How much RAM is needed to effectively run OS X

yevgeny · August 25, 2003 12:28PM

Hi all, I am giving purchase advice to a friend swithcer (from Linux) who wants to buy a new 15 Al book (whenever such machines come out). I assume that the base RAM will be 512MB. How usable is this figure?

My friend will be using the iApps, no Photoshop (or at least no heavy duty Photoshop), iMovie, J2EE programming and Unix adminning. From your experience, is 512MB of RAM sufficient for all of these?

My inclination is for him to go with the base configuration and to uprade when (and if) necessary. RAM is always cheaper in the future.

I know that OSX can be a bit of a memory hog. How usable is half a gig of RAM when you have multiple applications open and in memory? How quickly can you switch between apps?

Much thanks in advance for any advice.

ryaxnb · August 25, 2003 12:46PM

I have pretty light requirements (Safari, iTunes, iPhoto, soon-to-be Word)), but I have 256MB RAM, and it works pretty good. I suppose heavier requirements would be all right with 512MB. [I run Mac OS X v10.2]. Right now I have 5 apps running, and switching is pretty effective.

whisper · August 25, 2003 12:50PM

I would say the minimum for not having to worry about it is 384. 512 should be fine.

scott · August 25, 2003 2:03PM

I got the 12" planning to get more RAM from someone other than Apple when the RAM prices fell. Turns out I'm getting along just fine on 256. The only real pushing I do on it is games though. I plan on getting more soon.

altivec_2.0 · August 25, 2003 2:13PM

To be be safe, why not upgrade to 512MB.

rok · August 25, 2003 2:18PM

the effect seems to be multiplicative, rather than linear. in other words, twice as much ram seems to yield 3x to 4x the performance, in my observation. if you can afford 1 gb, get it. you won't have to upgrade again until you are ready for an upgraded computer. oterwise, go with 512 MB, but make sure you have a free ram slot available for upgrading later (lots of folks forget this little tidbit)

mfiwrh · August 25, 2003 2:35PM

I have a 192 MB running a clamshell iBook and it run great. Fast enough, never ever crashes, and it was inexpensive to buy the addition memory.

powerdoc · August 25, 2003 2:54PM

512 MB is perfect, for the tasks that your friend need. Except giant photoshop files, multiple tasking, or video editing, more RAM won't make a big difference.

placebo · August 25, 2003 3:54PM

256 is great (I run mine with 192), but any with any photoshop or video editing in mind, move to 512.

fahlman · August 25, 2003 5:04PM

I have 1.25GB and everything seems to run okay

scott · August 25, 2003 6:32PM

Quote:

Originally posted by rok

the effect seems to be multiplicative, rather than linear. in other words, twice as much ram seems to yield 3x to 4x the performance, in my observation. if you can afford 1 gb, get it. you won't have to upgrade again until you are ready for an upgraded computer. oterwise, go with 512 MB, but make sure you have a free ram slot available for upgrading later (lots of folks forget this little tidbit)

Well of course that's just not true, in theory and practice. Everything I've seen tells me that performance as a function of ram goes more like a logarithmic scale. Given a large amount of free RAM the CPU would hit it's maximum and giving it more ram would do nothing at all.

wrong robot · August 25, 2003 6:40PM

I Got 256 SDRAM in my G3 iMac

OS X(10.2.4) runs fine.

occasionally things get super choked and chhhhuuuuuuuuug.

but generally it's all good.

of course whenever I use photoshop that's when I really could use some more RAM.

kingofsomewherehot · August 25, 2003 6:56PM

no worries mate !

I run 10.2 on a 266mhtz G3 with 192 MB .... noticeably faster than when it had only 128 MB .... never a problem.

pscates · August 25, 2003 7:02PM

Back around Christmas I made the leap from the stock 256MB on my G4 iMac to 512MB.

Wasn't a huge, "knock your eyes out" type of change, but I could DEFINITELY tell an overall sense of response and general snappiness that was lacking before the upgrade.

I tend to run Mail, Safari, iTunes, iChat, Illustrator, Photoshop and FontAgent Pro all the time. Add to that the frequent launching and usage of iCal, Backup, iSync, Address Book, Sherlock and TextEdit.

Things just didn't seem to whir down to a grind after going to 512MB. I think 512MB is a nice, respectable amount these days. Figuring OS X wants a healthy chunk to do its thing, then you'll usually want a browser and e-mail program open 24/7. Add to that all the other things a person uses (Word, iApps, etc.) and 512MB seems probably pretty reasonable these days.

You can never have too much RAM, I truly believe. Somehow, someway you'll use it and be glad it's there.

And it's cheap these days, so why not?

ast3r3x · August 25, 2003 7:48PM

512MB RAM will suit you perfectly.

At home when we upgraded from 256MB to 768MB there was a giant speed difference...when we upgraded to 1024MB, I didn't even notice a speed increase.

At work when we upgraded from 768MB to 1.5GB, I didn't notice a big difference at all.

I would say unless your working with PS files bigger then 500MB or so, and/or video editing (beyond iMovie, though I never used it so I wouldn't know) that 512MB will be fine for you. As you get more serious about graphics you want to move up, but that is why you can upgrade later and don't have to make decisions now about what you'll want in a year. (well regarding RAM)

opuscroakus · August 25, 2003 7:55PM

In the spirit of the original topic... Do you think Panther will require even more RAM to run "effectivly," or could the opposite happen and it could run well with less memory than we are used to. Like the 128MB that Apple still ships in it's basic configs.

cubedude · August 25, 2003 8:35PM

Quote:

Originally posted by opuscroakus

In the spirit of the original topic... Do you think Panther will require even more RAM to run "effectivly," or could the opposite happen and it could run well with less memory than we are used to. Like the 128MB that Apple still ships in it's basic configs.

I don't think it will make too much of a difference. It will, of course, be faster. I do wish that Apple would ship 256 megs of RAM minimun on every config.

leonis · August 25, 2003 9:02PM

1.5 Gig of RAM and still not enough

wmf · August 25, 2003 9:35PM

TiBook RAM won't get any cheaper; soon it will be getting more expensive. Get 512MB from Apple and 512MB from somewhere else.

scott · August 25, 2003 9:46PM

If the new gcc is "better" I might expect the binaries to shrink in size a tad. If that happens then I might expect the OS to take up less room in ram. Of course speed and binary size can be a trade off. Apple may go for speed.

whisper · August 28, 2003 3:28AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Scott

If the new gcc is "better" I might expect the binaries to shrink in size a tad. If that happens then I might expect the OS to take up less room in ram. Of course speed and binary size can be a trade off. Apple may go for speed.

Frankly, I hope they go for speed. At some point increases in the execution speed are offset by the extra bandwidth required to get the code from RAM to CPU, and I'm pretty sure that point is below the maximum 640MB of RAM that the 12" PB and iBooks can hold.

How much RAM is needed to effectively run OS X

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