Imac Ram Upgrade

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I am in the market for a imac refurb, and I'm going to get the 27" with the i3 processor or 21.5" with i5 processor. My question is whether or not I can upgrade from 4gb to 12gb, which would entail me ordering two 4gb sticks from crucial.com, with the recommended ram sticks for my particular imac model. That would bump me up to 12gb of ram, and use up all of my available slots. I am going to be running FCE, maybe some games, and when the budget is right the new FCP that should be coming out this year.

Also another quickie, whats better, 21.5" imac with i5 processor and an external 22 inch monitor, or 27" with i3 processor. (For video editing)

Peace
 

chscag

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Both machines are capable of using 16 GB of memory which means 4 x 4 GB modules for complete population. I seriously doubt you will ever need more than 8 GB for what you intend to use either machine for. Of course that's up to you to decide.

If you do a lot of video editing, the 27" machine is the way to go. The iMac line is due for a refresh sometime in the next three months (that's not a positive) so you may wish to hang on for a better deal on a refurbished unit or a new mid 2010 unit when the 2011 models come out.
 
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I just upgraded my iMac (Late 2009) to 12GB , and I have been monitoring it threw iStat.

I have only gone up to 10 in use at one time. I was running a game server with 3GB dedicated to that, while playing the game, with 10 safari windows open, iTunes, watching a movie.

Honestly, I had 4GB before, Safari crashed all the time, and it would get really slow. It was definitely worth the 100 bucks to upgrade. OWC is the way to go as well, really happy with it so far.
 
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Honestly, I had 4GB before, Safari crashed all the time, and it would get really slow. It was definitely worth the 100 bucks to upgrade. OWC is the way to go as well, really happy with it so far.

From what I can tell, Safari uses way to much memory in it's current version. It either has a leak or simply doesn't release unused memory when it's done. This happened on my Quad G5 with 10.6 and happens on my wife's iMac, my iMac and my Macbook all running 10.6.6. Apple really needs to address this issue and the answer shouldn't be "add more RAM".

For what it's worth I'm looking at upgrading my iMac to 8Gb and my MacBook to 4Gb of RAM respectively. I'm probably going to go with OWC since I've had luck with them before.
 
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I like Crucial, had good luck with them. They say about memory:
"No, you can install modules one at a time, and you can mix different densities of modules in your computer. But if your computer supports dual-channel memory configurations, you should install in identical pairs (preferably in kits) for optimal performance."
Anyway, I'd try 12GB, that's an awful lot, and you can run iStat (great widget!) or Activity Monitor and see how much you have free. If not so much, it's easy to add another 8GB (throwing out 2x2GB factory mem...or better yet sell on eBay for someone to upgrade to 8GB)

Concur 27" for video editing. And hey, I'm not a video editing expert but everything I've ever read indicates it is processor intensive
--> pony up for the i5 processor!!! I've run my machine SIX YEARS, I know money is money, but don't skimp on something you'll use for a long long time. That would be penny wise and pound foolish.
 
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I just upgraded my iMac (Late 2009) to 12GB , and I have been monitoring it threw iStat.

It was definitely worth the 100 bucks to upgrade. OWC is the way to go as well, really happy with it so far.

Having just switched from a gamer PC to a new 27" iMAC I listened to the advice from co-workers that own MAC's and ordered it with the base 4GB of RAM. I then ordered another 8GB from OWC for $105 shipped. The popped right in and now am running with 12GB of RAM. I doubt I'll ever need any more.

Tom
 
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From what I can tell, Safari uses way to much memory in it's current version.

For what it's worth I'm looking at upgrading my iMac to 8Gb and my MacBook to 4Gb of RAM respectively. I'm probably going to go with OWC since I've had luck with them before.

Yea, I actually just decided to go with Firefox for a while.

OWC is the best way to upgrade your RAM, quality product, and most importantly they offer a lot of shipping options at good prices.
 
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Yeah, I did the same thing through OWC
27" i3 iMac bought with 4GB upgraded to 12GB
and man can i ever tell the difference.
 
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IMac RAM Upgrade

I too have an i3 27" and was gonna upgrade as Im using Logic recording 16 tracks of audio. Thought 8GB would be enough? Also do I have to take out the RAM that is already onboard and replace it with a kit so its all the same?

Cheers folks
 
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i7 iMac; 8gb DDR3 ram; ati mobility 4850; 1tb seagate harddrive @7200rpm
4gb ram modules are cheap enough as it is, and with 8gb I've had a couple of instances where I was maxing it out relatively easy. If you were considering 8gb, 12gb would be the way to go. Make sure to place the 4gb sticks in slots closest to front and 2gb sticks closest to back (or the other way around) as long as both sides have matching amounts of memory, for all of them to remain in dual channel bandwidth.
 

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