I am looking to upgrade my 2010 Macbook Pro to 8gb of RAM. How big of a performance difference will I see?
It depends on what you are planning to do with all that extra RAM.For everyday use,you will find hardly any difference between 4GB and 8GB RAM.
Open system activity, and see how much of your 4GB you are using when all your main apps are open. If you still have lots to spare then you will not see any change.
Did mine not long ago, and not that much has changed. Been told that it can even "slow things down" a bit! Where it really comes into its own is when you use Photoshop and Final Cut Pro. But other things also impact big time. I now have a SSD and that has made a much bigger difference in all kinds of ways compared to the RAM upgrade.
If you don't have a SSD, and you have an external drive then I would recomend you spend your hard earned cash on a 256GB SSD. Also come upgrade mac time its easier to move onto the new Mac than RAM.
Does that answer if for you?
SBB
If you have many apps open , or run a virtual machine, huge difference. RAM is inexpense at this point in time, and considered the best bang for your buck.
Check out OWC http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Apple_MacBook_MacBook_Pro/Upgrade
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7), 2.4GHz IntelCore i5 320 HD 8GB RAM ParallelsDesktop6.0
I've just noticed a small dip in performance. Like when I launch Excel or Word, it takes a few seconds longer than it should.
Macbook RAM Upgrade
