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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac Notebooks > Is 1gb of ram enough or does it lag?

Is 1gb of ram enough or does it lag?
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amycishere
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Feb 5, 2007, 10:40 AM
 
Hello everyone, I am a student who is not very techy. lol. I am going to start teaching in about a year and half when I graduate. Is 1 gb of memory enough or does it start lagging after a while and I need two?

I was also told that in Keynote I can create powerpoints that would work on windows. Along with Word documents in Pages 2. Is this true or do I need MS office? I know this isn't the right forum but maybe its ok since I posted a ram question with it...I am very sick right now with a really bad cold...please don't shoot me.

Thanks.
Amy
     
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Feb 5, 2007, 10:42 AM
 
Well, it depends on what you are doing. If it's much more than Surfing, word processing and listening to music then 1gb isn't really enough.

RAM is pretty cheap so 2GB is the best way forward if you don't want to pull you hair out
     
amycishere  (op)
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Feb 5, 2007, 10:49 AM
 
See surfing the net, word processor, videos and music and stuff like that is what I do, I am not a really heavy user of other programs. I have 512 on my PC and that has worked great for more than three years. Do mac applications and OS take more memory?
( Last edited by amycishere; Feb 5, 2007 at 11:01 AM. )
     
Grrr
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Feb 5, 2007, 05:05 PM
 
512mb definitely is not enough in a modern mac these days. It works, but its horribly slow.
You cant have too much ram of course, but personally I find 1gb is plenty. I have 3 Macs and use them for all kinds of things. Yet none of them has more than 1gb in, and they all work just great.
The worst thing about having a failing memory is..... no, it's gone.
     
SLiMeX
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Feb 5, 2007, 05:23 PM
 
1GB is good, 2GB is best/
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MattJeff
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Feb 5, 2007, 05:31 PM
 
i say go for 2. in the long run it will help.
     
Tenex
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Feb 5, 2007, 07:38 PM
 
1Gb is workable and for what you said its OK. I get the beachball a lot these days with 1Gb but then I have a browser with 10-15 tabs open, an email client, p2p, a couple of Finder windows, iTunes and VLC running.

Actually its OK with these apps but if I then burn a DVD as well its a pain. Usually I have a couple more apps open and it starts to struggle.
     
Big Mac
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Feb 5, 2007, 08:04 PM
 
1GB is adequate, but you'd be happy with more if you use a lot of apps at once, use multiple users or use demanding apps. As far as your question about iWork is concerned, iWork is not a true replacement for M$ Office. Pages can import from Word but only exports to PDF; Keynote can export to PowerPoint but formatting and effects turn generic. Some of us get away with using iWork and/or NeoOffice (a free, open source version of Office that is works with Office files), but others need the real thing. If you rely on Office, you'll probably want it on the Mac. Alternatively, you could use Parallels (Windows Virtual Machine that runs in OS X) or Boot Camp (Apple software that allows you to restart natively in Windows).

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frankthetank966
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Feb 6, 2007, 10:17 AM
 
1GB of ram is good for me and I run iTunes, MS Word, Safari and Adium all at once constantly. It is very useful and powerful. If you have the money then you should obviously upgrade to 2GB of ram just for insurance.
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neverskatewsandles
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Feb 6, 2007, 06:08 PM
 
Originally Posted by frankthetank966 View Post
1GB of ram is good for me and I run iTunes, MS Word, Safari and Adium all at once constantly. It is very useful and powerful. If you have the money then you should obviously upgrade to 2GB of ram just for insurance.
I use pretty much the same programs and 1gb is more than enough
2ghz macbook /120gb hd ,1gb ram, superdrive/iwork
     
CheesePuff
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Feb 6, 2007, 06:23 PM
 
Remember too, on the MacBook and Mac mini, they have integraded graphics which means right off the bat 80 MB of your system RAM will be used for video, and then anywhere up to 224 MB can be used when needed. That is why with these systems 1 GB is the minimum now, and 2 GB will be more than enough though for what you're going to be doing with the machine.
     
TomR
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Feb 7, 2007, 10:33 PM
 
1 gig will work fine but if you can swing it do 2, If not don't sweat it, 1 is fine!

Tom
     
redhot_nyc
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Feb 8, 2007, 12:17 AM
 
1 GB is fine if you're doing web surfing and emailing. (but you can also do these things perfectly fine on a 400mhz G3)

If you want to run programs like Aperture, BIttorrent, or any video rendering (say, for your iPod) your system will slow to a crawl with 1GB. In the pic I've attached, I'm running Bittorrent, iTunes, Adium and Firefox ... which are all running most of the time on my MacBook.
     
CheesePuff
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Feb 8, 2007, 02:01 PM
 
Yeah, and in the above picture his hard drive is now 6.8 GB smaller because of the Virtual Memory being used.
     
mrplow
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Feb 8, 2007, 04:06 PM
 
I call BS on the hard drive comment, I have 1.25GB with over 500mb free mos to the time... and it still says i am using 10gb of hard drive space. It's simply untrue. Try doing a fresh install, you'll see your drive is only using about 5gb of space (depending on what all you install) and the activity monitor will still show >4 virtual memory...
     
mrplow
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Feb 8, 2007, 04:12 PM
 
Please note your Inactive RAM--- OS X caches things and keeps them in ram until the that space is needed. Try launching MS Word (it'll take forever the first time) then quit and launch it again. It'll load in just about a second. You essentially still have about 440MB free, as you should by merely running bittorrent, adium, itunes and firefox!


To the original poster, a gig is MORE than enough. Teachers make jack as it is, don't waste another $100. *IF* you would find yourself leaving ALL of your applications running simultaneously, you might benefit from the ram. In any event, for the initial gig I suggested Newegg.com - Buy Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more! and search for "Transced JetRAM". It's about $80 for a gig and has outstanding reviews. I use it as well as 3 of my friends.
     
redhot_nyc
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Feb 8, 2007, 08:44 PM
 
The reason I would suggest 2GB is because comes with two sticks of paired RAM. I now have to throw out two 512mb sticks (original 1GB) because I want to upgrade to 2GB. So it's cheaper to buy the RAM when you order the computer since you end up wasting the installed RAM.

Normally you would just buy an extra stick, but with the MacBook you should buy two.

In addition to pages you could try NeoOffice which is free and should be compatible with MS Word. By the way the MacBook is great for presentations, the screen is great and the remote is so much more useful than I expected. You can also get them refurbished (try and get a Core 2 Duo) on the Apple store online. They are just as good as new.
( Last edited by redhot_nyc; Feb 8, 2007 at 08:54 PM. )
     
hookem2oo7
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Feb 8, 2007, 09:26 PM
 
Originally Posted by redhot_nyc View Post
holy pageouts


I have a 2.0 CD macbook w/1GB and a brand new 2.16 C2D MBP w/2GB. The MBP definitely runs smoother with the 2GB probably due to the lack of paging out

     
typoon
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Feb 9, 2007, 02:41 PM
 
Also if you plan on using any type of Virtualization like Parallels it works best with 2 Gigs. I'm using it with 1 gig and it's SLOOW and it slows my entire system to a crawl. with 2 gigs though I've see it work pretty well.
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kick52
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Feb 9, 2007, 03:31 PM
 
i think it depends on which machine you are using.

if you have a new intel based machine (like a macbook), you need more ram than the powerpc based ones.

i use 512mb ram in my ibook, and its fine. (browsing, music, some light gaming)
     
mrplow
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Feb 9, 2007, 04:03 PM
 
i agree with the parallels comment, i don't get it though-- it used to be alot more efficient, more recent build slaughtered its efficiency. VMWare Fusion runs ALOT better (though is lacking some features in its current form.. worth checking out though, and it's free (for now))
     
amycishere  (op)
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Feb 9, 2007, 04:50 PM
 
Ok, thanks everyone, I am sticking with 1 gig of memory because I will not be using any of those programs some of you mentioned. Hell, I haven't even heard of them. lol. Thanks!
     
peeb
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Feb 9, 2007, 07:15 PM
 
If it sucks, you can always get more later!
     
chrisdisregard
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Feb 9, 2007, 08:24 PM
 
...
( Last edited by chrisdisregard; Nov 23, 2019 at 06:11 PM. )
     
frankthetank966
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Feb 9, 2007, 09:33 PM
 
Seriously right now you do not need 2GB of Ram. In a few years when technology becomes more demanding you will def. need it. So you make the choice if you want to invest in the future.
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drnkn_stylz
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Feb 10, 2007, 04:07 PM
 
Man how much CRAP do some of you people have on your systems? 1GB and lagging your system to a crawl? Opening 15+ tabs at once? Having 5-7 programs open? Why the HELL do you need to do this? This is all ridiculous.

I have 512mb of RAM.

I use CS3, iTunes, Safari/Camino, and MAYBE Mercury Messenger all at once. I'll be making myself a wallpaper or editing photos, while listening to music, and I'll have a browser open for reference or uploading, and maybe chatting with someone. My computer doesn't really lag that bad. Sure, I get beachballs, but it's not bad at all. Nothing freezes or crashes.

I also use Parallels with XP and it doesn't lag for me. I don't use XP for anything resource heavy, but I do run an emulator through it and it works perfectly fine. I just added a Quit option to Finder since you don't need it running.

It's all about how you use your resources. There's no need for stupid crap like opening a browser with 15 tabs. You're not looking at them all at once, so that's the point of a bookmarks bar.

I'm going to upgrade to 1gb and it will be more than enough for me, and I use my MacBook pretty heavily.
..13" MacBook Pro | 2.53gHz | 4gb RAM | 320gb Seagate Momentus XT | OSX.6.6.. // iPhone 4 32gb
     
tinkered
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Feb 11, 2007, 06:09 AM
 
If you are like most people, you want a mac that will work well for several years and with no upgrades other than software. In that case the 2 GB are a luxury today but will be a needed to keep you mac viable for as long as possible.
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