By about how much will my MacBook's performance increase when upgrading from 2GB to 4GB RAM?

I have a late 2008 2GHz aluminium unibody MacBook with 2GB RAM, I recently have found it lagging and have been seeing the spinning beach ball too often. I ordered 4GB RAM that should be arriving soon, but I would like to know how much my performance will increase. I still have 80GB of storage on my 160GB HD, so I don't thing that's the issue. My chip is an Intel core 2 duo, and I am running OS X Lion.

Thanks!

asked Dec 03 '11 at 20:17

MacGuru14a
1●3●4●4

edited Dec 04 '11 at 21:09

4 Answers:

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1	If you use a lot of that memory, it will benefit you greatly. If you don't. It won't. Memory is used on a per need basis. answered Dec 04 '11 at 20:01 Drmgiver 1.2k●2●5●22

0	Well it may not be the RAM, it could be the CPU or GPU depending on what you are using. answered Dec 03 '11 at 20:20 JordanV 4.1k●62●82●124

80GB? must be an old Hard Drive, Hard drive also affects system performance. (you'll appreciate that more when you compare an SSD with an HDD) 2Ghz is fine BUT how many cores do you have? if it's single core instead of a dual core, then you won't benefit that much. Plus what version of MacOS are you using: Not sure about this but just make sure your OS supports a 4GB of RAM or else, it won't use the excess RAM. a higher RAM is basically only good when Multitasking and Multi-tab browsing. try re-formatting the computer first (after doing a back-up) then defrag your HDD if it doesn't help. OR you can also try cleaning the hardware to remove dusts (which increases the likelihood of overheating and consequently reduces system performance while the PC tries to compensate and avoid overheating.)

answered Dec 04 '11 at 02:19

xedric14
941●71●77●90

It is a Mac clearly, it does not need defragging.

(Dec 04 '11 at 20:00) Drmgiver

Sorry, I meant that I have 80GB left, it's a 160GB hard drive. I have a Intel dual core chip, running OS X Lion

(Dec 04 '11 at 21:08) MacGuru14a

Good to be clear. Mac does not need defragging? - I won't argue.

(Dec 06 '11 at 02:21) xedric14

I have an early 2008 white MacBook with 2GB 667Mhz RAM, pretty slow when multitasking and often freezes. Then I use my early 2011 pro with 4gb 1333mhz and it runs perfectly. Lion loves RAM, so the more you can give it, the better. I'll be upgrading my 2008 MB to 4GB at the end of this year to boost the speed (since I use this one for almost 6 hours every day at school which is more than I spend on the pro which is my home machine). You'll see a large improvement, especially since you're running on the minimum amount of RAM that Lion will accept.

answered Dec 05 '11 at 22:43

PCLinux7
1.3k●17●22●39

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