1.2GB RAM For Parallel Workstation?

[renegadeice]

I went to the Mac store today to buy a macbook but found out that they no longer offer the 10% student discounts in-store and that it is only available via the Apple website. And Apple doesn't allow me to get a 512+0 RAM setup(though Mac stores allow you to do so, it means I'm paying an extra 10% which is a lot).

This means that I'll be getting 256+256 RAM. I've put aside enough money to purchase an extra 1GB of RAM from another store(since Apple charges so much for their RAM). So I'll be able to get 256+1024 RAM.

I've heard a lot about the dual-channeling discussions going on in the forums. I plan to use Parallel's Workstation to program in Linux and test them in Windows. Do you think a 256+1024 RAM setup will be sufficient? Or should I just wait and save up until I can afford two sticks of 1GB RAM?

 

[macEfan]

just wait and save up for 2x 1gb sticks of ram. Then you won't have to upgrade memory in the future for a long time. 512mb of ram is sufficient to run OS X, you only need more ram if you want to game, use photoshop,final cut pro, etc..

 

[Aptmunich]

I tested Windows XP with the parallels demo and 1,25 Gigs of RAM and it seemed plenty... I gave Windows 380MB of RAM to play with and with my normal OS X browsing apps open (Mail, iTunes, Camino, Safari, Quicksilver) currently have 223MB left...

 

[kaidomac]

The only downside to that setup is that the MacBook likes matched pairs of ram since it has integrated video. I'd like to see a side-by-side comparison of how much of a performance hit you'll actually take though...

 

[Aptmunich]

Actually someone posted here that the chipset used in the macbook can enable dual-link mode even with unbalanced (asynchronous) memory chips. So apparently that's just bull on apple's part.

Either way, the 5-10% difference in speed are probably negligeble.

 

[taseal]

for being a student, I got a 100 dollar discount on the macbook, they said cept the base model, you get 100 off on any other macbook...

 

[renegadeice]

for being a student, I got a 100 dollar discount on the macbook, they said cept the base model, you get 100 off on any other macbook...

I'm in Australia though. They give 10% discount off all Mac products provided you buy through the Apple website.