4GB (2x2GB) 800Mhz DDR2 SODIMM RAM for $55.49 shipped!!

Wow, that's pretty amazing. This RAM would work with SR (merom) and Penryn macbooks and macbook pros, yes? Thanks for sharing.

Hmmm... I read that someone brought some OWC 800Mhz Ram for their Penryn MBP.. they said it didn't work.


Personally i went with Micron (Crucial)

Umm... You don't want no 800 MHz RAM in your Macintosh. The memory bus in all Core2Duo Macs is hardwired at 667 MHz

A number of people have reported that the OCZ RAM does NOT downclock properly to 667 in the Penryn machines and fails. Waste of time and shipping money. Buy.com is not going to refund your shipping when it doesn't work, and may or may not charge restocking fees (as NewEgg does).

CanadaRAM said:

Umm... You don't want no 800 MHz RAM in your Macintosh. The memory bus in all Core2Duo Macs is hardwired at 667 MHz

A number of people have reported that the OCZ RAM does NOT downclock properly to 667 in the Penryn machines and fails. Waste of time and shipping money. Buy.com is not going to refund your shipping when it doesn't work, and may or may not charge restocking fees (as NewEgg does).

Click to expand...

x2

Sorry Phungy. Plus, Montevina (the next intel platform) should support DDR3-1066 SO-DIMM, so I wouldn't have jumped on that deal if I were you.

CanadaRAM said:

Umm... You don't want no 800 MHz RAM in your Macintosh. The memory bus in all Core2Duo Macs is hardwired at 667 MHz

A number of people have reported that the OCZ RAM does NOT downclock properly to 667 in the Penryn machines and fails. Waste of time and shipping money. Buy.com is not going to refund your shipping when it doesn't work, and may or may not charge restocking fees (as NewEgg does).

Click to expand...

yikes. thanks. so much for that plan!

UltraNEO* said:

Hmmm... I read that someone brought some OWC 800Mhz Ram for their Penryn MBP.. they said it didn't work.


Personally i went with Micron (Crucial)

Click to expand...

Its called DOA; the ram was faulty, not the company. And this isn't OWC, this is OCZ, one of the best ram manufacturers out there.
If it doesn't revert to slower mhz in Penryn, then thats not the ram's fault, thats the BIOS not adjusting it correctly.

soms said:

Its called DOA; the ram was faulty, not the company. And this isn't OWC, this is OCZ, one of the best ram manufacturers out there.
If it doesn't revert to slower mhz in Penryn, then thats not the ram's fault, thats the BIOS not adjusting it correctly.

Click to expand...

So will this RAM work properly with the SR MBs?

soms said:

Its called DOA; the ram was faulty, not the company. And this isn't OWC, this is OCZ, one of the best ram manufacturers out there.
If it doesn't revert to slower mhz in Penryn, then thats not the ram's fault, thats the BIOS not adjusting it correctly.

Click to expand...

No, IMO it's the SPD's in the RAM not being properly programmed to meet the standard. Several reports on the OCZ was that it worked in the SantaRosa and not in the Penryn - so clearly not a DOA issue. And multiple reports suggest that it is a problem with this (and perhaps other) 800 MHz modules.

But I repeat -- there is absolutely no advantage to 800 MHz RAM in a machine with a 667 MHz memory bus, and there are multiple reports of failure. Why then take the risk when there are guaranteed compatible alternatives?

(PS: Macs do not have BIOS. And you cannot get into EFI to tweak the timings manually)

soms said:

Its called DOA; the ram was faulty, not the company. And this isn't OWC, this is OCZ, one of the best ram manufacturers out there.
If it doesn't revert to slower mhz in Penryn, then thats not the ram's fault, thats the BIOS not adjusting it correctly.

Click to expand...

I know what DOA is.. and I know it's a different brand.. but if you care to have a read of CanadaRAM's reply.. then you might be more clued as to what I'm talking about....

CanadaRAM said:

Umm... You don't want no 800 MHz RAM in your Macintosh. The memory bus in all Core2Duo Macs is hardwired at 667 MHz

A number of people have reported that the OCZ RAM does NOT downclock properly to 667 in the Penryn machines and fails. Waste of time and shipping money. Buy.com is not going to refund your shipping when it doesn't work, and may or may not charge restocking fees (as NewEgg does).

Click to expand...

Hi,

I'd trust with what CanadaRam has to say. I've dealt with him several times with RAM and have been very happy.

s.

CanadaRAM said:

No, IMO it's the SPD's in the RAM not being properly programmed to meet the standard. Several reports on the OCZ was that it worked in the SantaRosa and not in the Penryn - so clearly not a DOA issue. And multiple reports suggest that it is a problem with this (and perhaps other) 800 MHz modules.

But I repeat -- there is absolutely no advantage to 800 MHz RAM in a machine with a 667 MHz memory bus, and there are multiple reports of failure. Why then take the risk when there are guaranteed compatible alternatives?

(PS: Macs do not have BIOS. And you cannot get into EFI to tweak the timings manually)

Click to expand...

The issue is likely with Apple as to why the modules don't properly detect at 667Mhz when both are installed like they should. The SPD on these OCZ is programmed to run at 4-5-5-13 when at only 667Mhz and for whatever reason the newer Penryn MBP's can't do it. The Merom based ones can though as well as I haven't seen issues with PC laptop users running this RAM at 667Mhz. The Santa Rosa platform didn't change between Merom and Penryn but I'd suspect Apple made some small changes that would relate to the memory though.

I have this RAM and have installed it in my new Penryn based MBP and the two modules installed together will not boot. If I just put one of the OCZ modules in with one of the Apple 1GB modules then it will though because the timings default to the slowest module at 5-5-5-15. You can fix this problem though by doing a simple flash of the SPD in Windows. One of the guys at OCZ sent me over the modded SPD and you just use this Windows program to flash each module so that they run at 5-5-5-15.

http://www.techpowerup.com/spdtool/SPDTool_062.zip