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    Ram Upgrade (I am at a loss for understanding)

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by gengerald, Aug 28, 2009.

  1. gengerald

    gengerald Technofile Extraordinaire

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    Hey everyone,

    I have a question regarding a ram upgrade. A family member has both a iMac '07 and Macbook '08. They are wondering if a ram upgrade is worth the $20. The iMac has 512mb and the MB has 1GB. Is it worth the $20 to upgrade to with a 2GB module? I am unsure on how to help them as I do not know how these Intel Macs use memory and if an upgrade is really worth the money or if the performance is not going to justify messing with installation/warranty/etc. I appreciate the help. By the way, they are using these computers for basic uses with multiple 'applications' open at a time, if that is pertinent to this Mac scenario. Again, thanks!
     
    gengerald, Aug 28, 2009
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  2. NAS Ghost

    NAS Ghost Notebook Deity

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    Even the fabled OSX uses memory. If OSX has anything like the pagefile, then from what Ive seen, it would do better with 2GB of ram over .5GB. I dont think it would mess with your warranty ( dont quote me; get confirmation from someone who knows ) because it is a relatively easy upgrade.

    One more thing is, you should check their memory usage; if they are often at 75% or more, then upgrading may help.
     
    NAS Ghost, Aug 28, 2009
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  3. Luke1708

    Luke1708 Notebook Virtuoso NBR Reviewer

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    upgrading the ram does not void warranty. More ram is always better for applications.
     
    Luke1708, Aug 28, 2009
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  4. gengerald

    gengerald Technofile Extraordinaire

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    I appreciate the help Nas and Luke. I am very familiar with Windows and its management, but I am just troubled with Mac. I think I am going to go ahead and order the max for them and see how it goes. I just remember an old tech flaunting how his Apple didn't need huge amounts of ram to be efficient as with Windows and I wanted to double check. Thanks guys!
     
    gengerald, Aug 28, 2009
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  5. chris-m

    chris-m Notebook Evangelist

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    I think there's probably some truth to that, but it's exaggerated. I'm almost certain OS X will run better than Vista on 1GB RAM. But RAM chips are so cheap these days that it doesn't really matter. These days with $25 2GB cards . . . if you spend $700, $1000, $1500 or more on a notebook, and your system is bottlenecked by RAM, and you don't do anything about it . . . that's just silly.
     
    chris-m, Aug 29, 2009
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