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8 GB RAM for Macbook Pro 17" unibody -- any good deals?

J

jmpmntwnty3

macrumors 6502
Original poster
The new Macbook Pro 17" unibody model is great, except for the fact that Apple wants to charge over $1,000 for an upgrade to 8 GB RAM. That's insane! I know a legit person who can install any extra RAM I need for free so if anyone could send over some good deals on 2 4GB RAM sticks I would really, truly appreciate it.

Thanks in advance!
 
i'd also be pretty careful. even with the most recent 13 macbook and 15 mbp, crucial and owc ram has had problems.
 
Have I missed something as far as kernel support for > 4GB ram on the new pros? Last I had heard, 10.5 demonstrated some pretty erratic behavior when you put 8GB of ram in it on the 15" pros. Are the 17" models capable of using it and not the 15"'s?
 
spill said:
Have I missed something as far as kernel support for > 4GB ram on the new pros? Last I had heard, 10.5 demonstrated some pretty erratic behavior when you put 8GB of ram in it on the 15" pros. Are the 17" models capable of using it and not the 15"'s?
Click to expand...

Apple has placed emphasis on the fact that the new 17" unibody MBP supports up to 8GB of ram. As a matter of fact if you look at the tech specs for the 17" on the :apple: website you will see that it states "4GB (two 2GB SO-DIMMs) of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM; supports up to 8GB". As far as the two 15" variants it states, "2GB (two 1GB SO-DIMMs) of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM; supports up to 4GB" & "4GB (two 2GB SO-DIMMs) of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM; supports up to 4GB" respectively.
 
hummer28 said:
Apple has placed emphasis on the fact that the new 17" unibody MBP supports up to 8GB of ram. As a matter of fact if you look at the tech specs for the 17" on the :apple: website you will see that it states "4GB (two 2GB SO-DIMMs) of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM; supports up to 8GB". As far as the two 15" variants it states, "2GB (two 1GB SO-DIMMs) of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM; supports up to 4GB" & "4GB (two 2GB SO-DIMMs) of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM; supports up to 4GB" respectively.
Click to expand...

The general thought about why doesn't MacBooks and 15" MacBook Pro is that there is firmware or driver that is causing OS X to through itself into a fit when more than 4GB is addressed in an 8GB environment. Reason is, hardware wise, the 17" MacBook Pro and the other MacBook have the same kind of nVidia chipset, so only driver modification is left as logical reason.
 
I think the question is weather you actually need the extra ram. Are you maxing out on the 4gb that you have now?
 
nippyjun said:
I think the question is weather you actually need the extra ram. Are you maxing out on the 4gb that you have now?
Click to expand...


Sorry to hijack this thread in the first place, but now that the deed's been done....

No, that's not the question. "Need" is subjective, and yes I "need" it for java development against VM's. Having used 15" mbp's for a couple of years for this purpose, I've really enjoyed using the hardware as well as OSX, would like the extra headroom more ram would provide. Right now I'm examining the new Dell Studio 16 as a replacement for the mbp because it has practically every feature the mbp has, with esata and hdmi to boot along with no weird memory constraints if I use 64bit win or some flavor of Linux.
 
You should get the 8GB upgrade provided by Apple. its as cheap as your going to find anywhere else, plus they do all the work for you, plus the RAM is covered by Apples warranty 🙂
 
Does anyone know if you lose any performance with mixing 2GB and 4GB dimms? I know back in the old days you would lose some for dual channel mode but does that matter anymore?
 
Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I think I'll just get the 4 GB and upgrade to 8 when the prices go down. $1,000 for a ram memory upgrade is crazy lol
 
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