Disadvantages of 4gb ram?

Hi,

Just purchased 4gb OCZ ram for low end Macbook since it was cheap. Only use Macbook for web, office, music etc but since have so many apps open 1 gb is always being used. So anyway, the question is - are there any disadvantages to 4gb ram over 2gb, or OCZ over other brands. I've heard mention of ram making laptop much hotter? Is this true?

Thanks

 

Well chances are you really wont even need 4 gigs of ram for the macbook. Unless you are using some really high end music programs 4 gigs isnt gonna make much of a difference. i think 4 gigs of ram is a little much for a macbook.

 

The only disadvantage of using 4gb of ram is that you you'll be wasting 2gb of ram since it's not used. Maybe even shorten your battery life by a couple minutes?
The only time you'll need 4gb of ram is if you are a hardcore multi-tasker, have to deal with files that are 100+mb, etc.
As for heat, yes, ram does produce some heat, but it usually isn't a problem since most of the heat coming from your notebook is from your cpu and gpu.

 

Okay, seems like 2 gig is plenty.

Thanks for the replies.

 

The only disadvantage to 4GB of ram is price.

 

No disadvantage really...just you might not need so much. 2 GB of RAM is already great for Macs, anything more is helpful but not really necessary unless you do stuff like virtualizatio.

 

Or simultaneous Windows / OS X / Linux development.

 

4gb ocz in a Santa Rosa 2.0 macbook here. 0 problems, in fact quite glad i went with 4. VMWare Fusion runs Vista x86 (I gave it 2 gigs) in parallel on one of my spaces screens without any slowdown whatsoever.

 

No, as all DDR2 RAM uses the sam amount of electricity.

 

Like most people said, the only real disadvantage to more RAM is price.

I'll also have to disagree with some of the comments that 2 GB is more than enough. It depends heavily on what you plan on doing. While most users who don't use their laptops for any specialized functions won't need more than 2, only you can be the judge of what you intend to do on your laptop, and even then, your options increase as you have more RAM. For example, I find that even 4GB of RAM is a little low sometimes for my needs.

But this is a moot point. There's absolutely no reason to get stock RAM from Apple, so you'll most likely (or should) buy your laptop with only 2 GB of RAM max as it is. After you get your laptop, try it out to see whether the 2GB is enough for your needs. You can always buy 4GB of RAM anytime if your needs increase.

 

i use it all on a daily basis with parallels.

i think a lot of people using VMs would benefit, others, not as much
not sure if the OPer got the deal i did on my OCZ 2x2GB, but i only paid 110 from frys

thats a steal

 

Yeh ive seen 4gb as low as $80 on fry's theres really no reason why you shouldn't go for that!

 

sure there is. if you dont need it, spend the 40$ on 2gb.

thats a damn good reason for most people to skip 4gb

me? HELL NO, i use every bit of the 4gb

 

That is an excellent price!

 

Haha I only have 2gb right now, and I'm not totally satisfied! Mind you I'm running vista (the memory hog)

Yeh Ik I should have grabbed it up when I saw it, but i had just only bought my 2gb's...

 

RAM is rarely that cheap in Canada...I pounced on 2 GB for $60 the other day, and that's pretty rare already. Can't wait for it to deliver .

 

The only disadvantage of 4GB RAM that I can think of right now would be not optimizing it...

 

So I should be getting my first Mac ever in a few weeks and I might be a little ignorant on this but doesn't the Apple website say that the max allowable RAM for a Macbook is 2 GB? wouldn't that mean that the other 2 gigs are essentially useless?

 

The new Santa Rosa MacBooks (and Pros) support up to 4GB of RAM.

 

No, the original Core Duo MacBooks had a maximum of 2 GB. The second generation Core 2 Duo MacBooks supported up to 3 GB, and the new Santa Rosa MacBooks support up to 4 GB.

 

there is hardly any disadvantage, battery life is a non-issue, as all MBP now ship with 2gb correct? so both slots are already used, and the difference between one being used and both is very small in terms of battery life.

2GB is quite sufficient for everyday type of use and most users would never really see the difference between 2 an 4gb. I used programs like After Effects, Photoshop, Final Cut Studio, Maya, Zbrush, and other programs that can easily utilize more than 4gb of RAM if the work becomes intense, After Effects and all these other programs will never use all of your RAM of course, as the OS needs some free for itself, but it is not rare for me to see After Effects using 60-75% of my 4gb.

For high end creation programs, as much ram as possible is usually the way to go, for daily use, always get the standard configuration and if you determine that it is the lack of RAM that is actually slowing you down, consider upgrading or finding a more efficient way to work. I could easily get by with 2gb with the things that I do, but I can definitely notice a increase in what I can throw at some programs.

 

Damn, this is the place to get answers!

Well I kept the 4 gig OCZ ram. Installed no problems. Only $94 ($69 after rebate).

Probably don't need it, but nearly paid $135 from Apple for 2 gig upgrade, so figure I'm still ahead. Plus could come in handy if I run Vista in parallels (although unlikely).

 

Haha, good to hear, BigAus! 4 GB...drool...