With regard to memory usage in OS X I have never had any issues with my current iMac. I have 8 GB of memory, and despite very heavy usage (Safari/Chrome/Firefox for browser testing, Coda as IDE, Tower for Git management, Skype, Terminal, iTunes, MySQL Workbench, occasionally MAMP) I rarely see any swap usage. Currently my swap used is 2 MB.
(I must say that I am still using Snow Leopard. I refuse to install Lion because it is pathetic compared to the much more efficient Snow Leopard. I have installed it on my other Mac machine and am not impressed.)
Interestingly the most memory hungry program on my computer is Chrome. It seems to spawn a ridiculously huge number of processes:
Google Chrome 137.9 MB
Google Chrome Helper 29.5 MB
Google Chrome Helper 7.7 MB
Google Chrome Renderer 123.5 MB
Google Chrome Renderer 36.7 MB
Google Chrome Renderer 46.8 MB
Google Chrome Worker 26.6 MB
Google Chrome Worker 26.2 MB
That's a grand total of 7 processes and over 400 MB of memory for just three tabs. As much as I love Google Chrome its a little ridiculous.
iTunes is the second worst offender: 300 MB. I have a pretty large library, but its not that large. Perhaps it does some very rigorous caching.
(I must say that I am still using Snow Leopard. I refuse to install Lion because it is pathetic compared to the much more efficient Snow Leopard. I have installed it on my other Mac machine and am not impressed.)
Interestingly the most memory hungry program on my computer is Chrome. It seems to spawn a ridiculously huge number of processes:
That's a grand total of 7 processes and over 400 MB of memory for just three tabs. As much as I love Google Chrome its a little ridiculous.iTunes is the second worst offender: 300 MB. I have a pretty large library, but its not that large. Perhaps it does some very rigorous caching.