I have a 13 inch MacBook Pro from mid 2009 (5,5). It's really slow when I switch applications, I'm using Google Chrome, Xcode 5 (I already disabled "show live issues"), and not many other apps: Cog (simple audio player) and f.lux and the Terminal.
Right clicking often takes 5 sec, creating a new Finder window around 3 sec.
I'm just asking if 4GB will really be enough since I use Xcode to compile a C++ project, or if I should get 8GB. I'm not very concerned about battery life, I'm just worried that 4GB would not be enough to be comfortable, OS X seems to use a lot of memory.
I'm just wondering what are the best websites to buy memory that is compatible with my Mac. I've looked at macway but it seems they don't have RAM for my model. I don't think I'll buy from OWC, it seems very expensive… Corsair also seems to make RAM for Macs.
I'm also ready to buy good performing RAM, I don't know if there are better performing RAM out there, or if a 2009 MacBook would really benefit from it.
Any advice?
I also tried to check my page out value, could not find it in the new activity monitor, here is the memory thing anyways.
Best Answer
Mountian Lion uses 2GB RAM, Mavericks 4GB. Windows 7 2GB... I don't want to know what the new Yosemite is going to gobble (especially a bad move of Apple soldering RAM t logic board in new MacBooks... the idea of plug-in chips in soldered chip holders would have been a better solution if RAM cards were omitted), and avoiding it because of this issue and don't like its GUI design, which would put me off from the new features that are impressive...
I had a late 2008 Mac which was upgraded to 8GB, but still ran Mavericks slower than Mountain Lion and had to downgrade it so it can perform better, perhaps because Mavericks was designed specially for Retina based computers, which have a higher resolution. I now have a new Macbook Pro Retina with Iris Graphics,running mavericks. and is 8GB. It is always a necessity to have a computer that has its operating system using half of the physical memory for performance. It puts less strain on on the machine, and that free RAM would help with your creativity in photoshop, video editing, music creating and more... Logic and Garageband tend to spaz out when there is no free memory. Then if you thinking that a SSD would make virtual memory perform better, yes it would, but the downside is, continuous paging on your drive would decrease its estimated lifespan with wear and tear. Where paging is supposed to be only on occasion when your work maxes out physical RAM, not every time you use your machine. I would recommend a downgrade to Mountain Lion, until you have the plans and resources to get a new computer.