Is An Extra 1gb Of Ram Worth It?, Need some real-world info on MacBook Pro performance Options

[bennybob]

Hi everybody,

The time has come for me to graduate from a Tascam 2488 (24-track all-in-one DAW) to a Mac based DAW. I'm about to pull the trigger and get a MacBook Pro this week as well as Logic Pro 7.2.

Specs:
17" MacBook Pro 2.33 GHz C2D
7200 RPM 100GB drive
2 GB RAM standard

My dilemma is in opting for more RAM. Apple wants another $650 CDN to max the machine out at 3 GB, but I'm not sure if I really need it at this point or not.

I intend to have this machine act as a very portable studio, only using an external drive for backups and very large projects. most of the time I would like to be composing/recording/ tweaking out on the deck or on the living room sofa with not much more than the MBP, a compact MIDI keyboard and an acoustic guitar. I plan to have track counts between 20 and 40 and use a healthy dose of plug-ins and effects. It would be about 70% on-board synths and loops and 30% recorded audio.

So should I spring for 3 gigs of RAM now or wait and buy a 3rd party RAM upgrade at a later date? The other hitch is that the stock MBP RAM is a 2x1GB setup filling both slots, meaning that to upgrade later, I would have to spring for a single 2GB card and have it replace one of the 1GB cards, leaving me with a useless 1GB to sell on eBay or something.

Anyway, long story short - can I get the performance I need out of just 2GB or should I bite the bullet, get the extra 1GB and relax, knowing I've maxed it out as much as I could?

Thanks in advance for any and all responses!

[mortalengines]

Mac RAM ain't cheap but you can look around & find it for cheaper. I tried to replace my own in my Powerbook a while back & the screws on the cover were teenier than my teeniest screwdriver & threatened to strip out. However I was able to run quite a bit more in the way of certain virtual instruments & plugs in Ableton when I added a gig of RAM & so I would say its worth the money.