Buying a MacBook soon, question about RAM

I'm purchasing a MacBook very soon. Now the new ones come with 2GB of DDR3 RAM.

2 extra GB's of RAM only cost $150 extra dollars.

But with taxes where I live, instead of costing only $1400 with the 2GB, its going to cost me $1600 dollars for it. Plus I don't really have a lot of patience at this point.

Is it worth it to wait a few more weeks for 4GB or is it really unneccessary and I only really need 2GB?

 

What do you use your notebook for?

 

Not much more than the usual. Web browsing, probably some photoshop, videos, etc. I just don't know what 2GB of RAM can't handle...

 

So far my 2GB can handle everything smoothly, I have played COD4 at default settings without any problems.....Apple usually overcharge for their RAM and many people would suggest you to get at least amount of RAM from Apple and buy what you need online from somewhere else......and DDR3 is expensive right now so I would wait until it gets cheaper if I really need 4GB in the future.

 

If you want to run Fusion you should get at least 3GB for XP and 4GB for Vista. If you do not intend to 2GB should be fine for what you do.

 

I think 2 GB will be enough for any task you do, other than virtualization, as lixuelai mentioned!

 

I have 2GB of RAM in my new Aluminum Macbook, and haven't had a lag since I opened it up. I've had about 7 Firefox windows open at one time, and still no lag. It's really amazing what only 2GB of RAM can handle. If you really needed to use VMWare Fusion or Parallels, then I would say go for it, but if you aren't going to be using that, then stick with the 2GB you have.

 

You should buy the one with 2GB, then you can upgrade it, just be patient... Where are you from?
I bought 2X2GB on eBay for only $85 + $10 shipping...

 

I'm not gonna be running Windows, I've lost all hope in the Windows OS. So much bad luck with it. But yeah, I think I'll stick with the 2GB and see how it runs. I imagine it'll be more than fine for what I need. I've been using a Windows computer with only 1GB of RAM so that kind of explains itself.

 

Very sensible approach, use the system first before determining what else that needs to add. Enjoy your new comp.

cheers ...

 

If you want 4 GBs of RAM, won't you have to buy 2x2GB sticks? I thought Apple did 2x1 GB sticks for the 2GB models?
EMZ=]

 

Haha see that's the thing, I have no clue.
See here's the thing, my Acer notebook running Windows just screwed up on me recently and I relied on it for a bunch of things so I really am quite impatient on this one. Which is why I'd rather not wait an extra 2 weeks to get that extra $200 for an extra 2GB of RAM which will probably be unneccessary in the long run. Plus I'll have to worry about shipment because you cannot customize it like that in the actually Apple store and you know how some factories handle boxes nowadays..

 

let me put it this way, in the short run, or in the long run, its not necessary.

2GB of ram is plenty. buying 4GB of memory is a waste of your time (2 weeks and shipping hassles) and equally importantly, a waste of your money.

youll never notice the difference, because there wont be one.

the only time it might be necessary are: massive rendering projects (maya), or massive movie encoding projects or something, or maybe if using multiple adobe cs apps or dealing with massive research images... or running windows in a virtual machine.

if you don't do things like this, you don't need 4GB of memory.

 

Alright. I appreciate it. I'll stick with the 2GB of RAM. Thanks a lot. Since this is my first Mac and only my second notebook, I'm just very curious and wondering.

 

thats a good thing. keep asking questions if you aren't sure of something.

 

I noticed the difference in Crysis, now its smoother!! 4GB ftw!

 

Anyone know or try 6GB of Ram?

 

Thing is, I probably won't be gaming with it at all. I never thought Macs were really meant to run games to be honest with you. I'll keep on asking questions when I'm unsure, for sure.

 

the advantage of buying stock config is that the delivery is faster and if anything happens to be wrong you can get replacement faster.

i think the newer mac has trouble handling ram of 4gb or more. their might be a firware update, if it hasnt already rolled out yet.

i think 2gb is enough. mac memmory management is really good. even if you hit the 2gb i doubt it will lag that much (if at all) with what you'll do.

oh and also, when the mac utilise all 2gb its usually is because of its caching feature. just like in windows vista. when you close a program, usually the program usually still stay in the memmory. the OS will discard it as soon as the memmory space is required. so when you see that it hit 2gb dont worry, check the memmory's active and inactive detail in activity manager..

 

The limit is 4 on the new Macbooks.

 

Yeah, I wouldn't go any more than four, because the software wouldn't support it, and plus you may run into some trouble that would be tedious to work through.

 

Not saying it's economically worthwhile, but 4GB is most certainly NOT the limit.

http://gizmodo.com/5072239/confirmed-new-macbooks-support-6gb-ram
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/10/new-macbooks-an.html
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=2465
http://www.macrumors.com/2008/10/30/new-macbooks-and-macbook-pros-support-up-to-6gb/
http://www.ramjet.com/mbib.asp

 

I'd recommend staying with 2 GB of RAM to see how it performs first, and if you find that it's sluggish then try an upgrade to 4 GB. Mac OS X loves RAM, but it does run pretty well with 2 GB. The only instances you'd need 4 GB of RAM is if you're planning on doing heavy multitasking with large applications such as Adobe Photoshop or if you're going to be running virtualized operating systems inside of an environment such as VMware Fusion or VirtualBox.

 

Mac OS X doesn't use as much RAM as Vista.

 

Of course it doesn't, but it does make better use of the RAM that it utilizes. You'll find that Mac OS X will scale quite well depending on the amount of memory that is available to the operating system, and it shows in overall performance under heavy load.

 

I agree, Mac OS X loves RAM just like any other OS, but it's the way the OS utilizes the RAM is what counts.

 

however, last time i checked, 4gb of DDR3 laptop ram was 150 on newegg.com and it is also 150 from apple so, if you want 4gb that bad, then just have it preinstalled.

 

actually i would recommend getting 4gb of ram.

price of ram chips (used for making the ram module) has been very low for quite sometime now, and the trend indicates that it is getting higher. there is no telling when it will come down.