Is it worth upgrading my laptop's components?

yams_22

Honorable
Jun 8, 2012
2
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10,510
Hey guys,

I recently just built my new computer, and am very pleased with the performance of it. My old computer was a mid-2009 model Macbook Pro, and it was the base model. It has a 2.26 ghz Core 2 duo, and 2 gb of RAM.

I want to keep using it however it is extremely slow and that was my main reason for building a new computer in the first place.

Would it be worth it to upgrade to 8gb of RAM, and throw in an SSD in there? How much of a performance boost would I get? Is it worth it considering the battery needs servicing as well?


Let me know what you think.

Also, not sure if this is the right forum to post in.
 

claysm

Honorable
Apr 29, 2012
9
0
10,510
Well an SSD will help breathe life into almost any machine. And that model Mac will support up to 8GB of DDR3 1066 memory. The SSD would hep a lot more than the RAM though. It's worth upgrading if you want to, I guess it depends on how much you intend to use your Mac.
 

yams_22

Honorable
Jun 8, 2012
2
0
10,510
The problem I was experiencing with it the most was that the computer became extremely slow while only having a few applications open, such as Chrome, Skype, Mail, Microsoft Word...

8GB of RAM is fairly cheap, about $40, and Newegg usually has good deals on 128gp SSDs @ $100. I wouldn't mind paying but I just don't want any bottlenecking.
 

claysm

Honorable
Apr 29, 2012
9
0
10,510
If you do upgrade you will absolutely notice a difference. The only bottleneck you might see is that I believe the HDD currently in your Macbook Pro runs at SATA II 3Gb/s, instead of SATA III. But this is not something to worry about, as even a SATA II SSD is substantially faster than any HDD.
 
SSD will make a laptop / PC feel a little more responsive because loading and saving will be faster. More RAM can also help as well since that means less swapping of data between the HDD / SSD and RAM.

Generally speaking, 2GB of RAM should be enough for modest usage like Chrome, Skpe, Mail and MS Word. Perhaps all you need is a fresh reinstall of the operating system.