[polendo]

Hi all, I have a G3 700 mhz iBook with 384 MB RAM and 16mb video. After I bought it I installed a 256 MB stick bringing it to a total 384 mb ram.
Well, a local computer store has this 512 mb stick for roughly 130 USD that can be used in my iBook. I usually open Safari and Mail only, and in some sites I feel the iBook rather slow. The question is, do you think is worth it to buy this stick of ram, taking in considerance that is a G3 iBook (2 years now) and I usually use Safari, Mail and sometimes an excel spreadsheet. What I can't make of is if the iBook feels slow because of the low powered G3 rather than having only 384 MB of ram. Now, the performace hasn't degraded over time.. it has always been like this.

What do you guys think?

[T. Diddy]

you have enough ram for what you do. and that ram stick should cost around $100. it might help running two apps at a time at the most, like quit Safari while working with Excel.

[jamil5454]

384 is plenty for you're doing. While OS X does like RAM, I would go so far as to say 256 would be enough. Although Activity Monitor may show all your RAM is being used, most of that is inactive as the disk cache and can be deallocated in a heartbeat. You could always buy it and then return it if you don't like the results, but I personally wouldn't waste my money. I would keep the iBook as it is and then save your money for a DP PowerMac

On a side note, Safari, while awesome, isn't the fastest web browser in the world. Mozilla or Firefox would probably be faster on your iBook. I would say it's the G3 that's slowing you down (even though it's not exactly "slow"). Try using some of the machines at an Apple Store and see how they compare.

[polendo]

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, I'm getting more convinced that the lack of speed comes from the G3 rather than the lack of memory(for the use I have giving the iBook).

Now for firefox. The previous version (pre 1.0) felt more snappy than Safari.. but now with the latest version, on my iBook , Safari feels much faster. Really strange. Like if Firefox would be more heavy on the use of resources.. I will make a comparison of both with the memory usage thingy that comes with OS X.

thanks