1GB to 2GB RAM, worth it?

Hello all,

Last year I purchased my daughter a 2GHZ MacBook (white) that came with 1GB of RAM. For Christmas this year, I was hoping to install some sort of program that would allow her to use Windows and up her RAM to 2GB. Would the extra RAM be beneficial for her (just installed Leopard, if that matters). On my Dell laptop, when I upgraded from 1GB to 2GB, I didn't see much of a difference but I'm sure this MacBook is a different animal.

Cheers!

InvalidUserID said:

Hello all,

Last year I purchased my daughter a 2GHZ MacBook (white) that came with 1GB of RAM. For Christmas this year, I was hoping to install some sort of program that would allow her to use Windows and up her RAM to 2GB. Would the extra RAM be beneficial for her (just installed Leopard, if that matters). On my Dell laptop, when I upgraded from 1GB to 2GB, I didn't see much of a difference but I'm sure this MacBook is a different animal.

Cheers!

Click to expand...

If youll be running Windows Vista, the differnece will be quite dramatic...not so much in OS X. It will make it a little bit snappier but dont expect it to be a whole new machine. Youll notice it most in memory intensive tasks like heavy photo and video editing more than anyhting else.

If you install parallels and run Win XP or other I recommend you add the additional 1GB of RAM. Parallels running on OSX Tiger with 1GB of Ram cripples OSX applications, all becomes quite sluggish and painful. My experience with a Mac Mini 1.8Ghz and 1GB Ram was conclusive to go to 2GB Ram - ran very well. Parallels under Leopard is not fully right yet - depends on how mission critical the windows apps are, or just for fun (is fun the right word for running windows? - no, I think necessity: otherwise none of us would do it!)

there is a difference in OSX from 1gb to 2gb, but less of one from 2->4 (depending on basic usage)

for 50$ you can get 1gbx2, highly recommended.

InvalidUserID said:

Hello all,

Last year I purchased my daughter a 2GHZ MacBook (white) that came with 1GB of RAM. For Christmas this year, I was hoping to install some sort of program that would allow her to use Windows and up her RAM to 2GB. Would the extra RAM be beneficial for her (just installed Leopard, if that matters). On my Dell laptop, when I upgraded from 1GB to 2GB, I didn't see much of a difference but I'm sure this MacBook is a different animal.

Cheers!

Click to expand...

You might want to look at the thread called Parallels/Leopard question as this is relevant to your question.

Running either Parallels or Fusion with less than 2GB would be frustrating with XP. Trying to run Vista with less than 2GB is just plan CRAZY

kfordham281 said:

Running either Parallels or Fusion with less than 2GB would be frustrating with XP. Trying to run Vista with less than 2GB is just plan CRAZY

Click to expand...

I would never run vista with less than 2GB, that is a hog.

but thats how its supposed to work, so good job MS for making an OS finally that uses all ram instead of leaving it unused. I never in all my years understood why OSes did do something like what Vista employs

There is the law of diminishing returns working with RAM! 0.5Gb>-1Gb MASSIVE improvement, 1Gb>-1.5 or 2Gb NICE improvement, 2Gb >-4Gb improvement, 4GB ++ possible improvement !!

I have 1.5Gb in my iBook and there was a really noticeable improvement over the standard 0.5Gb. I am running 6Gb on the Mac pro which shows no real improvement over 4Gb MOST of the time (only really with serious photo manipulations)

Check out these RAM comparison videos I put up on Youtube if you like:

2GB
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz2z1XLSzpQ

1GB
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2Wwf7f1mgU

-Nick

yes its worth it but would reccommend 3gb if you have the money

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts.

I will definately be bumping the RAM up to the 2GB (max for this model) since it is only $50 or so.

fiveightandten...thanks for the vids.

Hi Guys

Question here does the ram have to be from the apple website or can I just get the ram that will be suitable to this laptop which is the DDR2 SDRAM?

Thanks

Whatever you do, jj213, do NOT buy it from apple. It is roughly 4 times the cost of getting it from crucial.com or newegg.com

Alex

i got:

http://shop1.outpost.com/product/5284717

but it had a 40$ rebate end yesterday i think.yummy 4gb for 110

Yes, do it, believe me it will be better in the long run. If there any problems with the Ram sticks, I heard you can get your money back or brand new ones cause of the delicate.

With 2 gigs, you can do anything and not worry about the system chugging. The CPU can definitely handle it, so your kind of bringing it closer to its real potential.