1GB or 2GB in a MacBook?

What amount of ram should be in a macbook?


  • Total voters
    58

Flak_Monkey

[H]ard|Gawd
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Dec 28, 2004
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So I've been wondering this, do I need 2GB's of memory in a macbook? or would I be good with one.

Do you guys think 2GB's is too much for a laptop? I'm not going to be doing any hardcore apps or anything. Does 2GB take more battery life? Could I upgrade to 2GB's later on?
 
I went with 2 gigs in my Macbook because of the pricepoint, and the fact that OS X will use as much RAM as you feed it basically.

It wasn't every expensive over an upgrade to 1 gig either.
 
2 x 1GB sticks now or 2 x 1GB later. Apple ships them with matched sticks(2 x 256MB, 2 x 512MB or 2 x 1GB) so it's not like you could order it with 1 x 1GB and add another later.

i'd just go with 2GB from the get go.
 
I have 2GB in mine that I purchased at Fry's the day after I bought my MacBook. It's actually cheaper to get the memory from Apple right now than what I paid for mine. 199+tax is pretty good for 2x1GB sticks but the upgrade from Apple for 2GB is 158$ so I would go with their memory, plus it's fully warrantied and you won't have to worry about switching out memory with original memory when sending it in if you ever have to.

I'm at college and there are a lot of MacBooks here that's for sure, but so far mine is the only one with 2GB of memory and it shows when I'm powerhousing Parallels and all my other apps with not even a hickup.
 
Get 2 gbs.

I have 1gb right now I run Microsoft Office for Mac and Rosetta eats up a lot of RAM. I'm at 75% memory usage with just Firefox and Entourage.
 
If you're using photoshop, illustrator, and MS office, 2GB is sort of necessary under Rosettta. My C2D MBP comes to a crawl with all three open.
 
Well alright, I'm going to try out that Parallels thing if I can, it sounds really neat.

So 2GB's it is! :)
 
HighwayAssassins said:
1 gb....you aint gonna be playing BF2...

Doesn't mean that OS X won't effectively use that memory if you're running applications that request it. Rosetta applications (PPC emulated apps, including Office and the Adobe/Macromedia Suites, etc.) require more memory to run efficiently until the developers release Universal Binary versions of their applications.

Running Parallels also uses quite a bit of memory, you can assign to Parallels how much memory it can directly address as well. 1GB to OS X and 1GB to parallels during the operation of both at the same time, but with 1GB of ram, if you do 1/2 and 1/2 the same way you get 512MB for each, and honestly OS X is a little sluggish with 512MB of ram.
 
2gigs. It's great for doing a lot of multitasking (like I do a lot), and OS X just loves ram.
 
alphaone said:
2gigs. It's great for doing a lot of multitasking (like I do a lot), and OS X just loves ram.

Oh how great it is when OS X has it's resources :D

I like how Vista is starting to allocate RAM like how OS X does though, it means that Windows will be catching up a bit instead of slowing *way* down when many intensive apps are opened.
 
I'm really glad I went with 2GB in my Macbook. I always have anywhere from 3-12 apps open at once... I've never experience slow down like I did when I had 512.
 
bobsaget said:
I'm really glad I went with 2GB in my Macbook. I always have anywhere from 3-12 apps open at once... I've never experience slow down like I did when I had 512.

I love having 2GB. It means I can do so much more without worrying about any sort of slowdowns.
 
i voted for 2GB.

1GB could work, but 2GB will be that much smoother for OSX.

i have a black macbook and im going to get 2GB as soon as funds allow.. :(
 
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