iMac users. Ram Question.
 

My imac is late 2009 and I have 12 GB of 1067 MHz DDR3 in it. Thats the 2 chips (2 Gig each) that came with it, plus another 2 4 Gig chips I installed in the free slots. That gives me a total of 12 Gig.

I could replace the original 2 with 4 Gig chips - Giving me 16 Gig ram. An extra 4 Gig.

My question is this - Would that actually speed up my browser? When I was on Snow Leopard my browser was really fast and rendered pages almost instantly. However certain more modern pages failed to display correctly and I sometimes got errors as the browser version of chrome I was using was outdated. So I updated to high Sierra and since then, despite everything working perfectly, pages are now very slow to render in both chrome and firefox.

I have a very fast intent connection so its not that. My question is do you think the extra 4 Gig of ram will make a difference to my browser speed or am I just pissing in the wind?

Please, no 'crapple' comments. I am very pleased with my imac, especially when it can run the latest OS despite being nearly ten years old. I just wanted opinions on if the extra ram would make a difference to BROWSER RENDERING SPEED - Nothing else :) Thanks :thumbsup

12 gigs is way more then enough to load web pages. I'm guessing it's the CPU. Or maybe it's apples secret code to slow down old computers so you upgrade.

Apple is just slowing down your hardware because it's so old. Trying to do you a favour because that's how much they care.

Time to upgrade to the new imac



Up to 18 cores in an iMac. No, that’s not a typo.

An iMac with 4 cores is remarkable enough. But an iMac with 8, 10, 14, or 18 cores is an entirely different creature. Add Turbo Boost speeds up to 4.5GHz, and iMac Pro has the power and flexibility to balance multicore processing with single-thread performance. With new AVX-512 vector instructions and a new cache architecture, the processor handles even more data — even more quickly. Which means you can render images, edit up to 8K video, manipulate photos, create real-time audio effects, or compile your next five-star app — all at lightning speed.

All for the low, low price of $13,800 (18 core)
interest free over 12 months only for GFY users !!!

Hi CS,

No, don't do it - its not necessary and the extra ram wouldn't do anything to speed up your browser.

Here are some tips that might help you out.

First can you determine if its actually your computer that's slow, or the page itself? For example did you test loading those pages on other computers, or on other networks besides your home network?

Try testing with other browsers.

Try clearing your browser cache and deleting cookies.

If you're in the mood for a hardware upgrade, buy an SSD hard drive for it instead. I'm telling you you will absolutely love it. All applications including Safari will load and run lightning fast. Your files will load and save instantly. Your mac will boot in only 8 seconds instead of 60 , etc. Replacing your old mechanical hard drive with a solid state drive is the best upgrade I've ever done.

Good luck!

try with a new SSD hard drive

Yes, ssd helps a lot. Anyway, I think it's time to buy a new one.
More ram wont' make a big difference in a mac.

Yes, SSD will make a difference.

Had a similar situation with an old Lenovo a few years back.

No, more ram (especially slow ram) wouldn't help you unless you're using like 11.5gb of ram at the moment.

An SSD should help but not that much.

You just need a new computer.