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4GB Kingston HyperX SODIMM in a Macbook Pro

ezekielrage_99

ezekielrage_99

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Oct 12, 2005
3,336
19
I have notice that my local computer shop has just stocked the 4GB Kingston HyerX SODIMM, I was wondering can I put 2 of these puppies in my work Macbook Pro.

So 8GB RAM in a Macbook Pro? Will it work or wont I be able to use anymore that 4GB?
 
ezekielrage_99

ezekielrage_99

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Oct 12, 2005
3,336
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Cave Man said:
Certainly the Santa Rosa chipset can take 8 gb and it is functional enough to boot, but the one report on the net indicates that Parallels and Fusion take a major performance hit with 8 gb in a MBP.
Click to expand...

The big question I really have is that will Mac OS X detect and use the 8GB?

I do a fair bit of editing very large mapping images (usually 20,000 by 20,000 pixels) so if I could put 8GB in a laptop it would be very much beneficial.

Although I am not that fussed if Fusion or Parallels takes a performance hit (I use RDP sessions to my other Windows box on the nextwork) it would also be a consideration.
 
ayeying

ayeying

macrumors 601
Dec 5, 2007
4,547
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Yay Area, CA
I asked this question and apparently, from what users know, the system won't be able to access all 8 GB but will be able to read/boot off of it.

I personally have access to the 4GB so-dimm sticks also, I'm tempted to stick 1 in this machine and bump it up to 6GB but if it doesn't work, I feel like I wasted 400 bucks just for the stick.
 
ayeying

ayeying

macrumors 601
Dec 5, 2007
4,547
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Yay Area, CA
Eidorian said:
I might "try" that once a single 4 GB DDR2-667 drops in price. I still think it'll hit the problems when trying to address more then 4 GB of RAM though. It'll still be recognized by System Profiler and Activity Monitor.
Click to expand...

I've asked my mom (she works for an OEM memory company) and apparently she says she can get a 4GB single stick for me to try. Obviously I'll need to buy it or return it and not keep it for free :rolleyes:, but I'll post results if I can get this working without too many issues.
 
Eidorian

Eidorian

macrumors Penryn
Mar 23, 2005
29,190
386
Indianapolis
ayeying said:
I've asked my mom (she works for an OEM memory company) and apparently she says she can get a 4GB single stick for me to try. Obviously I'll need to buy it or return it and not keep it for free :rolleyes:, but I'll post results if I can get this working without too many issues.
Click to expand...
See if you run into problems allocating more then 4 GB of RAM to an application.
 
ezekielrage_99

ezekielrage_99

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Oct 12, 2005
3,336
19
Eidorian said:
I might "try" that once a single 4 GB DDR2-667 drops in price. I still think it'll hit the problems when trying to address more then 4 GB of RAM though. It'll still be recognized by System Profiler and Activity Monitor.
Click to expand...

They are currently AUD$110 so that's why I've been thinking of one (possibly two) 4GB sticks rather than two 2GB sticks which do cost the same.
 
ayeying

ayeying

macrumors 601
Dec 5, 2007
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Yay Area, CA
Okay. I received today the all famous 4GB stick. It is a PC2-5300 @ 667MHz, 5-5-5-15 stick. Installed it, upped my macbook pro to 6GB total ram. The system boots up, runs fine so far. I'll test a wide range of programs though. Any thoughts of what I should test (besides VMWare/Parallels)
 
Eidorian

Eidorian

macrumors Penryn
Mar 23, 2005
29,190
386
Indianapolis
ayeying said:
Okay. I received today the all famous 4GB stick. It is a PC2-5300 @ 667MHz, 5-5-5-15 stick. Installed it, upped my macbook pro to 6GB total ram. The system boots up, runs fine so far. I'll test a wide range of programs though. Any thoughts of what I should test (besides VMWare/Parallels)
Click to expand...
VMWare and Parallels are good starts. Do you have Photoshop so you can use the extra RAM as a scratch RAM disk?
 
ayeying

ayeying

macrumors 601
Dec 5, 2007
4,547
13
Yay Area, CA
Eidorian said:
VMWare and Parallels are good starts. Do you have Photoshop so you can use the extra RAM as a scratch RAM disk?
Click to expand...

I do have photoshop installed, both CS3 and CS4 beta. However, I'm not extremely good with them so I'll need some instructions.

Current state, I've booted up Windows Vista Business, x64 SP1 via Boot Camp Partition in VMWare Fusion 2. Allocated 4GB to virtual machine and left 2GB for OSX. So far, the boot speed for Vista is slow (well obviously) but VMWare actually take a bit of time to allocate the physical memory. However, the system does start up, virtual machine does read 4GB and activity monitor states 4GB is used to VMWare.

Here's a screenie for you guys.
 

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Eidorian

Eidorian

macrumors Penryn
Mar 23, 2005
29,190
386
Indianapolis
ayeying said:
I do have photoshop installed, both CS3 and CS4 beta. However, I'm not extremely good with them so I'll need some instructions.

Current state, I've booted up Windows Vista Business, x64 SP1 via Boot Camp Partition in VMWare Fusion 2. Allocated 4GB to virtual machine and left 2GB for OSX. So far, the boot speed for Vista is slow (well obviously) but VMWare actually take a bit of time to allocate the physical memory. However, the system does start up, virtual machine does read 4GB and activity monitor states 4GB is used to VMWare.

Here's a screenie for you guys.
Click to expand...
Wow it even shows greater then 4 GB of RAM used in Activity Monitor.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/568208/

I'd give this thread a look. The RAM disk scratch disk aspect might not be necessary anymore.
 
ayeying

ayeying

macrumors 601
Dec 5, 2007
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Yay Area, CA
Rebooted into Windows Vista x64 Business, SP1 native. So far, the system runs great. Boot time has dramatically increased in Vista. System score dropped to 4.8 (from 5.1) due to lack of Dual Channel. However, it doesn't seem like it has effected much of anything else.

Running Civ4: Colonization, alt tabbing in and out seems smooth, less lag, and yadada.
 
Eidorian

Eidorian

macrumors Penryn
Mar 23, 2005
29,190
386
Indianapolis
ayeying said:
Rebooted into Windows Vista x64 Business, SP1 native. So far, the system runs great. Boot time has dramatically increased in Vista. System score dropped to 4.8 (from 5.1) due to lack of Dual Channel. However, it doesn't seem like it has effected much of anything else.

Running Civ4: Colonization, alt tabbing in and out seems smooth, less lag, and yadada.
Click to expand...
I wonder if the newer version of OS X seems to be allowing you to access more RAM. It's a big step up.

The outlook is good though. :D
 
Eder6301

Eder6301

macrumors member
Aug 26, 2008
34
0
joliet
do your homework people.... the current operating system cant acess more than 4g of ram... leopard its a 32bit system so it cant read it......
 
Loge

Loge

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Jun 24, 2004
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England
Eder6301 said:
do your homework people.... the current operating system cant acess more than 4g of ram... leopard its a 32bit system so it cant read it......
Click to expand...

Perhaps you should tell that to the Mac Pro users who have up to 32GB RAM installed?

Anyway these results look encouraging, hopefully we will see official support for 8GB in the next MBP updates.
 
ayeying

ayeying

macrumors 601
Dec 5, 2007
4,547
13
Yay Area, CA
Eder6301 said:
do your homework people.... the current operating system cant acess more than 4g of ram... leopard its a 32bit system so it cant read it......
Click to expand...

You should tell that to my MBP running Leopard and all the MacPro people who is able to access ALL 4+GB for being a "32-bit" system. Leopard is 64 bit capable, so you can use all the memory even if the OS itself is mostly written in 32-bit. Come on, do YOUR homework.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/64bit.html
 
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