Who knows about RAM? (for a new 2GHz iMac)

[CanadaRAM]

The above is memory thread related.


The above is not.

No - the point I am making is that a 12 - 29% increase in synthetic benchmark performance is great --- if you run benchmarks. The gains were made in specific areas of memory handling which make up just a tiny slice of a machine's actual memory performance. It's like saying that a car accelerates from 35 MPH to 38 MPH faster than another brand - the impact on overall driving is slim to none if all other areas are comparable.

When it came down to actual application testing, there was no net performance gain from 128-bit access.

XBench is simply a terrible predictor of actual performance.

In my experience, there is certainly more performance improvement from 1.5 Gb of unmatched RAM than 1 Gb of matched RAM.

When you choose the matching 512 Mb option, your opportunity cost is having to get rid of one or both 512's to upgrade later.

 

[yenko]

..............................In my experience, there is certainly more performance improvement from 1.5 Gb of unmatched RAM than 1 Gb of matched RAM.

When you choose the matching 512 Mb option, your opportunity cost is having to get rid of one or both 512's to upgrade later.

Point taken.

IMHO, and my limited experience, when my clients come to me with their Mac problems, I try to make sure there are no weak links in the chain. That's why I reference the tech articles from Apple. After all, they designed this stuff.

I agree with what you say as far as memory is concerned, but I tend to look at a larger picture. I find that some people, in an effort to keep costs down, will throw all kinds of crap into their Macs.

This is especially true with memory. Given the prices of memory, it's easy to see why they go that route. Bad RAM, in my limited experience is the #1 reason for Mac problems, so I have a tendency to make sure that memory is NEVER the culprit. One way is to buy good quality RAM and keep it in matched pairs. Creates no issues, not yet (knock wood). The other is crap software folks install on their machines, but that could be another thread.


Not trying to entrench here, just expressing my opinion based on my experience.

I guess the bottom line here is; if it works and you're not having issues with it, that's all good.

 

[Artful Dodger]

yenko
Quote:
Originally Posted by Artful Dodger
if you go to the Apple web page for the iMac you don't need matched pairs
Found it:http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86814
Some more:http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300082

Uh...sound like a contradiction.
True you don't need matched pairs but that's like buying cheap tires for a race car.

It may but the PM comes with 2x256 sticks as the iMac only comes with 1x512 and yes I know a PM has that for a reason but there may also be a design difference for performance...well there is but in the real world if the ram works and works well why worry Having matched ram or unmatched doesn't get me anywhere if I can't figure out what to design and input it in my iMac