Memories are made of this

I'm just configuring my first mac and wondered about memory.

I fancy upgrading to 8Mb but wondered if an increase to 16Mb was worth it?

What do you have now? Which computer? (Notebook? Desktop?) OS? How do you use the computer? I'd love to answer your question, but I can't with no information

Thank you. The mac will be used for MS Office work for my employer and also browsing, music and simple games. The work element will be mostly very large speadsheets incl. the use of macros, databases, etc.
Cheers.

I don't think either 8MB or 16MB would be enough for any modern system - I am also assuming you are talking about RAM when you say memory and not some hard drive or various other disk storage.

The question was asked - what are you configuring a desktop or Laptop? The question is important because some Mac laptops cannot be upgraded after they are shipped from the factory - like the Macbook Air. The Macbook Pro, Mac Mini, and Mac Pro are quite easy to upgrade RAM by the user. So generally if you aren't getting an Air - I always recommend getting the default - and seeing if you need more later. The reason is there are 3rd party rams that are usually cheaper and easy to install and work just as well.

For MS Office - even large complex spreadsheets - 4GB is probably enough unless you are opening hundreds at a time and running a lot of background tasks. My main memory hogs are Video and Photo editing as well as running virtual machines. Everything else you mentioned ran nice for me on my Mac in 4GB of RAM.

IMO 16 gig will not do any harm, but 8 gig will be fine. As IvanLasston says, its cheaper to upgrade the Ram yourself.

If its mainly office you use, remember that Office are not 64 bit apps, so under OSX each 32 bit application can not use more than 4 gig of RAM on its own - although OSX itself (Lion) is 64 bit and can use as much RAM as you can install - and it can still give a 32 bit app a full 4 gig to play with

Thanks all. Sorry, to me "mac" is synonymous with the desktop machine.

I'm after the 21.5", 2.7GHz iMac.

Sounds like the 8Gb RAM (yes RAM and Gb not Mb, sorry again) would be ok?

Perranoak said:

Thanks all. Sorry, to me "mac" is synonymous with the desktop machine.

I'm after the 21.5", 2.7GHz iMac.

Sounds like the 8Gb RAM (yes RAM and Gb not Mb, sorry again) would be ok?

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8GB is substantial, and would do nicely, as the other user said these basic operations can be ran on a computer with 4GB ram fine. 16GB would be overkill, but if you want to have a very fast running computer with a lot of programs open at once, then higher ram is better. It's always better to put more in if you have the money instead of being short later before you run into any problems.

Using Microsoft Word and Google Chrome with about 15 tabs open, as well as running iTunes was do-able on my 2GB Ram old Windows computer, but with my 4GB RAM on my MacBook Pro, I get FAR less freezing. More space is always better!

I'm at 12 MB on mid 2011 iMac and doing fine with several OS apps and Parallels/Windows and multiple Lion desktops running all the time. Photo editing but no video editing or gaming. 8 MB RAM was cheap so I upgraded when I started bumping the limits of the original 4 MB.

I think 16G is definitely worth it. It's cheap and I find that I can use that much easily. If it's there the OS will put it to work and it will keep things snappy.

Perranoak said:

Thank you. The mac will be used for MS Office work for my employer and also browsing, music and simple games. The work element will be mostly very large speadsheets incl. the use of macros, databases, etc.
Cheers.

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8GB of RAM is plenty for that type of work. You could easily get away with 4GB in this instance as well. Office, music and simple games aren't demanding in the slightest.

If you have the money, 16GB won't hurt but it's largely unnecessary for your type of work.

Ahhh but since the iMac has 4 slots, you can get 2 4gb sticks for what.. about $50USD? That would put the iMac @ 12GB, at a reasonable cost, and a decent performance improvement to boot.

Man this is tricky!

On th UK Apple site it's GBP160.00 to upgrade to 8Gb and a further GBP320.00 to go to 16Gb.

Perranoak said:

Man this is tricky! On th UK Apple site it's GBP160.00 to upgrade to 8Gb and a further GBP320.00 to go to 16Gb.

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Much cheaper to buy aftermarket and install DIY.

Would upgrading RAM kill the warranty on the computer though, if it's new or has applecare? That is modifying the system...

Demapples said:

Much cheaper to buy aftermarket and install DIY.

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Agreed. Here are instructions for changing the RAM yourself. You'll find the money saved is worth the (short amount of) time changing the memory yourself.

Kaioshoryuken1 said:

Would upgrading RAM kill the warranty on the computer though, if it's new or has applecare? That is modifying the system...

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On the iMac, memory is considered to be "user-serviceable" and will not void the warranty.

Are they easy to open? They look pretty solid!

Perranoak said:

Are they easy to open? They look pretty solid!

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Yes, there's an access door at the bottom of the machine.

More information is available here:

iMac: How to remove or install memory

Ace, ta.