[gdraynal]

My G4 Titanium 867MHz 256 MB SDRAM is on its last legs and I had been walking on eggshells awaiting the MWSF Intel anouncements, and will be until mid february apparently.

I'm a student and primarily use Office, Safari, iPhoto, iTunes, mail...nothing with extraordinary processing demand, at least on a regular basis.

My primary concern is speed of switching between windows and applications, particularly as I might have 15 open at any given time. I don't ever want to see the beach ball again or force quit safari again.http://forums.applenova.com/images/smilies2/irked.gif

I also don't want to overbuy (e.g. 1.83 / 100gb), rather find an adequate middleground.

The question: In buying the 1.67, would the $100 upgrade from the standard 512MB to 1G be worthwhile?

And in speculation, what about 80-> 100GB Hard drive (i.e. do I need space for purchased movie storage or is .mac going to take care of that for us?)

Thanks in advance for any pertinent insight

[neiltc13]

Buy the lower end model and add the RAM yourself. Apple charge ridiculous prices (about double what Crucial were asking for when I got my iMac) and it seriously delays your order. Adding ram to Apple computers is a pretty painless process - it's always detailed in the manual and you can't invalidate your warranty by doing so.

I'm not really sure what you mean by your last question, though.

[WrestleEwe]

Weren't you supposed to buy a stock mac?

There are numerous messages on this board from people who complain that they can't get a refund because their machine was BTO..

I would suggest a stock model and add the RAM yourself... And if you need more than 80GB, 100GB probably isn't going to cut it either, so you might as well eventually add an external drive.

Or am I wrong about the BTO story? Who knows...

2 cents and all that Jazz...

Paul

[gdraynal]

Thanks for the advice thus far, if I want extra ram I'll boost it myself.

Next question:

Do I want/need extra ram beyond 512MB? What will it do for me?

[neiltc13]

Yes, you do. It'll "make the computer run faster" and allow you to have more things open at once without slowdown. Mac OS X's memory management is excellent. The more the merrier I say!

[kieran]

"MacBook Pro Purchasing Advice?"

We should have a forum for this type of information.



...oh wait, we do....and will you look at that?

It's even called "Purchaising Advice"

Who would have thought?

[beardedmacuser]

Originally Posted by neiltc13 Yes, you do. It'll "make the computer run faster" and allow you to have more things open at once without slowdown. Mac OS X's memory management is excellent. The more the merrier I say!

I like to think that lots of RAM prevents the computer from slowing down rather than makes it run faster. With lots of RAM you can use lots of applications and they can take as much RAM as they need without having to fight for it or share swap space on the hard drive.

Currently 1 gig is a nice round number for day-to-day use (email, web, Office, etc etc). You'll only really need more if you're taxing your Mac with Pro user demands (video & DVD editing, big complex music creation). In all the Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro stuff I've done I've never needed more than the 2 gigs that I have in my Mac.

But I agree, if you have the cash to splash then "the more the merrier!" Who knows how your requirements may change in the future.

[gdraynal]

my apologies, if you're a moderator feel free to move it, if not bugger off.

[kieran]

Originally Posted by gdraynal my apologies, if you're a moderator feel free to move it, if not bugger off.

Bugger off?

I'm not a moderator, but it would be helpful to everyone else and the moderators if they didnt have to move threads. A simple look at the front page reveals a forum specifically for this type of question.

[gdraynal]

it would also be helpful to everyone if they didn't have to read beurocratic posts like these, unrelated to the post topic.

again, I apologize for my oversight, misplacing this thread, and am not opposed to it being moved. But yes, bugger off. Leave such matters to the moderators rather than cluttering a thread with non-constructive junk and tempting me to do the same.

Reply if you wish; I will not do so in turn.

Thanks for those who offered advice, I'll purchase stock and upgrade ram myself. It's not that I have cash to splash, but in spending 2K, I can warrant a hundred more in favor of reasonabnly increasing its capabilities.

[709]

You can get a 1GB stick of Crucial RAM for US$130.99. That's not bad, though I'm sure you could find a lesser brand for..erm..less. 1.5GB of RAM will suit OSX nicely.

Unfortunately I couldn't find the above stick at NewEgg. They've generally got the best prices around.

[badtzmaru]

I went with Samsung RAM (supposedly what Apple uses) sold by MacSales.com - two years with no problems.