Apple iMac memory upgrade

[dave2010]

Sorry if somewhere I typed i9 instead of i5. It appears that the machine is an i5 with 6 cores. I haven't been able to drill down further to find the processor number, but does appear that some of the i5 processors were 6 core machines. I ran Cinebench, and the results do indeed suggest 6 cores are what this one has. I do wonder if there's a tool to identify the particular processor, since the Intel site shows several variants around 2019-2020. Whether there are going to be any problems with the machine as it is I can't really say. I'm not sure about balancing up the memory modules - what difference does that make?

I am looking at other problems which I think are software related, so I'll probably stick with things as they are for the moment, unless you tell me more about issues of unbalanced modules, in which case I may make changes. I don't want to spend a lot more chasing up problems which may not really exist.

I reckon I could get a 50% speed improvement by buying a newer machine - though now I'll wait until we hear what the next ranges from Apple will be, plus also pricing etc. Many of the newer machines seem to have a "no upgrade" specification, so that getting an inappropriate spec at purchase time doesn't permit any later upgrade. Buying a new machine with more memory, more of everything is a much more expensive way to go than buying a machine which can later be upgraded.

Thanks for following this one, though.

[struth]

might give you an idea on it...

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/myths-...ons-about-ram/

[AJSki2fly]

Sorry if somewhere I typed i9 instead of i5. It appears that the machine is an i5 with 6 cores. I haven't been able to drill down further to find the processor number, but does appear that some of the i5 processors were 6 core machines. I ran Cinebench, and the results do indeed suggest 6 cores are what this one has. I do wonder if there's a tool to identify the particular processor, since the Intel site shows several variants around 2019-2020. Whether there are going to be any problems with the machine as it is I can't really say. I'm not sure about balancing up the memory modules - what difference does that make?

I am looking at other problems which I think are software related, so I'll probably stick with things as they are for the moment, unless you tell me more about issues of unbalanced modules, in which case I may make changes. I don't want to spend a lot more chasing up problems which may not really exist.

I reckon I could get a 50% speed improvement by buying a newer machine - though now I'll wait until we hear what the next ranges from Apple will be, plus also pricing etc. Many of the newer machines seem to have a "no upgrade" specification, so that getting an inappropriate spec at purchase time doesn't permit any later upgrade. Buying a new machine with more memory, more of everything is a much more expensive way to go than buying a machine which can later be upgraded.

Thanks for following this one, though.

Dave referring to the link Grant posted for you"-

"mixing and matching RAM modules isn't the best for system performance.

For the best system performance, it is advisable to use RAM sticks by the same manufacturer, of the same size, and of the same frequency. But there's a simple reason behind why mixing RAM sizes is usually not the best option to maximize system performance. This is because RAM has several components that all come together to make it perform well.

Match Your RAM for the Best Performance

RAM works best when paired with matching hardware. For optimal performance, your RAM should use the same voltage, and their respective controllers should play well with each other and the motherboard. That's why it's best to use the same RAM model in all slots."

So if you purchased 16GB RAM which has the same frequency(hz) and voltage needs as the original Apple supplied RAM that is still in the iMac then the impact will be minimal. If you have different frequency RAM then all will run at the lowest Hz. If they are not the same then the answer is IMHO to remove the Apple RAM and leave the two 16GB RAM in the first two slots.

With respect to the new 24' iMacs they have the M1 processor and can have 8 or 16GB RAM, and you can choose SSD drive size. The M1 processors are architecturally rather different to Intel and are I believe much more efficient and faster. For general home use any one of these iMacs would far exceed what most people will throw at them. You might push one to its limits if you used it to process music using a professional recording studio package, or were doing professional video editing. So if you opt for one of these pick one with a big enough drive that is double you existing data on you current unit, I would opt for a 16GB ram unit, and off you go and forget it for 7-10 years. (make sure you had a back up hard drive at least twice the size of the new iMac). As to getting a 50% improvement, I would look at specific speed test run on you machine and on a newer spec iMac to get a true comparison.

By the way with any machine if you open lots and lots of applications, have many, many tabs open in Safari or another browser, have masses of Emails in your open Inbox you are likely to choke it and slow the thing down. Also the more web/internet based apps running at the same time will impact efficiency as you will cause a localised network issues trying to support them(bandwidth bottleneck unless on a very high speed service), obviously it will also be impacted by other users on the network as well. In my personal experience at Apple over 10 years, most people would over specify machines for what they actually needed or were going to use it for, in general it was due to bad machine and application management by the user and they thought that bigger and faster would make it better, unfortunately bigger and faster is not always the answer.

[struth]

yeah its inclined to settle for the lowest common denominator.. ive always replayed all slots with same

[dave2010]

Thanks both. I may try removing the Apple original memory to see if that speeds things up. I'm not looking for miracles - just something better than before. I think the M2 or later offerings are going to be much more interesting, but I'll at least wait until after the next Apple conference.

I reckon 32 Gbytes is probably enough for most of what I want to do - but yes - I do run software with potentially heavy loads. Music programs with multiple soft synths, and may have other programs also loaded at the same time - photo editing, video editing etc.

Looking at the Geekbench results suggests that I should be able to get around twice the speed with something like an M2 based Mac Mini - or whatever comes next.

One of my friends seems to have a Mac Studio - but if I go that way I figure I'll be spending £3k and upwards.