Value of adding ram

[chawn_crawley]

<p>I have a Macbookpro 15. Currently, it has 2gig of ram. It's a couple years old, with the 2.33ghz processors. As has been explained to me, I cannot go to 4 gig, but can add 1 more for a max. of 3 gig of ram. Is there significant value to doing this, or any performance risks, for that matter?</p>

<p>I use Aperture 2, camera control pro2, cs3, and iwork.</p>

[peterbcarter]

<p>Not having enough ram is always noticed, but having too much rarely is. Your call.</p>

[peter_mounier]

<p>

<p>A lot depends on your file sizes, your CS3 configuration, and if you have other apps open and running while doing photo edits. If your file sizes are under 50mb (just an arbitrary number) you're probably not going to notice much difference with added ram. If you have PS configured to save a lot of History States and Cache Levels (in the prefs) you will use a lot more ram because PS saves copies as you work so you can "undo" your work as you progress if necessary. If you have other apps open while working in PS, they will use some of the ram, but not as much as a hog like PS.</p>

<p>Peter</p>

</p>

[burnblue]

<p>I did the same upgrade, and definitely noticed the difference. I do tend to strain my computers - as a web designer I often have Illustrator, Photoshop, a couple web browsers, Adium, and VMWare/Windows XP running all at the same time ;) But for $50, it's definitely a worthwhile upgrade.</p>

[chawn_crawley]

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<p >[Not having enough ram is always noticed, but having too much rarely is. Your call.]</p>

<p >The only reason that I decided to ask was that I recall someone telling me that by having ram in odd numbers caused some sort of imbalance with regard to how it's distributed by the computer, and often caused more trouble than it solved.</p>

<p >I wasn't sold on the explanation but figured I'd find out before I did it.</p>

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[ryan_long]

<p>Well, you do get a benefit by matching RAM. Which is why you can buy RAM in kits, 4GB (2x2GB) for example. The performance boost is worth considering, but it in no way affects the overall stability of your rig to have an odd pairing. </p>

<p>For what it's worth, the maximum allocation for that particular model of Macbook is approximately 3.3 GB. You can pair two 2GB sticks for 4GB installed, but only 3.3 will be addressed. </p>

 

[leicaglow]

<p>Some people underestimate the speed gained by buying a larger hard drive too. And actually, if your HDD is filled up, adding more RAM won't always speed up your system because you are throttled by disk access, not RAM.</p>

[jay_hopkins]

<p>Many opinions, but not really an answer. Why is more memory better? Well, it has to do with the OS and how it works. In a computer, you use both real and virtual memory to run programs. Virtual memory is where your OS uses some of your hard drive as if it were actually RAM. Let's say you have 1G installed but if you look at your system resources it says you have 1G of physical memory and 1G of virtual memory for a total of 2G. The OS and any program behave like you have 2G. The OS will put programs/data that are active at that time in the virtual memory and bring active programs/data in virtual memory into the physical memory. It's a dance that keeps the running programs in the faster physical memory and programs that are not active in virtual memory. Now remember, hard disks are slow compared to RAM so the more you rely on the hard disk virtual memory the slower your system will be because it's always reading/writing to the hard disk. When you add more physical memory RAM, you don't need to rely on the hard disk and so you will see a speed up. Faster hard disks help some but not as much as RAM.<br>

Fast hard disks show their value when you open and close files. More RAM helps when you are working with an image because you are note using the disk during image manipulations.<br>

Even numbers of RAM modules have to do with interleaving of data. Usually a factor in high performance computers. You will most likely have two slots for RAM, they don't need to be the same size just the same speed grade.<br>

Bottom line: more RAM good.</p>