Would Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard consume more RAM?

Question

Or just will allow me to use it?

I currently have 4gb and sometimes I run out of RAM.

Would SL per se consume more RAM?

_{It looks like I'm not running out of ram yet.}

Answer 1

The main disadvantage of 64-bit architectures is that relative to 32-bit architectures the same data occupies more space in memory (due to swollen pointers and possibly other types and alignment padding). This increases the memory requirements of a given process and can have implications for efficient processor cache utilization. {source}

Or from Apple's own documentation:

Myth: My application will run much faster if it is a "native" 64-bit application. Fact: Some 64-bit executables may run more slowly on 64-bit Intel architectures because of increased cache pressure. {source}

Many core apps have been rewritten as 64bit. That means more memory will be needed by those apps overall. I can't see how Snow Leopard will use less memory than Leopard, unless apple have made some significant optimisations elsewhere (as MS did going from Vista > Win7).

Answer 2

Since Snow Leopard is going to be the default on new machines as of Friday, and Apple makes machines with a lot less RAM than 4GB, I would assume that it will work just fine. Having said that, I don't have any machine with more than 2.4GB of RAM (various OS X and Debian machines), and I never hit a wall the way you say you do. So, maybe you're crunching numbers in a way that requires a lot of memory.

(Apple is making a big deal (and rightfully so) out of the fact that Snow Leopard takes up less space on your hard drive than Leopard, but this doesn't necessarily mean anything in terms of memory consumption.)

Answer 3

Snow Leopard is all about optimization. Apple's goal is for everything to run faster on existing hardware. So, if anything, Snow Leopard will probably consume LESS RAM :)

Details here: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/170886/gauging%5Fsnow%5Fleopards%5Fspeed%5Fboosts.html