Is anyone on here Apple hardware savvy? I'm looking to upgrade the RAM in my iMac and am getting a little confused by all the options available! I currently have 2 sticks of 1GB in there and it's just not enough to run Adobe CS5 which is what I work/live in. I want to upgrade to 4GB. I have one of the first gen machines with the Intel Core 2 Duo processors. Specs are: Model Identifier: iMac7,1 Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo Processor Speed: 2 GHz Number Of Processors: 1 Total Number Of Cores: 2 L2 Cache: 4 MB Memory: 2 GB Bus Speed: 800 MHz Looks a piece of cake to pop the RAM in but brand name wise are there any differences between Crucial, Samsung, Kingston or Micron etc? Would 2 of these do the job? Thanks!
Use the Kingston memory check utility to find out which type you need: http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/con...ot=uk&LinkBack=http://www.kingston.com/ukroot I recently used a 3rd party 8GB RAM Upgrade kit on my Macbook Pro, and it flies now.
Cheers Deako. Utility says I'm running 2 1GB sticks of DDR2 SDRAM 667 MHz. I think the max I can run is 4GB. Is Kingston just a higher quality product then? Quite a price difference.
I've always bought Crucial RAM (www.crucial.com/uk) and it's been great, no issues at all. In Macs and PC's. I wouldn't buy cheap RAM but I think Kingston and Crucial are two good brands.
Well judging by the Crucial site and if my link in the OP is correct for my machine, it should come in at a smidgen under 40 which isn't too bad.
According to this guide, users have successfully installed 6GB (2GB + 4GB) into this model of iMac. Don't pin all your hopes on a Memory upgrade though. Refreshing your Hard Disk Drive can have a huge effect on performance as technology moves forward, your original drive ages, and its directories generally become cluttered. If you're still running the original 250GB unit, consider upgrading it for something like a WD Caviar Black 1TB drive. I installed the 640GB version in my machine, and it gave quite a boost. Good value too imo. Even if you don't fill it, a drive with plenty of empty space operates much quicker than one without. If you decide to upgrade the HDD, consider doing a clean Install - always better than just cloning your old Drive.
Nothing wrong with Crucial. I only pointed at the Kingston site, as their check utility is very good. And using the part numbers on sites like Amazon, also turns up other 3rd party memory as well. For the record, my 8GB ram pack of 2x 4GB DDR3 modules was only about 50.
Do you run a Mac? Ive not reinstalled at all on mine, and its still snappy. It came with Leopard, and has seen upgrades through Snow Leopard and also Lion. Runs like a dream.
^ this. I was under the impression that Macs dont get cluttered over time in the same way Windows machines tend to? Though with the HDD upgrade, SSD drives are getting much cheaper now so they are becoming the very good option for a performance upgrade.
Yes. Mac Pro 8-core 2.8GHz. I upgraded the OS drive on it practically the day after I bought it new, so on this machine it was a clean install anyway. However, I've had a few other Macs and looked after systems for friends - in my experience, a clean install will always result in a more responsive machine, if you can spare the time to do it properly. I never used Migration Assistant in the days of Tiger, etc, because it wasn't very good and there were often reports of it leaving important stuff behind. I haven't had cause to use it in Leopard / Snow Leopard. In the past I would prefer to copy over everything manually to a pristine install, de-activate stuff like Photoshop and re-activate it on the new system. Good opportunity for a right old 'spring clean' too.
The Mac has lots of tasks that run to keep things in order, unlike on a Windows machine which is a resource hog. I used to have to reinstall Windows every couple of months on my old desktops. But with OSX, its been up 2 years with just some general housekeeping every now and then. And the iMac and previous Macbook i had before that also didnt need touching. However, when they were sold on, they had a fresh install of OSX put on them. I upgraded the drive in mine too, but i just used a time machine backup to restore the complete OS including all my files. It was a faster 500gb 7200rpm drive, so gained performance here. But wouldnt have been necessary to do a complete reinstall.
My HD is quite empty to be fair - I try not to keep too much stuff on it other than design work and music. I use 'CleanMyMac' as well which seems to remove a fair bit of crap. Did a clean install of Snow Leopard a while back but yet to upgrade to Lion - is it worth it now? Been waiting for a few months in case glitches needed fixing etc. Interesting read about the 6GB. Will look into that further. As the Crucial ram is a little cheaper, if I were to get 2 of the DDR2 I originally posted will these definitely work in my machine?
