviewer NBR Reviewer

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    Are you a native Mac user? Or is this going to be your first? If you are normally a windows user, you might try and find more hardware for the price, but if you need the OS then you should ideally go for more ram, it will give you more performance.
     
    Blake, Oct 10, 2006
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  6. cashmonee

    cashmonee Notebook Virtuoso NBR Reviewer

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    The RAM will be a little lite in both Windows and OS X, but you will easily get by fine. Same with the hard drive. As far as Parallels goes, don't even bother with less than 2GB. With 2GB Windows will run very smooth in Parallels.
     
    cashmonee, Oct 10, 2006
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  7. AlanY

    AlanY Notebook Enthusiast

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    I have the low-end Macbook. It runs great, don't worry about the memory issue. Boot Camp is fine with 512MB of RAM; that's a decent configuration for Windows XP. I haven't tried Parallels yet, you would probably want more RAM for that. Codeweavers runs fine with 512MB of RAM.

    Really, performance is very good with just 512MB of RAM, even running multiple applications with large data sets. The only time I wish for more RAM is when running older applications that aren't Universal yet.
     
    AlanY, Oct 10, 2006
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  8. wobble987

    wobble987 Notebook Virtuoso

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    the RAM is much more important than HD, u can get an external Hard drive to store ur data if needed; the RAM is much more complicated matter; u definitely want to uprade it; unless all you need to do is going to internet and do some word processing, and u want to have a universal binary app, if not than you would be pushing it.
     
    wobble987, Oct 14, 2006
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