aka5ha Posted February 16, 2006 Share Posted February 16, 2006 Friends, I am ordering an Intel Mac soon, and want to know how much RAM you realistically need to do some moderate to heavy multitasking. I have seen here and there you need >512 Mb, but I don't necessarily want to pay the high price of upgrading the RAM. Is 512 Mb enough? Can you back up your answers with screenshots of how many apps running and how much RAM is being used? Thanks in advance for any comments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdf8585 Posted February 16, 2006 Share Posted February 16, 2006 You definitely want 1 GB+ OS X loves RAM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hurmoth Posted February 16, 2006 Share Posted February 16, 2006 At least 1GB :yes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chicane-UK Veteran Posted February 16, 2006 Veteran Share Posted February 16, 2006 Yeah.. would be going with 1GB here too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+virtorio MVC Posted February 16, 2006 MVC Share Posted February 16, 2006 I have 512 MB and it runs fine with various programs running (iTunes, Photoshop CS 2, MSN and Yahoo Messneger, Safari, Mail all at the same time). Not perhaps as quick as it could be but it's no problem for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lammmetak Posted February 16, 2006 Share Posted February 16, 2006 OSX loves ram. especually when you are using ram eating programs as virtual pc( dont know why u would like to run that but still) photoshop and videoediting programs. also you can run more programs parralel. i love the 1 gb in my iBook. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shockz Posted February 16, 2006 Share Posted February 16, 2006 My mac mini runs on 512... but I really want more. Its acceptable... but it really starts to lag when the tabs in safari are open. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdf8585 Posted February 16, 2006 Share Posted February 16, 2006 Yeah, when I bought my Mini late last year, the one thing that I just had boost was memory to 1 GB. Needless to say, I am glad I did. Besides OSX and its processes, I usually have: Firefox 1.5.0.1, iChat 3.1.1, and iTunes 6.0.3 open. Sometimes NeoOffice 1.2 is open as well. That's about the extent of what I do - no games, video/movie/photo editing. Just day to day tasks. I am using 465/1GB with just FF, ichat and itunes open.... FF at 120 MB (1 tab), itunes 34 mb, ichat 23. So, as you can see, 512 is cutting it way too close. That's just my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.Neo Posted February 16, 2006 Share Posted February 16, 2006 Minimal of 512 MB, 256 just isn't cutting it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragon2611 Posted February 16, 2006 Share Posted February 16, 2006 My mac mini runs on 512... but I really want more. Its acceptable... but it really starts to lag when the tabs in safari are open. I upgraded my mini to 1gb its a fairly straight forward proccess but it is a bit of a pain to get the top off and back on again... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John S. Veteran Posted February 16, 2006 Veteran Share Posted February 16, 2006 I ordered my iMac with 1 GB this past summer, but added another GB myself. Muuuch better now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slacker Posted February 16, 2006 Share Posted February 16, 2006 Go with the 512 factory, you can always add another 512 aftermarket... you'll probably get a better deal, but a slightly higher hassle. That's what I've done with two of my PowerBooks... 512 just didn't cut it for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuarterSwede Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 I have 512MB in my PowerBook and have no problem (except when running iPhoto) but would recommend 1GB if you do a lot of multitasking. Also, remember that OS X uses as much RAM as it can. Meaning, it's almost always filled up so it doesn't have to page as much to the hard drive for virtual memory which makes things much faster than when using Windows by default. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crossbonez Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 1GB+ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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