Does memory affect battery life?

Question

Does memory affect battery life?

I'm using a macbook air right now, and I have about 40 gigs of memory and I'm planning on installing world of warcraft. Would taking off memory decrease battery life? if so, by how much?

macbook air, Mac OS X (10.5.5)

Posted on Jan 23, 2009 7:06 PM

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Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Jan 23, 2009 7:16 PM in response to Community User

You have 40 GBs of storage space on your drive. Memory or RAM refers to the computer's physical memory such as 1 or 2 GBs of RAM as shown in About this Mac. You cannot "take off" storage space. You can delete files from your hard drive to make more space available to store your program. This has no impact on battery life. Using power does, and playing a graphically demanding game will tax both the CPU and GPU which will indeed shorten battery life.

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Answer 2

Jan 23, 2009 7:22 PM in response to Kappy

So even if I install world of warcraft (about 12 gigs maybe?) would my battery life still stay the same as BEFORE installing the game?

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Answer 3

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Jan 23, 2009 7:44 PM in response to Community User

Yes.

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Answer 4

BobHarris

Level 9

56,927 points

Jan 23, 2009 8:00 PM in response to Community User

If you take 12 shirts hanging up in your closet, and turn them around, will you use more electricity today than you did yesterday?

Installing a game will cause some of the magnetic bits on your disk drive to change state so they go from 0's to 1's (like turning your shirts around in the closet). Once they are changed they do not need any power to stay the way they are set.

You can fill you entire disk up and once it is filled, it will not require any power to remember what you put there.

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