Will upgrading to 8GB RAM increase my Intel HD3000 graphics memory?

yep, it is indeed

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What kind of RAM? I ordered cosair for 50 bucks on amazon.

silly question, but does this apply to Snow Leopard too?

kyle1320 said:

Cool, would this increase graphics performance?

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I'm not sure on that one.

sparky1499 said:

silly question, but does this apply to Snow Leopard too?

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Yes, it's not really an OS thing, more of a firmware thing.

On my 2011 base 13" MBP, I went from 384MB to 512MB on the Intel HD 3000 when upgraded to the 8GB RAM (G.Skill).

yup. pic for proof

That is useful info to know. Thanks.

kyle1320 said:

Did you notice a boost in graphics performance?

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I haven't noticed any difference. I only ran with 4 gb of ram for a couple days before I upgraded, so I wouldn't be able to give you a good comparison. lol

It won't increase performance per se, because much like upgrading system RAM, its not a performance improvement but rather a capacity improvement. It will mean that some games like Starcraft2 which require 512MB for textures to be on "high" can be run at that setting with no performance drawback.

If you upgrade to DDR3 1600, that will in fact improve graphics performance slightly as shared graphics memory does cause a bottleneck in all cards that use it including 320M, 9400M and HD3000.

kyle1320 said:

I saw a comment on 8GB of ram I ordered that in the 2011 MBP's on Lion when the system detects 8GB of RAM, it increases the shared memory of the Intel HD3000 integrated graphics to 512 MB instead of the default 384 MB. Is this true? I'm currently waiting for the RAM to arrive, and it'd be nice to know if this will happen, and if it will increase my graphics performance. Thanks

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It doesn't increase graphic performance.. All it does raise the graphic buffer to 512 mb, if you want the better performance, run graphic stuff under windows. The Apple OpenGL rendering stack and graphic drivers is a piece of crap on mac os x.

nnoob said:

It doesn't increase graphic performance.. All it does raise the graphic buffer to 512 mb, if you want the better performance, run graphic stuff under windows. The Apple OpenGL rendering stack and graphic drivers is a piece of crap on mac os x.

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You've got it backwards, its vastly slower under Windows, the OpenGL performance on mac is current far ahead of both that and the Linux performance right now.

dsio said:

You've got it backwards, its vastly slower under Windows, the OpenGL performance on mac is current far ahead of both that and the Linux performance right now.

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IT slower under ATI graphic driver in Mac OS X. Maybe intel drivers have better graphic performance under Mac OS X

Mine does all that, and it is an 09 model.

But I did happen to order the Corsair 8GB from Amazon today. That is how I stumbled upon this forum and registered.

Faster RAM affects onboard graphic performance. This is really the only time I'd recommend getting MORE than 1333 RAM.

2hvy4grvty said:

Faster RAM affects onboard graphic performance. This is really the only time I'd recommend getting MORE than 1333 RAM.

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badly, that 1666mhz RAM seems to be incompatible with Core i7/Core i5 built in mbp 13"..... As the Intel IGP is the only GPU available on that machine, every little plus in terms of speed inprovement would be nice.....

On the bigger ones mbp's it wouldn't make sense improving the IGP, because there's always available a Radeon for graphic intensive work....

to all the people that own the 2.2 i7 mbp 2011 15" .... is there any heating problems i should be worried about ? i recently placed my order for mbp and I'm expecting a shipment soon but I'm worried that the overheating is gonna trump my mbp experience. my previous mbp used to get hot too.. 08 mbp.. so please help... i am hearing that it doesn't overheat but then with some it does overheat and they have applied thermal paste to make it better... i don't know if i want to do all this.. help please. oh also.. my 2nd choice is a mba 13" i5 256ssd. help.

stevey69 said:

is there any heating problems i should be worried about ?

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No, SODIMM memories don't use much power and don't get particularly hot either.

As for the laptop itself, yes it can get pretty warm when working at full capacity, but this is normal and only to be expected from such a high-performing laptop computer. Any time you have a fast processor in a small enclosure there'll be a bunch of heat generated.

No need to worry though, the system is designed to handle that level of heat.

sparky1499 said:

silly question, but does this apply to Snow Leopard too?

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Yes.

To simplify what happens when memory is increased in the case of the Intel HD3000, it doesn't actually speed up much of anything. The additional RAM is mostly used for texture memory, which is useful when video is shot to a larger screen (i.e. larger EXT monitor). However speeding up the performance will require the data to be pulled from the VRAM quickly (this is why dedicated graphics adapters with GDDR are so fast at drawing textures).

System RAM is still slow compared to video RAM found usually on dedicated GPU's because data still has to pass through the slower system bus rather than being on-die or near the GPU itself.

I upgraded to 8GB earlier this week in my 2010 13" MBP and About this Mac still says 256MB. So either it doesn't work for 2010 MBPs or I need to tweak a setting.

It only works on the HD3000

csjo00 said:

I upgraded to 8GB earlier this week in my 2010 13" MBP and About this Mac still says 256MB. So either it doesn't work for 2010 MBPs or I need to tweak a setting.

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Only works with the Intel 3000HD, nvidia users are out of luck for this one