RAM or wait......

hi everyone,

so.. with sandy bridge coming along, and rumors of new macbook pros coming in a few months... what would you do?

i currently have a late 2008 aluminum macbook, 2.0 Ghz with 2GB RAM. with this specs its frustrating to use aperture 3 to say the least, and i have a growing number of raw files that needs processing

i found a deal for 4GB memory upgrade for $42.00

is it worth spending the money for a temporary "band aid fix" or should i just wait...

again, thanks in advance for your thoughts and suggestions

Only you can answer that question. $42 and get your processing backlog out of the way or struggle along for another few months and save $42.

You should confirm that you are actually suffering from RAM shortness first. You might or might not.

vmstat(8) is your friend.

Personally, I would upgrade. Open up Aperture 3 and Activity Monitor and start editing. After a few minutes, take a look at your System Memory and see what's left of your pie (chart). If your Free RAM dips below 300MB or so, then you need more memory. It's been my experience that Aperture 3 + SL will use as much RAM as you can throw at it. I'm betting you'll see improvement in the range of 10% or so depending on your usage.

I have an original MBP first intel chip with 2Gigs of ram and I have my PP down to a science. I shoot RAW and edit on the go while traveling.

When I get home I have my Mac Pro quad core with 8 gigs... I do not feel my laptop needs to compete with my desktop. I would spend your money on a desktop and let the laptop do its job.

I have 2GB of RAM in my Macbook (early 2008 plastic) and can run Lightroom 3 usually with no problems. but I dunno how more resource extensive Aperture is. I thought about upgrading to 4GB at times, but since it's not my primary machine, never really bothered.

I say do it...

I have a 2009 MBP (2.26 dual) with 8 gigs in it... and I don't know how I lived with 2 gigs. I do the entire Adobe suite (PS, Ai, Pr, Ae, Dw, Sb, etc etc) with it.

There is no such thing as too much RAM. No such thing. Its 42 dollars and it will blow your socks off. Its more return on investment than any camera accessory for 42 bucks if you found a deal.

thanks everyone!! appreciate your feedback, i just ordered the RAM! should be here in a few days.