[editerik]

Hello all,

I have a G4 1.67ghz Powerbook purchased Feb05 with 1GB of RAM. It has 2 512 sticks and I was wondering if going to 1.5 or 2 GB will make much of a difference in apps like iPhoto and Photoshop or should I just save the cash and keep this for another year or two and then buy the latest and greatest. It is still a nice machine and is really not that slow. I would just like a little more speed if possible. But is it worth the $225ish dollars?

Thanks in advance,

Erik

[chucker]

I don't know where you have the $225 figure from; that seems way too high. I'd say $80-100.

As to whether it's worth it, well, I'm not so sure.

[Wyatt]

It'll make a difference for Photoshop, especially if you go to 2GB. It won't really help iPhoto unless you've got a pretty big library (say 2,000+ photos).

You don't have to spend that much money on it, though. Based on the date you purchased and your processor speed, you have this PowerBook, which uses PC-2700 RAM. While it's not cheap (because it's older and less common now), it can be found for less than the price you gave.

Any RAM on this page will work for you:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&src hInDesc=

The PNY RAM on that page got really good reviews, and it's only $80 for 1 GB right now ($85 w/ shipping). That means you can get 2 GB for $160 ($170 w/ shipping).

[Windowsrookie]

Yes, you'd see a speed improvment. But why $225?

Try this.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820236309

Edit: Damn you fcgriz...

[Wyatt]

Originally Posted by Windowsrookie Edit: Damn you fcgriz...

I win!

[editerik]

I think I priced the wrong ram.

Thanks for your answers. and I have 8000 piccs in iPhoto.

Peace.

Erik

[steve77uk]

The general rule is the more RAM, the better things perform - obviously you will need to make use of it, but OS X will breath more easily and as such the applications will have more room to think rather than fighting with OS X.

I have an iMac and had 1GB and things sometimes run a bit sluggish when using large RAW files in iPhoto and CS2 under Rosetta was a bit sluggish, however now I have upgraded to 2GB, things run like a dream to the point where I don't worry about having lots of stuff open at the same time, iPhoto storms it and CS3 is fab, but OS X runs a lot better for me...

But unlike Windows, I understand OS X is suppose to run fine on older equipment - I don't know, I can only tell you my experience.

I know I am going off topic here, but I had a desktop at work 3Ghz 1GB RAM and XP ran well (give or take a few moments), installed Vista again for a third time (we have got to make the transition sometime, but I kept reverting back as I hate it) and now my machine feels like it is a basic run of the mill desktop and need to upgrade it some more! Damn you Bill!!

But on the other hand one of my customers has a powerbook like yours and she has put 1 GB in it and loves it using CS2 but saying upgrading to 2GB is just a luxury for her - she would like to, but doesn't HAVE to - if you know what I mean...

[Wyatt]

Originally Posted by editerik I think I priced the wrong ram. Thanks for your answers. and I have 8000 piccs in iPhoto. Peace. Erik

8000 pics? Definitely go to 2GB, then.

[Dorian Gray]

Adding more RAM won't necessarily make the computer significantly faster (although it will always help for caching apps and files that are closed and then opened again, but that's a very slight improvement in performance). You can see whether you will benefit from more memory by observing your Page out statistics in Activity Monitor. If zero or slowly increasing while doing what you normally do on your computer, you won't benefit from more RAM. If 100,000 per hour, you will benefit greatly.

[editerik]

Thanks Dorian,

I checked the Activity Monitor, and it was 89000/90000(not exact) in/out. Then I thought I would reboot and see that I got. I have opened a bunch of apps including itunes , photoshop CS3 and iphoto as well as others and the page outs is sitting right at 0. The page in is 39000.

Is it becasue I had not rebooted the machine in a long time and things were just cached in mem? I really have no idea what I am talking about here.

Thanks...

[Brad]

The pageouts number is cumulative since boot. If it is rising, that means you've been running out of memory. If there's ever a non-zero number in the parentheses for pageouts, that means you are currently running out of memory and the system is swapping to disk.

[Dorian Gray]

I think Brad may be referring to the pageout figure in the "top" command (in Terminal). Activity Monitor doesn't show recent pageouts in parenthesis, just the total figure since boot. 90,000 is a large number but it depends on how long you were running without rebooting. If a day or two, you'd probably see a noticeable improvement by adding more memory. If a month, then more memory would make next to no difference.

Lots of RAM is nice but 1 GB is a decent amount. Unless you have a multitasking fetish (dozens of open apps/windows) and/or regularly work on huge images in Photoshop, I'd say more memory isn't worth $160. But it won't do any harm!

[Koodari]

Originally Posted by Brad The pageouts number is cumulative since boot. If it is rising, that means you've been running out of memory. If there's ever a non-zero number in the parentheses for pageouts, that means you are currently running out of memory and the system is swapping to disk.

Are you perhaps thinking of the "top" utility which displays the last second pageouts in parentheses? I don't see a corresponding number anywhere in Activity Monitor.

edit: Dorian was faster.