I am running Windows 7 on an iMac with 4G of RAM. I allocated 1.5G for Windows 7. I would like to allocate more because I use Windows programs more than Mac programs and the Windows programs I use are somewhat memory intensive. How beneficial is it for me to up my memory to 16G and if I do that how much of it can I allocate to Windows? Thanks in advance for any recommendations.
There is a problem may occur when Windows cannot use more that 4 GB of RAM. Please clarify it with Microsoft as well.
My experience I upgraded my iMac to 16G. With that extra memory Parallels recommended max of 4G for my Windows 7 (64bit) VM which I set it to. The memory investment is very worth while. Here are some observation: When I have 4G installed with 1.5G allocated to VM. 1. Free memory is close to nothing. 2. Even opening Words or Excel, my CPUs shoot up to 90% usage. 3. This is the acid test - My Pandora One music skips when I do anything such as opening up a program etc. When I have 16G installed with 4G allocated to VM 1. I consistently have 8G of free memory. 2. Opening up programs does not cause my CPUs to go nuts (this is the most techie term I can come up with). 3. Pandora never miss a beat. My recommendation is to go 16G; at $35/8G this is very inexpensive way to get tons of performance. At the minimum get 8G. Hope this help.
