Charlotte Apple Computer Club
Since 1978
Kingston Technology 1GB Memory Upgrade Kit
Overall rating:
A Quick review by Steven Weymark
Submitted: 3/17/2005
OSs Supported - OS X, Win XP
Additional information and technical specs at Kingston Technology
Purchased at www.mwave.com; Available for purchase at most computer stores or online
Retail approx. $111.00 + 3 day Fedex $11.30 - online coupon ($10) = $112.30
I had been using my G5 1.6Ghz for just over a year with the stock 256MB of RAM supplied by Apple. While I can say that everything did work, I found that I spent a lot of time waiting for the Rainbow Cursor to disappear. Usually accompanied by the hard drive thrashing about as it loaded then off loaded the various programs in virtual memory.
My lower end G5 has only four slots for a maximum RAM of 4 GB (as compared to the the 8 slot/8GB RAM max in the other models). I currently had a 128MB RAM DIMM installed in each of 2 of the 4 slots, as supplied by Apple.
I saw a deal (Thanks Eddy) for a 128MB DIMM for $10 from I Sell Suprlus, so I figured for under $30 shipped, I could double my existing RAM. I jumped at it. First, they didnt ship it for almost a week after it was ordered, then they sent it regular mail instead of Priority Mail which I had originally requested. Eddy and I opened the case and popped them in. Then the Chaos began, Kernal Panics, Apps quitting. I could only run Safari for about 3 seconds at time!
Tried several times to re-seat the RAM, Hit the CUDA switch. Nothing. We finally figured that we had a bad batch of RAM. Pulling it out, and leaving the original Apple RAM, stopped all the chaos. RMA'd it back to I Sell Surplus.
Me being the impatient sort and Eddy having sent me a link to another deal (Thanks again!), I ordered the 1 GB RAM Kit (2 x 512MB) from Mwave. A much different customer experience. First an email comfirming the order was recieved, then a phone call (from Mwave) to confirm that I had actually placed the order, then an email to say that the order was being processed, and finally an email to say it had been shipped, with tracking information. All this within about 12 hours. I had paid for 3 day shipping. Fed Ex got it here in 2.
I ran just a few Before/After tests just for fun:
Before = 256MB RAM After = 1.256GB RAM installed.
All tests done wih Mail, Safari, iChat, MSN Messenger and iTune running in the background.
– iPhoto –
I converted a large aiff file to AAC. Before, the conversion peaked at about 26x. After only about 28.7x. Not much improvement as this was more a processor intensive task. The CPU usage stayed up at about 98%.
– Photoshop CS –
Starting the program: Before 44s, After 44s...this would be mainly a factor of the hard drive speed.
Opening a 144M PSD file: Before 1:25, After :12 seconds
Eye Candy's Water Drop filter on the same file: Before 252.6 seconds, After 201.4 seconds
Unsharp Mask filter: Before 53s, After 3s
– iMovie –
Unedited movie clips, 12 of them, just dragged into the timeline, then exported out to a 1.2 GB DV file Default settings: Before 12:10, After 2:50
– iPhoto –
8,400 photos in my library
Opening the program: Before 38s, After 15s
Scrolling from the bottom of all the thumbnails to the top: Before 1:06, After 10s
Scrolling back down: Before 24s, After 7s
Quitting the program: Before 35s, After 3s
The RAM slot required a LOT of force to push the cards in. This caused us to think that the RAM was not properly seated the first time. But we tried them several times, tried without the Apple RAM and it different slots.
The Kingston RAM was also VERY hard to push in, but it worked the first time out. OS X felt starved for RAM with only 256MB. Apple seems to thnk so as well given that the newest Powerbooks ship with 512MB installed now and rumours are that all future Macs will ship with 512MB standard.
All in all, the sytem feels very zippy now. No waiting for anything it seems. I have only had it installed for about 2 hours, as of this writing, but it seems OK so far. I should have doen this a year ago!
Return to Reviews Page