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Source: YouTube
Watch this video and follow along to easily identify what memory your Apple computer has.
How much Mac RAM do I need?
| General Use | Minimum Required | More RAM is better! |
| General Use of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard & iLife '09 | 512MB, 1GB for high definition video | 2GB |
| General Use of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger & iLife '06 | 256MB, 512MB for high definition video | 512MB-1.5GB |
| General Use on Mac OS X 10.3 Panther & iLife '05 | 128MB, 512MB for high definition video | 256MB-1GB |
| General Software | Minimum Required | Max out your Memory! |
| Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac | 512MB | 1GB-2GB |
| iWork '09 (Pages, Keynote, Numbers) | 512MB | 1GB-2GB |
| Quicken 2007 & QuickBooks Pro 2007 | 128MB | 512MB |
| FileMaker Pro 10 | 256MB-512MB | 512MB-1GB |
| Graphics, Design, & Photography | Minimum Required | Install more memory if you... |
| Aperture 2 | 2GB | 2GB-4GB+ |
| Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 | 1GB | 1GB-2GB |
| Adobe CS4 Design Premium (InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver, Acrobat, etc.) | 1GB | 2GB-8GB; 3GB+ if you use more than Photoshop and one other program at the same time |
| Adobe CS4 Photoshop | 1GB | 2GB-8GB |
| Adobe Lightroom | 768MB | 2GB-4GB+ |
| QuarkXPress 7 & 8 | 256MB | 1GB+ |
| Video Editing | Minimum Required | Do more with additional memory |
| Final Cut Express 4.0 | 1GB | 2GB+ |
| Final Cut Studio 2 (Final Cut Pro 6, Motion 3, Soundtrack Pro 2, Color, Compressor 3, DVD Studio Pro 4) | 1GB | 2GB+ for compressed HD and uncompressed SD; 4GB+ for uncompressed HD footage |
| Adobe CS4 Production Premium (After Effects, Premiere, Soundbooth, Encore, etc.) | 2GB | 2GB+ for DV; 4GB+ for HDV & HD work |
| Adobe After Effects CS4 | 2GB | 2GB+ for DV; 4GB+ for HDV & HD work |
| Audio Recording & Production | Minimum Required | More memory is better |
| Logic Express 8 | 1GB | 2GB-4GB |
| Logic Studio 2 (Logic Pro 8, MainStage, Soundtrack Pro 2, etc.) | 1GB | 4GB+ |
| Pro Tools HD 8 | 1GB | 2GB-4GB+ |
| Windows on a Mac | Minimum Required | Max your RAM out! |
| Windows XP via Bootcamp | 512MB | 2GB |
| Windows Vista via Bootcamp | 1GB | 2GB-4GB |
| Windows XP via Parallels | 1GB | 2GB-3GB |
| Windows Vista via Parallels | 1GB | 4GB |
| Windows XP via VMware Fusion | 1GB | 2GB-4GB |
| Windows Vista via VMware Fusion | 1GB | 4GB |
