02-24-2010, 04:40 PM

Hello - I upped the RAM to 4GB (Mushkin), but saw my XBench score go down - does that make sense?

Stock MB 2.26 = 117.98 (overall)
MB with SSD = 161.98 (overall)
MB with SSD and 4GB RAM = 159.40 (overall)

4GB DDR3 1067 Mushkin RAM
40GB Intel X25-V SSD

I'm not a big benchmark or numbers guy, but decided to track the upgrades using XBench. What can I make of these numbers?

02-24-2010, 05:16 PM

IMHO, not much. I wouldn't worry about what XBench tells you. I do my best to keep my system clean and lean, upgraded everything nicely (4GB RAM, 5400RPM -> 7200RPM HD) and my score was still much lower than other systems of comparable specs. If your computer is running well enough for you considering the specs you have, don't worry about it.

02-24-2010, 08:33 PM

Originally Posted by vansmith

IMHO, not much. I wouldn't worry about what XBench tells you. I do my best to keep my system clean and lean, upgraded everything nicely (4GB RAM, 5400RPM -> 7200RPM HD) and my score was still much lower than other systems of comparable specs. If your computer is running well enough for you considering the specs you have, don't worry about it.

Thanks for the response. I know what you mean, but found it very interesting. The current combo with the SSD and 4GB flies. It makes for a fantastic MacBook.

02-25-2010, 10:01 AM

joeyc, do you ever find it annoying or a pain that you only have 40GB of HD space? I'm thinking of switching out my 5400 160GB HD for a SSD.

02-25-2010, 10:39 AM

Originally Posted by degraffb

joeyc, do you ever find it annoying or a pain that you only have 40GB of HD space? I'm thinking of switching out my 5400 160GB HD for a SSD.

Short answer? Not really
Long Answer? While there are times that I would like some more room, I hardly use any drive space as it is. I 'slimmed' SL and use less than 10GB with Lightroom and a couple of third party apps. I can stream iTunes from another Mac (Mini currently set up as a music server) and connect to network drives for external storage.

I'm a photographer, so keeping everything on the Macbook is not feasible anyway and doing a critical edits on the laptop display is not ideal, so the MacBook is just a starting point... Sorting, culling, keyword, etc. Plus is great for Slingbox or other online media.

Performance is ridiculous. Boot is less than 10 seconds. Shut down is about 2 seconds, if that. App loading is instaneous. I doubt I will ever use a HDD as a boot drive again. I'm considering replacing my Mini music server (1.66 core duo) with a new Mini and dropping another Intel X25-V in there and using it as my main photo prcoessing machine.

02-25-2010, 06:52 PM

this post has just convinced me to get a smaller SSD