Rob C
Joined: 10/02/03
Posts: 8434
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Do you generally benefit from bigger memory?
#544352 - 11/11/07 04:08 PM
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I'm not running lots of plug-ins or anything, but I do some fairly big graphics and use
quite a few apps.
I've got 1G memory on a Dual 2G G5 Power Mac which runs
fairly swiftly.
It's fairly cheap to add 4G these days but will it make a
noticeable difference?
-------------------- www.bemuso.com
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Steve honest
Joined: 26/12/04
Posts: 437
Loc: London,England
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Re: Do you generally benefit from bigger memory?
[Re: Rob C]
#544356 - 11/11/07 04:30 PM
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hi Mate
there is no such thing on earth as too much RAM, stuff as much in there as
you can , and then go thru and optimise your rig , there are guys in here who can better
advise you on that and then plug in all day long, i have 5.5 gigs in my G5 as well as HD3
and its been behaving itself a treat since i upgraded the ram from 1.5gig,
and like
you say Ram is a cheap as Chips nowadays.
steve
--------------------
no animal ever called me honey
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Neil C
active member
Joined: 01/04/03
Posts: 2533
Loc: Designated cuddle zone
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Re: Do you generally benefit from bigger memory?
[Re: Steve honest]
#544620 - 12/11/07 02:00 PM
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Quote Steve honest:
there is no
such thing on earth as too much RAM,, stuff as much in there as you can ,
I'm dubious that putting 16gb into my
MacPro would be any better for me than about 4gb for me. And it wouldn't be better for my
bank account.
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Steve Hill
member
Joined: 07/01/03
Posts: 13140
Loc: Oxfordshire
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Re: Do you generally benefit from bigger memory?
[Re: Rob C]
#544626 - 12/11/07 02:14 PM
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Speaking only for myself - er - what was the question again?
--------------------
Dynamite with a laser beam...
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E D
Joined: 10/01/04
Posts: 1089
Loc: London
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Re: Do you generally benefit from bigger memory?
[Re: Rob C]
#544649 - 12/11/07 03:18 PM
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Though having too much RAM wont do anything bad to your computer there is a point beyond
which no more will be used. Thus your money can be better spent elsewhere.
You
can tell if your computer wants more RAM if you restart your computer, give your computer
a good working. Do with it what you would do on a normal computer intensive day then go
into Activity Monitor, in the System Memory Tab. If there is a number next to Page
ins/outs: it kinda means how much virtual memory is being used. So, stuff your computer
with good RAM until page ins/outs reads 0/0 - for optimum performance, of course
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tekro
Joined: 29/03/05
Posts: 162
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Re: Do you generally benefit from bigger memory?
[Re: Rob C]
#544779 - 12/11/07 08:46 PM
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so where is this system memory tab in my mac dude? cant seem to find it.
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Rob C
Joined: 10/02/03
Posts: 8434
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Re: Do you generally benefit from bigger memory?
[Re: tekro]
#544782 - 12/11/07 09:05 PM
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From Finder... Go / Utilities / ActivityManager.app
There are 5 tabs at the
bottom of the window:
CPU - System Memory - Disc Activity - Disc Usage -
Network
----
Thx E D and Neil for the info...
-------------------- www.bemuso.com
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PaulD
Joined: 04/01/03
Posts: 1270
Loc: Bristol UK
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Re: Do you generally benefit from bigger memory?
[Re: Rob C]
#544830 - 12/11/07 11:24 PM
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Hi
My 2004 G5 2GHz Dual PCI-X Mac has 4x512MB of generic Kingston ValueRam, and
4x512MB of PC World bargain-bin Taiwanese branded RAM.
Everything works fine - but
its an older pre-PCIe Mac 
Since I run a deadline-critical video edit business I have two of everything, the other
2004 G5 2GHz Dual PCI-X Mac has the 4x512MB DIMMs the two Macs came with.
Functionally I don't see much difference, but the main G5 with 4GB does all the grunt
work.
Looking at Activity Monitor, as per E D's post, the 4GB Mac says
13138/0, and the 2GB one says 20933/0.
Not a lot of difference.
Am I
bovvered? Well this is the first time in many years I've looked at Activity Monitor, so
this sort of performance monitoring number counting has zilch relevance to earning a
living on a Mac.
But I do grind GarageBand to a halt occcasionally, so more
performace no doubt would help...
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Hypnotoad
Joined: 26/08/06
Posts: 165
Loc: London
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Re: Do you generally benefit from bigger memory?
[Re: Rob C]
#545460 - 14/11/07 03:23 PM
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Quote Neil C:
I'm dubious that
putting 16gb into my MacPro would be any better for me than about 4gb for me. And it
wouldn't be better for my bank account.
Assuming you're on OS 10.4.x, no application with a GUI (so,
pretty much any application) can address more than a 32-bit memory address, which
equals 2^32 bytes, or 4GB.
10.4.x can take advantage of more than 4GB of RAM
although, 16GB for example would only be of use if you were running 3 or more
memory-hungry apps simultaneously. For example, 3 applications each addressing 4GB of RAM
with the OS occupying some of the remaining 4GB.
Page-ins occur when
anything is moved to Active RAM including data from the Inactive RAM
so a large number of Page-ins does not necessarily mean you don't have enough hardware
memory as both Active and Inactive RAM exists on the RAM chips.
As far as I
know, as long as you have comparatively few Page-outs (and certainly not more than you
have Page-ins), the amount of hardware RAM is not the issue. As you say, Rob C, it's
running fairly swiftly - maybe add an extra GB, but the full 4GB may be overkill...
Also, due to OS X's (admittedly excellent) memory management, Activity Monitor
will always show a huge amount of Virtual (ie hard disk) Memory in use. This does not mean
you don't have enough RAM in your machine.
I hope I'm not the only one who I've
just managed to confuse...
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E D
Joined: 10/01/04
Posts: 1089
Loc: London
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Re: Do you generally benefit from bigger memory?
[Re: Rob C]
#546764 - 18/11/07 03:10 AM
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sorry yup yup. above post clarifies my ever so slightly misleading information. page ins are cool. page outs (the second number in my formerly quoted 0/0 figure) wants
to be at 0 so Quote PaulD:
Looking at Activity Monitor, as per E D's post, the 4GB Mac says 13138/0, and the 2GB one
says 20933/0
is all well and good. Your
computer is sufficiently RAM stuffed.
Sorry. I obviously wasn't paying 100%
attention when I posted earlier.
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JazzyGB1
Joined: 10/09/04
Posts: 714
Loc: Nottingham UK
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Re: Do you generally benefit from bigger memory?
[Re: Rob C]
#546820 - 18/11/07 01:41 PM
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It makes a BIG difference when running a lot of apps simultaneously. Basically you won't
feel a slowdown in responsiveness of your Mac which makes using it a lot more pleasant. Also it prolongs the life of your hard drives by reducing the amount of caching does. A good indicator is the OSX beach-ball. If you see it often then you need more RAM. If I
were in your position I would definitely upgrade, you can simply never have too much RAM.
-------------------- www.myspace.com/jazzygb1
www.myspace.com/revox1
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