Will Upgrading Ram Improve Rip Speed?

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bobo98
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Joined: Wed Sep 08, 2021 10:01 pm

Will Upgrading Ram Improve Rip Speed?

Post by bobo98 »

I have a 2007 Mac (iMac7,1) that came with Leopard OS.
I recently upgraded to Yosemite 10.10

If this helps at all, it's an iMac "Core 2 Extreme" 2.8 24-Inch (Aluminum) that features a 2.8 GHz Intel "Core 2 Extreme" processor (X7900), with two independent processor "cores" on a single silicon chip, a 4 MB shared level 2 cache, an 800 MHz system bus, 2 GB of RAM (667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, PC2-5300), a 500 GB (7200 RPM) Serial ATA hard drive.

I can easily upgrade the Ram from 2tb to 6gb.

Should this improve my ripping time enough to warrant the upgrade?


Thank you.
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s55
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Re: Will Upgrading Ram Improve Rip Speed?

Post by s55 »

Difficult to say. If your only encoding DVD's, it likely won't make much, if any difference as you'll probably have sufficient free memory.

If your encoding HD, it might help a little but encoding on that machine is always going to be painfully slow.
Woodstock
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Re: Will Upgrading Ram Improve Rip Speed?

Post by Woodstock »

You will still be limited to 2 cores running at 2.8 ghz. You have no hyperthreading and no QSV hardware. You can't even add a video card with hardware encoding.

Your least expensive upgrade would be to get or build a newer-spec Linux box to do encoding.
bobo98
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Re: Will Upgrading Ram Improve Rip Speed?

Post by bobo98 »

Woodstock wrote: Tue Oct 05, 2021 7:26 am
...Your least expensive upgrade would be to get or build a newer-spec Linux box to do encoding.
Thanks s55 and Woodstock for your quick replies.


I tried to reply sooner, but I was trying to research “getting (buying?) a Linux box” as you suggested.
Where do I get one?

I tried but Googling 'buying a Linux box' and other variations of the search, but it pulled up no results for an actual box to be purchased, just PC laptops with Linux installed results.

I then went to two separate BestBuys to inquire if there was an actual ‘box’ that existed and if they sold one online...no.

I even searched YouTube to see how to build an actual box (not that I probably could), but the closest it came was building a PC with Linux installed etc, which would not be an upgrade to my existing Mac, as you suggested.

My original thought/hope was that there was an actual box with some sort of an OS (or whatever) in it with more updated physical processors in it that I would then install Handbrake on, then connect that to my old 2005 dual core Mac via the USB port to enable faster encoding on it, since you mentioned the Linux box was an upgrade to my existing Mac.

Was I somewhat correct in that interpretation of the ‘Linux box’, and if so, could you please tell me where I can purchase one?


Thank you.
Woodstock
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Re: Will Upgrading Ram Improve Rip Speed?

Post by Woodstock »

Assembling a Linux box can be a bit challenging if you're the type that REALLY hates assembling boards. But it is often the cheapest way to get a computer that works.

Having been at this for far too long, I'm accustomed to buying cases that fit my needs, motherboards, selecting a CPU, putting in the RAM, choosing an optical drive and storage. My work machines don't even have optical drives. A lot of inexpensive motherboards these days have all the peripheral stuff built in, like network interfaces, video connections, you just choose how fast a CPU you feel like paying for.

One step up from that is buying a "bare bones" computer, which has a case, power supply, CPU and memory, just add drives, and be out a few hundred dollars. That still falls in to the "some assembly required" zone, and you end up having to choose an operating system. Linux is my choice for that.

There are other types of bargains out there - Microcenter stores offer a $1000 computer that has "Intel Core i7 10700K 3.8GHz Processor; 16GB DDR4-3200 RAM; 1TB Solid State Drive; Intel UHD Graphics 630" (and Windows 10 included). That's quite a step up in encoding speed from your current machine, but still substantially less than Apple-branded hardware. It looks like it has sufficient cooling to run all day at 100% speed, something a lot of machines cannot do.

I stopped shopping at Best Buy for computer hardware because they rarely have what I want. They SOMETIMES have some "value priced" systems, but they aren't designed for jobs like encoding (usually inadequate cooling).

Sorry to ramble on. Maybe this can get you pointed in the right direction.
bobo98
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Re: Will Upgrading Ram Improve Rip Speed?

Post by bobo98 »

Woodstock wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 2:33 am Assembling a Linux box can be a bit challenging if you're the type that REALLY hates assembling boards. But it is often the cheapest way to get a computer that works.

Having been at this for far too long, I'm accustomed to buying cases that fit my needs, motherboards, selecting a CPU, putting in the RAM, choosing an optical drive and storage. My work machines don't even have optical drives. A lot of inexpensive motherboards these days have all the peripheral stuff built in, like network interfaces, video connections, you just choose how fast a CPU you feel like paying for.

One step up from that is buying a "bare bones" computer, which has a case, power supply, CPU and memory, just add drives, and be out a few hundred dollars. That still falls in to the "some assembly required" zone, and you end up having to choose an operating system. Linux is my choice for that.

There are other types of bargains out there - Microcenter stores offer a $1000 computer that has "Intel Core i7 10700K 3.8GHz Processor; 16GB DDR4-3200 RAM; 1TB Solid State Drive; Intel UHD Graphics 630" (and Windows 10 included). That's quite a step up in encoding speed from your current machine, but still substantially less than Apple-branded hardware. It looks like it has sufficient cooling to run all day at 100% speed, something a lot of machines cannot do.

I stopped shopping at Best Buy for computer hardware because they rarely have what I want. They SOMETIMES have some "value priced" systems, but they aren't designed for jobs like encoding (usually inadequate cooling).

Sorry to ramble on. Maybe this can get you pointed in the right direction.


It did.

Since I can't buy a pre-built Linux box, all the rest is way too techy for someone who just learned that Komputer is spelled with a 'C'!

I'll just use the 2005 for encoding smaller files 'till it won't run any more, and delegate my newer Mac to the larger files.

Thanks for the helpful reply.
mduell
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Re: Will Upgrading Ram Improve Rip Speed?

Post by mduell »

bobo98
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Re: Will Upgrading Ram Improve Rip Speed?

Post by bobo98 »

Thanks mdeull for the quick reply and links.

I haven't visited this site since my last post, wherein I searched for, then decided to buy a used High Sierra Mac (just like my other MBP) which thankfully, just arrived a few days ago.

If I can downgrade the older 24" Mac in question, from Mojave (I think) back to Leopard or Snow Leopard, I just may keep it for a music app that only runs on the latter two OS systems.

If not...it gets recycled.
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