Just ordered 4GB for my MBP (SR)

Soldato
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13 Jan 2003
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Well the poor thing has been creaking a bit under the strain of compiling.. a task where the more memory (even if it is disc cache) the better!
 
Nicely done proffessor. I have to say I'm thrilled at the performance of my MBP with 4GB of RAM.

Having said that, it did start to lag a bit when I was trying to work on a 500mb .tiff in Photoshop. I only had InDesign, Lightroom, Mail, Safari, MSN,NeoOffice and iTunes open at the same time... :p

Panzer
 
Installed... now with added cavenous echo..

What's funny is the complete lack of page ins/outs..

Compiling is faster - I can now run make -j4 which means 4 things going on in parallel, which is good..
 
Is it worthwhile buying 4GB of generic memory for my new MPB or just stick with the 2GB it came in?

What would give the best performance? I am not convinced buying an Apple upgrade it is worthwhile lol
 
Get 4 GB of Crucial for just over £50 - it's the same brand that Apple use (mostly) and they are renowned for quality. It's what I did.

Panzer
 
Same here as Panzer.

It's not a ground shattering leap when just using it (although oddly it does seem smoother) but it does really shine when it's asked todo something really intensive.

Also I have a suspicion that the 4GB also reduces battery time (as you'd expect).

2GB was fine - the only reason I got 4GB was because I expect to be making use of it and more.
 
Battery time is a funny one. You'd expect extra components to draw more power but as you now tend to run more programs at any one time, the strain on the rest of the system increases so you get a double whammy.

I get at least 2 hours - usually closer to 3 unplugged whilst running Lightroom/Photoshop/Indesign along with all the other apps like iTunes/mail etc.

Panzer
 
Nice one, i'd just like to know if it would help the normal macbook at all? :P

What will be your uses?

2gb generally runs a MacBook Pro very well (light Final Cut usage, Parallels especially). 4gb could definitely see a good increase to performance but not as much as a 1gb to 2gb step up does.
 
I will be using it for logic Studio as a way to record my music since it's highly portable and allows me to carry it to practises and such.
Other than that it will be used for daily stuff like word and such.
My main concern is just Logic Studio.
 
I would be inclined to say yes although admittedly I don't use anything audio - so I would wait for a response.

I'm pretty sure there are a few Logic users knocking around.
 
I will be using it for logic Studio as a way to record my music since it's highly portable and allows me to carry it to practises and such.
Other than that it will be used for daily stuff like word and such.
My main concern is just Logic Studio.
To see if you require 4GB of memory, open the Activity Monitor application in the Utilities folder (which is found in the Applications folder). Click on the System Memory tab near the bottom, depending on the amount of swap used on your MacBook, you could upgrade to 4GB to eliminate swapping. First you'll have the justify the upgrade, I'd upgrade if the the amount of swap is more than 500MB and if you notice your MacBook's performance is stuttering in various places.

There's no point of upgrading if there's no swapping according to Activity Monitor during your MacBook's usage. Save your money :p
 
Using it last night for compiles.. The only disc activities that occur now are writes for recompilation!

I think paging is one aspect however there's an argument for having enough free memory (that OSX uses as a disc cache whilst it can) ;)

I did manage to get my CPU temp to 97degC yesterday.. also on battery the MBP suck battery like nothing on earth when doing raytracing!
 
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