iMac memory upgrade: before and after

Created 5/30/2006, updated 3/12/20241 minute read

Command

The following command was used to test the performance of the iMac before and after the upgrade:

time xcodebuild clean build -target "Synergy Advance.app" -configuration Release

Before the upgrade

These are the results for the iMac equipped with 512 MB of RAM:

real    26m19.688s
user    5m36.100s
sys     3m11.155s

After the upgrade

These are the results for the iMac equipped with 2 GB of RAM:

real    4m56.097s
user    4m59.441s
sys     1m35.643s

Conclusion

The 64-bit Dual 2.5 GHZ G5 PowerPC which this humble iMac is replacing took about 6.5 minutes to compile Synergy Advance. The new iMac, which is about one third of the price of the G5, does it in less than 5 minutes. And it does it much, much more quietly. The upgrade eliminates in one fell swoop 21 minutes of virtual memory disk thrashing.

I am absolutely floored.

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