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I currently have a white macbook running 1gb ram and have been considering upgrading to 4gb of ram and from leopard to snow leopard for some time. I know I will see a huge performance boost when upgrading the ram but I'm unsure about the benefits of upgrading to snow leopard. So the question I ask is this; Is Snow Leopard really worth it? |
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You will not see a huge performance increase from upgrading to 4GB of RAM. People don't seem to understand how RAM works. Unless you're using it, it's not helping you that much. Leopard uses well under 1GB where as Snow Leopard tends to want to use more. For a Snow Leopard machine you're better off with 2GB. If you're really filling it up then it will help... but don't expect it to do the same thing an SSD or a faster CPU or GPU would. Overall I'd recommend 2GB if you'd like to upgrade to Snow Leopard. If you plan on keeping 1GB then Leopard might be a better option since it uses considerably less amounts of memory. In most cases Snow Leopard increases performance in Macs. WIth only 1GB of memory it doesn't always do so.. it tends to cache to the disk a lot. If you do decide to upgrade, please, back up your data and format your hard disk and do a CLEAN install of Snow Leopard. I've seen "upgrades" go terribly wrong.. and tend to not improve performance that much. Anyway, hope this helps. And PS yes.. I do think Snow Leopard is worth the $29. Even the $29 "upgrade" disk can perform a clean install if you boot off of it. |
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depends on the amount of apps you would need to replace when you upgrade. |
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For my personally, Snow Leopard is crucial. For $29, it's pretty well in the range for anybody. I do notice speed and performance boosts here and there, and it feels more fluid and smooth.. especially with the revamped Finder and Quicktime Framework. Many apps that I rely on, like Apple's Xcode and Pixelmator, are going 10.6 Snow Leopard only, so I do need it.. and many apps that are 10.5, have features that are 10.6 only. |
