[X4U] Macbook Pro

[Philip J Robar]

On May 12, 2007, at 5:42 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote:

> At 6:28 PM -0600 5/12/07, Robert MacLeay wrote:
>
>> My greatest criticism of Apple is that, with the exception of the  
>> Mac Pro,
>> nothing now shipping has the RAM capacity to handle the needs of  
>> whatever
>> operating system I expect we will be running 3+ years in the  
>> future. When
>> one considers not only how the minimum RAM requirements for the Mac  
>> OS have
>> increased over the last 20 years, but how the expandability (ratio of
>> minimum requirement to maximum installable) has shrunk...
>
> You've got that right. We just got my wife a Macbook, and maxed it  
> out at 2GB, while that's enough for 10.4.9, and the light usage it's  
> going to get, I'm a little concerned about even 10.5.

I'm not. I'm willing to bet that most of that 2 GB is inactive or only  
being used for I/O buffering.

My poor little 12" 1.33 GHz G4 PB with 768 MB runs, umm, not optimized  
not 10.4.x just fine. With FireFox (3 windows, ~20 tabs), Mail,  
Azureus, iTunes, Terminal, Finder/OS X and all its deamons running I  
still have ~200 MB of inactive memory.

> My G5 2x2 needed more RAM with 3.5GB, though with the 5.5GB I just  
> went to it is feeling a lot better.

"feeling a lot better", uh which benchmark is that from?

Yes, I'm being a smart-ass, but I have the disadvantage of not only  
being a software engineer, but having been trained as a scientist and  
psychologist in a program that demanded intellectual rigor. So when I  
hear people talk about the need for GBs of physical memory with no  
reference to the work being done, the benchmark which demonstrates  
that need, or being able to "feel" the difference between 3.5 and 5.5  
GB of RAM my BS meter goes off. (Even given that I still remember  
vividly the day my Sun workstation was upgraded from 1 to 4 MB.)

For reference, the knee of the curve for Windows XP when performing  
well defined general purpose multitasking application benchmarks is  
right around 512 MB. I wish I had similar information for Vista, but  
despite lots of hand waving about Vista's memory needs I've yet to see  
any reliable numbers published. (I'd welcome a pointer if anyone has  
one.) I'd also like to be able to quote similar figures for OS X, but  
I don't read Mac related publications regularly anymore, and from what  
I remember of them most of what passed for benchmarking left a lot to  
be desired. (MacBench leaps to mind.)

Sorry for the interruption, I now return to you the myths and  
superstition that regularly pass for knowledge on this list.

Phil
--
We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition  
dies, I think the soul of America dies with it. -- Edward R. Murrow