> According to Apple, 256 is the absolute minimum to run OS X. MS also state > 256 as the minimum system requirement for Office 2004. > > However, I would hate to try and run either OS X or Office in that little > ram. The smallest _practical_ configuration would be 512mb. Even that would > be slow. Put in 768mb or 1gb and you will see a dramatic improvement in > performance. > > Why is it too late to add ram to the iMac? It's still available. You need > 168pin DIMM PC100 SDRAM - a 512mb chip will cost about �50 in the UK - not > sure how much cheaper you would get it over there (price based on PC133 > memory which is now cheaper, but will work just as well). > > The 600MHz iMac has 2 ram slots, each can take a 512Mb chip to give you 1Gb > total. Depending on what you already have installed, buying one 512chip will > either give you 640mb or 768mb (depends whether your existing 256 is in one > chip or two). For �50, this will be a huge improvement and will make the > iMac quite useable with Office 2004. My wife is using Office on an older > 350Mhz iMac, with 768mb RAM, and it's quite useable still.
We typically have people running Mac OS X and Office 2004 on computers with anywhere from 384-512 MB, and consider it quite usable. These range from blue and white Power Mac G3/350s and up. That said, you will get improvements if you go beyond 512 MB and I wouldn't dissuade anyone from having more RAM. I feel that you can over-spec your computer by dumping money into the wrong or unnecessary components. For example, if you have 512 MB of memory and are not happy with it, and you want to spend money, it might make more sense to replace the hard disk with a faster, larger model with more cache. If you read sites like XLR8YourMac.com et. al., this has been repeatedly shown to make a difference. (A 600 MHz iMac likely came with a 5400 RPM drive, for example ... a larger 7200 RPM drive with 8 MB cache could help out. But then again, so could a newer Mac. You and only you can decide how much money you want to dump into a 4-5 year old Mac. Personally, I would save for a new computer.) For our on-campus clients, we give these guidelines for improving performance, or picking out the best new Macs for their performance: <http://www.rit.edu/~wwwits/services/desktop_support/mac/xperformance.html> The guidelines are based on our experience with Jaguar and earlier versions of Panther, which of course means we have to reconsider them now that Tiger is out. -- Jeremy Reichman Information and Technology Services Rochester Institute of Technology -- To unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.letterrip.com/> old-archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.boingo.com/>
