How to Find Out if Your Mac Needs More RAM Memory

If you find your Mac running slowly or lagging in its performance a bit, it may be for a variety of reasons: a slow CPU, a full hard drive, or old, inefficient software. However, one of the most prevalent causes for sluggish performance can be a lack of RAM, or memory. Here is how to determine if your Mac needs more memory.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• a Mac
• free software

1. 
    

   Find out how much RAM you have and how much your Mac can support.
   
   To determine how much memory your Mac has, click the Apple logo in the upper left of the menu bar, and click "About This Mac". You will see a line labeled "Memory". The computer in the picture has 6 GB of RAM.
   
   If it turns out that you need a RAM upgrade, you will also need to determine how much memory your Mac can support. The best way to do this is to find your computer and it's memory limit in the Guide at MacRumors.com.

2. 
    

   Use Xbench to determine if your RAM is limiting system performance.
   
   Xbench is an application you can use to determine how each piece of hardware in your Mac is performing. Once you run Xbench, it will perform a battery of test, and give a score for each one. Low scores may indicate a bottleneck in performance. If you find that the memory tests have low scores relative to the rest of your hardware, you may need to replace or upgrade the amount of RAM.

3. 
    

   Use iStat Menus to determine how your RAM reacts to the different ways you use your computer.
   
   iStat Menus is a system-monitoring application. It allows you to see how your Mac is using memory, CPU cycles, and hard drive space in real time. We are interested in seeing specifically how our memory is used when we perform normal tasks on our Mac.
   
   Use iStat Menus to show your memory allocation in the menu bar. Then use your Mac normally. If you find that your memory is always near full, you will likely see a performance boost from upgrading the amount of RAM in your Mac. Note that your Mac will always try to manage memory in such a way that it is never completely empty, nor completely full, so play around, opening, using, and closing different programs to see if they are sluggish in reacting to your mouse or keyboard inputs. Web browsers and graphics editing software typically utilize the most memory.
   
   Also note that you can monitor your system's performance with the Activity Monitor, in your Applications > Utilities folder, but iStat Menus is more convenient since it sits in your menu bar.

4. If Xbench gives a low memory score or if your memory is constantly full and programs react sluggishly when it is full, you will likely see an increase in performance from a RAM upgrade.
   
   Macs love as much memory as possible, so try to max out your Mac with as much memory as possible. In many, many cases, a purchase of around $100-$200 (or even less) will give you a nice performance boost and the best one for your money.

[sonni57]

on 5/13/2009 I guess this would be true of any PC thanks for the good computer advice.