Lab Tested the Ramifications of Additional Memory on a Mac | Macworld

7/28/2019 Lab Tested the Ramifications of Additional Memory on a Mac | Macworld

1/8

Sign In Join

(http://www..com/Macworld) (https://.com/macworld)

COMPUTER ACCESSORIES (/CATEGORY/COMPUTERS-ACCESSORIES)

upgrades (/tag/upgrades/), imac (/tag/imac/), macbook (/tag/macbook/),

mac mini (/tag/macmini/)

Lab Tested: The ramifications

of additional memory on a

Mac

It happens to every Mac (and every other kind of PC): The system slows down

when its doing lot of things at once. If this happens to your Mac more than youd

like, though, your system might need more RAM.

Adding more RAM to your Macif you can add more RAMis one of the eaiest

ways to improve your Macs performance. The crucial question is, How much

more RAM do you actually need? Macworld Lab ran benchmarks on a couple ofMacs at different RAM configurations and analyzed the results. Our conclusion:

The impact of more RAM depends on the types of tasks your Mac performs. In

some situations your Mac may benefit from having as much RAM as you can

afford; in others, youll be fine with the stock configuration.

But before we dive into the results, lets take a brief look at what RAM is and why

its important to your Mac. (This article focuses exclusively on the impact of RAM

on system performance, but of course RAM isnt the only component that affects

performance. Macworld Lab is currently working on tests that will allow us to take

a similar look at how other componentsstorage, graphics, and CPUaffect

Albert Filice@monstasaurous May 10, 2013 3:00 AM

SEARCH

Lab Tested: The ramifications of additional memory on a Mac |... http://www.macworld.com/article/2034655/lab-tested-the-ram

of 8 5/29/13 6:06


2/8

ALBERT FILICE

performance.)

What is RAM?

Random Access Memoryis a temporary storage medium that your Macs CPU

uses for fast access to data its processing. The CPU can access data contained

in RAM much faster than it can data held on long-term storage devices like

traditional hard drives and even solid-state drives.

(http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2013/04

/ram_assortment_types_museam_thingy-100034102-orig.png)

RAM designs vary for different computers and different needs.

Suppose that you want to work on a text file. Your computer will copy the text

fileand the necessary information for the text editor youre usinginto RAM.

Next, lets imagine that you open Photoshop, while leaving the text editor open.

Photoshop also loads data into RAM; so at this point, your Mac will have two apps

loaded into RAM. The more apps you open without closing down other ones, the

less available RAM will remain available to accommodate other apps and perform

other functions.

When your RAM is full and another app needs to use some of the space,

somethings got to give. In this case,paging will occur: Your Macs CPU will move

data that isnt in active use from RAM to a swap file on your storage device (hard

drive or SSD), and the new data will go into RAM. Paging can make a computer

that seemed fast a second ago slow to a crawl. The more RAM your system has

available, the less your CPU will rely on paging

(http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2013/04/ram_sys_information_photo-

100034812-orig.png)


of 8 5/29/13 6:06


3/8

ALBERT FILICE

A Retina MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAMa system that doesn't have user-upgradable RAM.

Can I upgrade my RAM?

Apple adopts a locked-down approach toward many of its Macs, including theMacBook Air and the Retina MacBook Pro. On these Macs, RAM is factory-

installed directly on the motherboard as onboard memory. As a result, you cant

upgrade the systems RAM later; on the other hand, this approach allows Apple to

make laptops slimmer and more portable. In Apples current computer lineup, the

Mac Pro, the 27-inch iMac, the Mac mini, and the non-Retina MacBook Pro have

user-upgradable RAM.

Crucial (http://www.crucial.com/store/drammemory.aspx), Kingston

(http://www.kingston.com/us/memory/search/options/), and Tiger Direct

(http://www.tigerdirect.com/sectors/campaigns/memory-finder.asp) offer onlinetools designed to tell you whether your RAM is user-upgradable, and to help you

find the correct RAM for an upgrade. NewEgg has a memory finder

(http://www.newegg.com/MemoryFinder/). OWC offers an online RAM upgrade

guide (http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/apple/memory/).


of 8 5/29/13 6:06


4/8

ALBERT FILICE(http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2013/04/ram_onboard_macbook_air-

100034082-orig.png)

The RAM modules on this 2010 MacBook Air are soldered to the motherboard and thus are not

user-upgradable.

Benchmarks: The effects of RAM

The more RAM a Mac has, the better it performsbut how much improvement will

you see? To find out, we ran tests, including our Speedmark 8

(http://www.macworld.com/article/2013458/measure-mac-performance-

with-speedmark-8.html) benchmarking suite, on two computers equipped with

three levels of RAM: 4GB, 8GB, and 16GB. The first system we tested was a

mid-2011 iMac with a 3.1GHz Core i5 processor and a 1TB hard drive. The

second was a late-2011 MacBook Pro with a 2.4GHz Core i7 processor and a

750GB hard drive. Both systems carried standard congifurations and originally

came with 4GB of RAM.

Photoshop CS6 actions test

100MB file

250MB file

500MB file

Results are in seconds. Smaller results/shorter bars are better.

Our Photoshop test consists of performing a series of actions on a file. As the test

results show, the effect of additional RAM on performance depends on the file

sizes you typically work with. Its possible to see a diminishing return or a huge

benefit from extra RAM.

Photoshop is a perfect example of an app that can take advantage of having a

large amount of RAM available. It even lets you specify a maximum allowable

amount of RAM for the app to use. Otherwise, Photoshop might eat your entire

RAM pie, leaving just the crumbs for your other applications.

(http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2013/04/screen-shot-2013-04-22-

at-9.43.59-am-100034081-orig.png)

4GB 141.3 seconds

8GB 98.7 seconds

16GB 98.0 seconds

265.0 seconds4GB

8GB 130.3 seconds

16GB 122.7 seconds

795.6 seconds4GB

330.3 seconds8GB

16GB 178.0 seconds


of 8 5/29/13 6:06


5/8

ALBERT FILICE

Adjust your settings to prevent Photoshop from hogging all of your system's RAM.

VMware-PCMark on Windows 7

Results are scores. Larger results/longer bars are better.

We ran Windows 7 using VMware with a relatively light set of tests. Virtual

machines can require a lot of RAM, but not always. We didnt see any substantial

improvement when allocating more than 4GB to the virtual machine; however, your

experience may be different if you have a lot going on. The same factors that go

into deciding how much RAM you need also apply to virtual machinesso if youdo heavy lifting in your virtual OS, youll need the RAM to back it up.

Mathematica

Mathematica results are in points. Longer results (and bars) are better.

Mathematica was the only other test that saw a speed boost of greater than than 5

percentbut the overall increase on this test was only about 6 percent. After

doubling the RAM from 4GB to 8GB, we saw a 2.5 percent increase in

performance. After quadrupling it from 4GB to 16GB, we saw a 6 percent

increase.

Elsewhere, not much changed

After running our Speedmark test suite with three different RAM configurations, we

concluded that maxing out RAM wont accelerate many computing pursuits. Of

our 15 test results, 12 failed to show at least a 5 percent increase in speed when

we upgraded our test systems from 4GB to 8GB or 16GB.

Below, we list the results for the 12 tests where our systems showed minor or no

12604GB

34568GB

365716GB

1.624GB

1.668GB

1.7316GB


of 8 5/29/13 6:06


6/8

improvement after we added RAM. Some test results even seemed to get slightly

worse after the RAM upgrades, although this effect is probably due to

randomness.

iTunes

HandBrake

Results are in seconds. Shorter results and bars are better.

Cinebench CPU

Cinebench CPU test results are in seconds. Shorter results and bars are better.

Cinebench OpenGL

Cinebench OpenGL test results are in frames per second. Larger results/longer bars are better.

Copy 6GB folder

Zip 6GB folder

Unzip 6GB folder


iPhoto import

Aperture import


iMovie import

101.334GB

101.338GB

105.3316GB

119.004GB

117.678GB

113.6716GB

80.004GB

80.338GB

80.0016GB

40.264GB

40.238GB

40.1116GB

199.864GB

201.768GB

207.2716GB

337.364GB

349.368GB

316.1416GB

226.824GB

232.488GB

234.2016GB

119.334GB

113.338GB

114.0016GB

89.004GB

87.338GB

91.0016GB


of 8 5/29/13 6:06


7/8

ALBERT FILICE

iMovie export


Portal 2

Portal 2 results are in frames per second. Larger results/longer bars are better.

Whats the ideal amount of RAM?

Most new Macs come with either 4GB or 8GB of RAM standard. Thats enough for

most Macs destined for general use. In the real world, every Mac setup is different,

so if youre considering adding more RAM, be sure to keep track of yourcomputers RAM usage during your normal workflow. If you tend to leave apps

open instead of closing them, or if you keep several browser windows open with

dozens of tabs in each, adding RAM will probably help your computer run more

smoothly. If you use an app that handles large files, it helps to have a lot of RAM.

(http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2013/04/screen-shot-2013-04-22-

at-9.11.49-am-100034075-orig.png)

OS X's Activity Monitor shows that this system is currently using a little more than half of its available

RAM.

Its not too hard to figure out the RAM sweet spot for your system and your

workflow. If your Mac is running slowly, open Activity Monitor (Applications >

Utilities >Activity Monitor) and check out the System Memory tab at the bottom of

the window. If youre low or completely out of Free or Inactive RAM and youre not

doing anything unusual (editing a humongous Photoshop file, for example), adding

76.264GB

73.488GB

73.9816GB

55.594GB

54.278GB

54.3616GB

108.734GB

109.178GB

109.5616GB


of 8 5/29/13 6:06


8/8

WE RECOMMEND

5 Automator

workflows

everyone should

have

Take Apple out of

your iPhone

(http://www.macworld.com/article/2038095/5-automator-workflows-

everyone-should-have.html) (http://www.macworld.com

/article/2032894/take-apple-out-of-your-iphone.html)

(http://news.cnet.com

/8301-1035_3-57576750-94

/blackberry-bb10-is-stealing-customers-away-from-rivals/)

BlackBerry: BB10

what's this?

Sponsored

more RAM will probably speed up your performance.

Try not to get carried away, though, as adding fistfuls of RAM that your Mac will

never or rarely use is throwing money away. Even if you can think of a few

scenarios where you might use all of the RAM that your system can handle,

consider how often they are likely to happen and whether buying RAM to handle

them is worth your money. Take a bit of time to diagnose your system and get a

rough idea of how much memory youre using now; and think about what you plan

to do in the future and how long it will be before you upgrade to a new Mac.

Editor's note: Updated 5/13/13 to include the non-Retina MacBook Pro in the list

of Macs that have user-upgradeable RAM. Also added Tiger Direct and OWC to

the list of online resources for buying RAM.


of 8 5/29/13 6:06

Documents

Lab Tested the Ramifications of Additional Memory on a Mac | Macworld