2011 MacBook Pro 8GB vs 4GB RAM & SSD SpeedTest - Benchmark

[hassoow93]

can you link me you wallpaper on this video?

[MyRandomReviews]

@hassoow93 - It's Edward Hopper's painting, entitled "Gas".

[700gsteak]

this video is redundant now that you can get 8gb of good brand ram for less than $30

[MyRandomReviews]

@700gsteak - Not really.

[ElshamyWalid]

What about 8GB + SSD? thats what i have on my macbook pro

im thinking of updating to 16GB of ram

[SmoothChaos91]

I do graphic design work and also do alot of after effects work.

Im not sure if i need to buy a 8gb ram? or buy the SSD harddrive?

I do alot of rendering cause i also work with Cinema 4d. I know with the 8GB ram it probably speeds up the render time by a bit?

Please reply back, i need render time cut down when dealing with big files in After Effects CS5.

[MyRandomReviews]

@SmoothChaos91 - The amount of RAM - provided you have enough - will not make a difference to the rendering time, although speed of the RAM could do. I don't think you'll need 8GB of RAM, but you can always use Activity Monitor to check if it's getting full while you're working / rendering.

[SmoothChaos91]

@MyRandomReviews Yeah when im rendering its using basically 3.3 GB's of my ram, and it takes forever. I try and multi-task but its soo hard cause everythings starts to run really slow. Thats why i wondering if the 8 gb ram will speed it up. I have the standard 4gb ram in my MBP.

[MyRandomReviews]

@SmoothChaos91 - Unless you're running up to 3.8 - 3.9 GB of RAM usage then your system still has space to multi-task. The slow performance is purely your CPU running flat out with the rendering, or your HDD bandwidth being used by the render. I think you'll see a much larger performance boost if you installed an SSD.

[gizmofsu]

@SmoothChaos91 You should be careful of the advice below. I can't think of a single professional who wouldn't prefer 8GB's especially if your into media editing.

Also, limiting yourself to 4GB's puts you at a significant disadvantage if you plan on using this laptop for more than 1-2 years.

[MyRandomReviews]

@gizmofsu - Or you could buy more RAM if and when you need it, still saving money than buying it from Apple. As I said, I think an SSD will benefit him more than extra RAM if the RAM is never nearing full.

What advantage will more RAM give him if he never strays above 3GB usage?

It's not as though it's a choice your stuck with, or one that is even that vital.

[mdmushtaq78]

Thanks for the Benchmark - it helped me decide on the RAM, but you did not mention about the SSD in the video - will the mac pro still perform as you showed in the video if it was a Serial ATA hard drive? let me know.

[MyRandomReviews]

@mdmushtaq78 - No, a HDD will not perform anywhere near as fast.

[itsmetristan1]

its only $380.00 for 16gb of crucial its not to bad no a $1800.00

[MyRandomReviews]

@itsmetristan1 - This video is 5 months old now.

[itsmetristan1]

@MyRandomReviews yea i know but still $1800.00 for 16 gb ram no maybe i 2009 

[MyRandomReviews]

@itsmetristan1 - $1,499.00 is how much 16GB of RAM on OWC's website cost in June 2011. As I said 1,500 not 1,800.

[itsmetristan1]

@itsmetristan1 wow really i got 24gb of ram for my mac pro in 2010 for $1,500.00

[MyRandomReviews]

@itsmetristan1 - Your RAM sticks where twice the physical size, and probably half the storage capacity though.

[Kingisland32]

@itsmetristan1 is it faster??? -___-

[GoldynChyld9]

how do you change the activity monitor icon to display the RAM usage in the Dock the way it does in your vid?

[MyRandomReviews]

@GoldynChyld9 - Open activity monitor, right-click the icon, there's plenty of different icons in that menu!

[GoldynChyld9]

@MyRandomReviews wow, thanks! :) lol, i've been a mac user for 3 years now and never even realized this... haha

[thisistotallylife]

Are you a full time graphic designer? Would you recomend 8gbs AND the ssd? or will the ssd be more than enough? I usually have skype photoshop illustrator and dreamweaver open constantly. thanks.

[MyRandomReviews]

@thisistotallylife - No, I'm a Automotive Design student so I'm doing 3D work which takes much more processing power than 2D work. The thing is, RAM doesn't speed up your performance if you have enough anyway. I'd say go for 4GB and check if your Mac is using it all up frequently. If so then buy some more, and you'll still save money.

[Isuzulu]

Would the mid 2009 2.66ghz model support 16GB?

[MyRandomReviews]

@Isuzulu - You'll have to find out the exact model number of the processor in your MacBook and search for it on Intel's website. Although I doubt it supports 16GB of RAM.

[clarkinusn]

@Isuzulu no

[hitmans10z]

@Isuzulu it doesnt. only the new 2011 ones do.

[Cybersix1980]

would you say macbook air is a good choice for web designing ?

[MyRandomReviews]

@Cybersix1980 - The Air is now a rather powerful computer, and if you intend to do small amounts of Photoshop and programming then it's a very capable tool. ;)

[tolisBFMV]

wow



[ProduccionesMAT]

they mostly come at night. mostly

[MasterFProductions]

Dnt u all know how expensive ssd's r? Its makes 8gb ram look sooo cheap

[MyRandomReviews]

@MasterFProductions - The upgrade to a 128GB SSD is £80.00, and the upgrade to 8GB RAM is £160.00. BTW

Although aftermarket these prices will certainly change.

[MasterFProductions]

@MyRandomReviews no it's £55 for 8gb ram & £130-200 for just 128gb of ssd memory. It would be a good idea to just instal os & programs on ssd & keep your personal data on an external usb hdd

[MyRandomReviews]

@MasterFProductions - I don't know where you got your prices from, but on the Apple store website, that's how much it costs.

[elitestar]

@MyRandomReviews Who buys from the apple store lol?

[onegolfjedi]

i have a windows partition on my 15"Pro and since i work with 3ds Max, Maya, RealFlow, After Effects and Cinema 4d i need an abnormal amount of space and memory. thats why an SSD would be great but not unless im willing to pay A LOT for a terabyte SSD. what do u think? im about to upgrade to 16gigs of RAM and a Seagate 1TB internal hard drive.

[MyRandomReviews]

@onegolfjedi - Well 1TB SSDs don't exist yet. And 512GB SSDs cost around £500 - 600

[iphonepunker]

hi this has bothered me for a while iv a Macbook pro 13" 2009 never gave me any trouble so never need to upgrade besides the HDD witch is a 500GB SSD hybrid and the intel core 2 duo 2.53GHz its really quick But iv 4GB of DDR3 ram. would more ram help the video graphics cause or what i am goin to but 8GB of ram but now one says what the benefits of having so much Ram is any help

[MyRandomReviews]

@iphonepunker - I think that's the whole point of my video. Watch what I can do with 4GB of RAM, and if you think you're going to do more demanding tasks, then by all means, buy 8GB of RAM.

I've just upgraded to 8GB because I'm using VMWare (unfortunately my University requires me to have SolidWorks which is a Windows-only application! D:)

[iphonepunker]

@MyRandomReviews

thanks also the ram on my machine is 1067Mhz would ram with 1333Mhz or even 1600Mhz run on my machine

[MyRandomReviews]

@iphonepunker - No, the front side bus is only 1066MHz (1067) and will not support any faster RAM.

[iphonepunker]

@MyRandomReviews ok thanks at least i wont wast money for the fastest ram

[ShrapmaElite]

Which do you think is better for gaming and multitasking... Macbook Pro 13" with a 2.3 ghz processor, 8 gigs of ram and a 128 gig ssd OR the Macbook Pro 13" with a 2.7 ghz processor, 4 gigs of ram and a 128 gig ssd. (They're both dual core by the way.)

[MyRandomReviews]

@ShrapmaElite - Difficult question... I'd say if you're looking for just multitasking then the 8GB of RAM would help, but I'd buy the 2.7GHz version with 4GB of RAM because I think the multitasking of most users is no where near the limit of 4GB of RAM, you'll then have the extra speed to play with. Also, you'd be able to upgrade to 8GB of RAM at any time, but unable to upgrade the CPU.

[ShrapmaElite]

@MyRandomReviews Alright, I think I may just get the 2.7 and buy 8 gigs of ram for 50 bucks, and buy the ssd seperate as well. That'll be a lot cheaper than what I previously wanted.

[Camster3]

@ShrapmaElite just sell your macbook and get an Alien ware laptop, you will still have money to spare afterwards for games

[ShrapmaElite]

@Camster3 I'm looking for a nice looking laptop that I can carry around, but still game and do heavy multitasking. I'd rather not get the air, and the pro 13" is perfect so that's what I'm looking at getting. The macbook pro has all the power I need.

[Camster3]

@ShrapmaElite get am m14X, looks cool, cheaper and is wayy more powerful.

Then install linux onto it :D

[ShrapmaElite]

@Camster3 I'll consider it...

[zztop5911]

@ShrapmaElite you should get the 2.7ghz by far and then just ugrade your ram from a different site like crucial, they sell ram for like $50. and if you dont have that money right then just save up but apple ram is a rip off on their site so i would get the better processor and then save up for ram.

[KeKeKeilan]

Why don't you just upgrade to 8gb of Ram. It's like $60...

[MyRandomReviews]

@KeKeKeilan - Or £160 if you live in the UK

[KeKeKeilan]

@MyRandomReviews Sucks to live in the UK. Isn't your currency like 2x the Canadian dollar?

[MyRandomReviews]

@KeKeKeilan - Well it used to be, it's $1.6 to the pound now though.

[Titanz91]

@KeKeKeilan How does that make it bad o.o? It's worth more and the Canadian dollar is worth less tan the US dollar.

[shanesaurusrex]

@MyRandomReviews Dont buy RAM from Apple, they outsource it like everything. Buy it yourself and upgrade itll be like 40 pounds per 4GB stick. Upgrading RAM yourself doesnt void the warranty, apple allows you to upgrade the harddrive and RAM yourself. It will come out to 80 pounds. That is if the dollar per pound exchange rate is still 1.5ish

[MyRandomReviews]

@shanesaurusrex - That was my thinking behind not upgrading the RAM straight from Apple, as upgrading it would be cheaper and very easy.

I upgraded my SSD partly because it was cheaper than I could find a 128GB SSD anywhere else, but also because of the problems reported with SSDs. I just wanted to be able to send the whole thing back to Apple and have them fix it. :P

[elkuneholoco]

dude, you just realized that you just open a new blank photoshop file, you added one character and all that's left is 100mb file? with one streaming video, it will eat up your ram fast.

Look how photoshop slugs alot in your video, if you had an 8gig ram you wouldn't have that :)

[elkuneholoco]

Well, the cheapest upgrade for your macbook pro is getting a 8GB ram, which probably runs for 40 to 60 dollars nowadays. (at least in my area) its very cheap now.

You are right, 4GB RAM + SSD will definitely beat 8GB RAM + HDD. However, what's even faster is 8GB RAM + SSD, this is definitely faster than 4GB RAM + SSD (obviously). If you can afford to buy an SSD, why not upgrade RAM as well, as it won't cost an arm and a leg.

[stereofreak69]

Good video. However, I can get 8GB of RAM for $75/each. That would make 2 sticks $150.

[malukitojr]

I'm sorry but this video is rubbish! You cannot just do it like this and open all your apps to prove a point, because you're not proving anything! You need to consider the way most people use their Macs, and that is without restarting, EVER. Which means your applications remain open for really long periods of time, using more and more RAM. Safari will easily eat up 1Gb with just a few tabs open, so yes, this review is really misleading. I'm a poweruser and I just bought 8Gb.

[MyRandomReviews]

@malukitojr I'm not trying to demonstrate typical usage in this video. I'm merely trying to prove a point that most Mac users don't need 8GB

Considering I used this in my Art & Design exam for heavy Illustrator and Photoshop production and never saw my RAM fill to over 3GB, I'm certain that over 4GB of RAM is not for me atm.

And maybe your claims about being a power user are actually true, but this accounts for a minority of Mac users. As I stressed, I'm referring to the majority not needing 8GB

[MyRandomReviews]

@malukitojr

Yes, I can open my apps to prove a point. I did, to 10,000 people. Obviously there's always going to be one that is pissed about buying too much RAM for their needs. May I ask, what you use your MBP for considering you "need" so much RAM?

BTW, it's not a review, just a little advice.

[malukitojr]

@MyRandomReviews Well, I have a little advice for you: use your Mac on your day to day life and NEVER restart it nor close your browser. Just keep them open, and when you stop using your laptop, just close the lid. Then, after, say, two weeks, open up the activity monitor and look at the amount under "Swap used". That right there is your HDD being used as RAM = it'll take ages to load when you need it.

[malukitojr]

@MyRandomReviews I use Chrome, with heavy usage. I can have 20 to 30 tabs open at a time. I use sometimes 1, sometimes 2 instances of Eclipse at the same time, I use Excel and Outlook, plus iCal, Adium and Skype. Try using all of that and if you can keep your swap at 0, then kudos, you must be a magician. By the way, you don't have 4Gb - the gfx card takes away some RAM for itself, which is unavailable for apps.

[MyRandomReviews]

@malukitojr - You've just nullified your whole argument. The amount of times I stressed that I'm talking about "most peoples" needs, not people who use specialist high-performance software.

As for having 20 to 30 tabs open and never restarting, that's just sloppy PC usage and I know of no-one who uses that many tabs, nor anyone who doesn't shut their computer down at night.

And you're wrong about the graphics chip, it has 1GB of it's own GDDR5.

[malukitojr]

@MyRandomReviews You're right about the graphics card, my bad. I didn't notice you have one of the latest models (meaning, everyone else, including me, shares RAM with the graphics card). As for shutting down the laptop at night... you're new to Macs, aren't you? :-)

[malukitojr]

@MyRandomReviews Sadly, Youtube doesn't let me link you to it, but search for "mac pc restart" and watch the parody video they made about Macs *not having to restart*, which is what most people with Macs don't do.

[re5pectpado]

SSD means solid state drive, not supersonic device! LOL

[MyRandomReviews]

@re5pectpado - Yes, it does...

[santosman95]

hey i was wondering if i should get 8gbs of ram instead of SSD beacuase SSD is a alot more money then just getting 8gbs and i use my computer to do video editing and gaming

[adaptedgossip]

I use

Spotify, Schoolwork, iMovie, GarageBand, iTunes, Heavy Internet Browsing, PhotoShop - only a little though. Mac App Store so should I get 8GB of RAM or and SSD?

[MyRandomReviews]

@adaptedgossip - Sounds like you'll be fine with 4GB, easily. By heavy usage I mean 20+ photoshop files with multiple effects. Or very intense video editing with 2+ hours of 1080p+ video.

[adaptedgossip]

@adaptedgossip

thanks for the quick reply, so do you think I should just go with an SSD or save my money and just get the base 13 inch model of the macbook pro?

[slowman2]

@MyRandomReviews - thx for the answer... :) what can you tell me about the battery life. I mean in normal use with Pages, Itunes and WiFi on and 3/4 brightness , what can you squeeze from your monster machine? :)

[MyRandomReviews]

@slowman2 - I've managed the claimed 7 hours a few times, but I don't like draining the battery to flat, as Lithium batteries will thank you for only discharging them to around 50% then re-charging.

[slowman2]

I would like to buy 2.0ghz model...do you think it is better to add the 8gb ram or to install ssd? Considering that ram is much cheaper than the ssd. And what about the hi-res screen do you think it is worth additiona 100$ bucs ?

[MyRandomReviews]

@slowman2 - I think you can see by the entire focus of the video that I would recommend saving money on RAM and spending money on the SSD.

As for the anti-glare high-res screen, I would say it's a must-buy! A laptop is pointless to me if I'm unable to use it outside and must find a perfect place to use it inside, not too near a window, not too near a lamp. Plus the high-res screen really helps when using a lot of applications.

[reimaginecinema]

Ram is used primarily so you can quickly run applications at the same time, it wouldn't real help boot up app speed. On the other hand SSD helps the most with boot up speeds and would show a big difference. Doubling your ram does help a lot if you work with many programs at once.

[TheGamersGod]

Can anyone please reply:

Do you guys think 4Gb of ram is enough to run Parallels (Windows 7) and play games like APB or League of Legends in the virtual machine and still not be lagging.

Or should I use 100 bucks on 2 x 4gb ram?

I really can't afford new ram, so I hope I am able to do so (playing games in the virtual machine running windows 7)

[MyRandomReviews]

@TheGamersGod - I have no idea about running parallels but my main worry would be having enough power to play games like APB with a MacBook. I'd guess they'd be unplayable with mobile graphics and processors. Then again, I don't like the idea of ever using a laptop to play games!

[SpeedReycer]

@MyRandomReviews You should do some research my friend. Macbook today are not like they used to be. Todays Macbooks can be found with a AMD Radeon HD 6750M with a 1GB GDDR5. More than enough to play major games in itself. With a wireless mouse. Laptops today can be a speedy and mobile gaming station.

[PlasticFunnel]

@TheGamersGod I got 2x4GB ram for $45USD...

[Ronald1Andres2]

@TheGamersGod man i think it would be better if you wore to run windows apart that way all the ram is dedicated to the game if you use parallels it might take some of your ram

[Jagman5]

Stupid vid... seems like you never worked deeply on several RAW files in Aperture and PS simultaneously!!

[MyRandomReviews]

@Jagman5 - You're right, I've never worked on several RAW files deeply on PS and Ap but I have worked on 15 16MPixel JPEG files in PS CS5. It used about 70% of my RAM, which is respectable. But I did stress this is for average usage. Most people aren't going to be professional photographers.

[zyppoo3]

@MyRandomReviews I'm using Ps CS5 a lot...but it gets really slow sometimes.

any tips to speed it up?

i have a macbook pro with snow leopard with 4gb ram

[ASPCAfan]

is an sad good for using fcp and logic? i heard that a ram upgrade is good for that, but i was just wondering if ssd's are good for improving overall computer performance, not just boot and load speeds.

[vbRose17]

DUDE, THAT OPENS UP SOOOO FAST.

My mom went all cheap on me and bought me a netbook with .99GB of memory

[MyRandomReviews]

@vbRose17 - Lol, ohh well. You have to earn your own way in this world to get things that you want. I never got anything for free which helped push me to get a job and stick with it, it makes life much easier when you earn your own money. :)

[metalapplepie7]

maybe if you had more RAM it wouldn't lag so much... OS X will try to only use 85% of your total RAM. If you have 8 GBs and you opened all of those apps it would use 7 GBs, meaning they would all run so much better.

[MyRandomReviews]

@metalapplepie7 - I see what you're saying but I think 4GB is enough RAM for pretty much any average user. The laptop wasn't lagging any more than it would usually when starting up Illustrator. You have to wait for it to carry out an auto-selection on a 412MB file, especially when there's nothing to select.

The fact is all of these applications where working quickly, and they where fully functional at the time at which all applications where open; with 4GB of RAM.

[Freakintosh]

@MyRandomReviews Hey where you got the wallpaper from, m8 :D?

Cheers

[MyRandomReviews]

@Freakintosh - I can't remember. It's by an artist named Edward Hopper and you should be able to get a wallpaper for your screen by using Google images search for Edward Hopper and change the size to your exact resolution. If it's a popular resolution you should find plenty of images.

[Precautionest]

Alright mate ive had a mac since december and im still kinda getting used to it. How do you get that activity monitor in your dock like urs? when i put my activity monitor in mine it comes up with a thumbnail like a Heartbeat monitor?

[MyRandomReviews]

@Precautionest - Right click the icon and go to "Dock Icons", there's plenty of different monitors and graphs there for use as Activity Monitor's dock icon. It's pretty awesome. :)

[Fluffy4020]

I still don't plan on upgrading to SSD. The bulk of my space is taken up by videos, music, and photos. Music files have been the same size for as long as I can remember, videos have been the same since 1080p became the standard. If I wait for a few years, SSD will be half the price and I won't need much more space.

For now, I can get a MacBook Air.

[MyRandomReviews]

@Fluffy4020 - It's not going to store your all your Videos, Music, and Photos. #lol

I don't store anything large on my MacBook Pro and wouldn't do anyway. I need to access most of my files from a desktop machine and my iPhone as well as sometimes from a Netbook. That's why I use a NAS device to store everything except my Music (as it's my main sync machine), iTunes hates it when you try and sync an iPhone with music on LAN, which is a massive disappointment.

[jmaster966]

That's crazy. How much for the set?

[MyRandomReviews]

@jmaster966 - What's crazy? Buying apps instead of stealing them? If everyone just torrented apps then there wouldn't be any.

CS5.5 was £309.99 with EDU discount, and Office for Mac is cheap anyway at £39.99

[jmaster966]

did you torrent your apps?

[MyRandomReviews]

@jmaster966 - No, I purchased them all. The box for CS5.5 is in the background of my MBP Benchmark video.

[vegacalderon]

You just saved me $90. I was planning on upgrading to the 8gb of ram but not anymore after this video. How ever I will upgrade to the SSD. Thanks for the video.

[MyRandomReviews]

@vegacalderon - Glad I helped... you won't be disappointed with your setup. :)

[TapTapFreak]

is the Boot-Time any faster than with the 4GB 2011 Standart RAM?

[MyRandomReviews]

@TapTapFreak - RAM makes little or no difference to the startup times.

[Gollsodia]

It isn't called a supersonic Device. It's Solid State Drive

[MyRandomReviews]

@Gollsodia - wow

[Gollsodia]

@MyRandomReviews =]?

[VolumHD]

Thanks you helpt me alot!

[sebas11tian]

I can´t believe I was going to spend my money so foolishly, THANK YOU so much, really liked this vid. I have another question regarding the specs of the mac book which is better 750GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm or 500GB Serial ATA Drive @ 7200 rpm .

[svtcontour]

Nice. When I built my desktop 4 years ago, I maxed out the mainboard with 8GB RAM. I tried my darned hardest to make it grind to a halt using standard applications and it was not possible. Only doing rediculous things like firing up multiple virtual machines was I finally able to tap the system. I think 4GB RAM is more than enough for 95% of users out there :)

Biggest bottleneck is disk speed which the SSD resolves big time. 4 years ago, I went with 15K SCSI to address that prob.

[MyRandomReviews]

@svtcontour - Well, as you can see by the video, on Mac OS X I can run pretty much whatever I want without worrying about filling the RAM.

As for hard drives, SSDs are great but it's not the same as having a proper HDD in there. I'm sure 15K SCSI drives where the SSD of their day. :P I really like the veloceraptors but they're just so slow in comparison.