Lab Tested: The ramifications of additional memory on a Mac
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It happens to every Mac (and every other kind of PC): The system slows down when it’s doing lot of things at once. If this happens to your Mac more than you’d like, though, your system might need more RAM.
Adding more RAM to your Mac—if you can add more RAM—is one of the eaiest ways to improve your Mac’s performance. The crucial question is, How much more RAM do you actually need? Macworld Lab ran benchmarks on a couple of Macs at different RAM configurations and analyzed the results. Our conclusion: The impact of more RAM depends on the types of tasks your Mac performs. In some situations your Mac may benefit from having as much RAM as you can afford; in others, you’ll be fine with the stock configuration.
But before we dive into the results, let’s take a brief look at what RAM is and why it’s important to your Mac. (This article focuses exclusively on the impact of RAM on system performance, but of course RAM isn’t the only component that affects performance. Macworld Lab is currently working on tests that will allow us to take a similar look at how other components—storage, graphics, and CPU—affect performance.)
What is RAM?
Random Access Memory is a temporary storage medium that your Mac’s CPU uses for fast access to data it’s processing. The CPU can access data contained in RAM much faster than it can data held on long-term storage devices like traditional hard drives and even solid-state drives.
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http://www.macworld.com/article/2034655/lab-tested-the-ramifications-of-additional-memory-on-a-mac.html#tk.rss_all
