[urban]

Hello. My PB 12" already has 512MB RAM installed but the thing is things seem to be slow at times. Evoking dashboard after a period of inactivty would take up to 10 seconds. (Some) Applications take forever to start. I am considering upgrading my RAM to speed things up a little. I don't mind spending $250CDN for 1GB of RAM but 512MB only costs $100. I guess my question is does the extra 512MB of RAM justify the hefty price tag? I don't even do video-editing, photo-editing of the sorts, but I do enjoy multi-tasking; Safari, Mail, Adium, iCal, iTunes, iPodder, and dashboard widgets.

Any recommendations?
Thanks for your time.

[pat++]

I've been using a 12" iBook with 640mb and 768mb, and never noticed any lag with Dashboard... This is probably because you are using more apps at the same time (or more widgets?). I don't think I would notice any lag with 512, although I might be wrong. It's a bit weird because you do not seem to be using big apps...

I think 768mb is more than enough for basic use (I do Mail, Safari, iChat, iTunes mainly), but getting more may be a safer option if you keep your PowerBook serveral years...

I would buy the memory at Crucial :

http://www.crucial.com/store/listpar...ay%29&tabid=AM

They are much cheaper: $61 for 512mb and $184 for 1gb and they have very high quality memory.

Getting 1gb, is a safe choice if you're planning to use your PowerBook for a 2-3 years. Memory needs will grow with time... If you're planning to change your computer within 1-2 years, not sure it's worth it though.

[hldan]

I would highly recommed to max out the ram in your notebook. Ram is the air the computer uses to breathe with. Don't cripple the ram because of the money. You can get good ram at many places on the web. Pat++ mentioned Crucial which is great and I recommend www.ramjet.com.

My friend owns a tattoo business where he just bought the iMac G5 1.8Ghz for drawing tattoos and using iTunes to play music and some picture editing. The computer was lightening fast out of the box until he started multitasking from all the work he does and now this fast computer runs slower until we close all the windows or do a restart to reclaim all available memory. He just upgraded to 2GB and all is well.

One note, not many people know that the widgets use ram behind the scenes. The more open widgets the more ram gets used constantly. Most widgets use about 7-10MB of ram each and that can be a lot if you have at least 5 widgets open. Even though you don't see them they are using ram.
Even with 512MB ram the computer itself eats up 150-200MB to run the system and OS. The rest is used to run your apps and don't forget some of it is used up front from the widgets.