[P1] RAM question

[Kirk McElhearn]

On 3/18/04 3:45 PM, "Sarah Andrews Cook" <paxsarah at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I find that in those applications, my machine can be slow, but
> not unusable. I get the spinning beach ball more than I would
> like (actually, what I find even more irritating than the beach
> ball is the delay or lag I often see before the beach ball even
> appears). I know that a speed bump would probably come with
> moving to panther (since I have panther on my home machine), but
> I don't think that will be an option right now - our organization
> has a ton of macs and they are still in the process of upgrading
> people from OS 9 to OS X, so as one of the first movers to
> Jaguar, I don't think I will see an upgrade to Panther until
> everyone gets to X (no seconds until everyone has had their first
> serving!).

You'll get as much of a speed bump - even more, perhaps - by upgrading to
Panther as you would by adding RAM. I've got an old 400 MHz iMac, which,
with only 384 MB, runs very fast under Panther. Much faster than it did
under Jag.
> 
> At this point, budgeting for hardware is starting for the next
> fiscal year (which starts in July). I don't think I'm on the list
> for a new machine (though that could change), and honestly, as
> long as my usage doesn't change my book will remain reasonably
> usable for the next year. If I keep this book for another year,
> though, I'm trying to make the argument that maxing out the RAM
> to 640MB would make a noticeable difference. It's also much
> cheaper than a new machine.
> 
> And after all of this exposition, finally, here is my dilemma:
> the director of our data unit (who is in charge of hardware
> buying and upgrades) is telling me that, for the applications I
> use, an increase from 384 to 640MB will make minimal difference,
> that I wouldn't really notice an increase in performance, due
> mainly to the limitations of the processor. This runs counter to
> everything I've heard (basically, that increasing RAM will always
> help), but he's also much more of an expert than I am, so I'm
> wondering if he's right. Can anyone shed any light on this for
> me? Any websites out there, benchmarking, etc. you could direct
> me to?

More RAM always helps. But if you're not planning to keep it too long, the
upgrade (which entails trashing the 256 card and buying a 512) won't be
really worth the cost. I'd vote for Panther.
 
 
Kirk
 
        My latest book: How to Do Everything with Mac OS X Panther
                  http://www.mcelhearn.com/htde.html
 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
 . . . . . . .  kirk at mcelhearn.com | http://www.mcelhearn.com  . . . . . .
 . .  Kirk McElhearn | Chemin de la Lauze | 05600 Guillestre | France  . .