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12 & 16GB RAM for 2011 MBP!??

The best and cheapest way to get the highest performance and storage is to not spend $1600 for 16gb RM, But to spend a little over $1,000 and get a OWC 500GB SSD and 8GB RAM. The extra RAM does nothing for read & write speeds or applications loading (the first time). For tasks like Photoshop that can be a RAM hog, when it runs low on RAM it uses the hard drive as a scratch disk but if that disk is a much faster SSD then there is little need for more excessive RAM.
 
Vantage Point said:
The best and cheapest way to get the highest performance and storage is to not spend $1600 for 16gb RM, But to spend a little over $1,000 and get a OWC 500GB SSD and 8GB RAM. The extra RAM does nothing for read & write speeds or applications loading (the first time). For tasks like Photoshop that can be a RAM hog, when it runs low on RAM it uses the hard drive as a scratch disk but if that disk is a much faster SSD then there is little need for more excessive RAM.
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True except when using VMs as they reserve the memory for the VM and make it no longer available to the OS, so in this case it is better to have more available to the VM to make it more stable and not allow swapping as much.
 
I'm just waiting for someone else to start selling these 8gb of ram chips to drive the price down than i am all over 16gb in a hurry.
 
squeakr said:
True except when using VMs as they reserve the memory for the VM and make it no longer available to the OS, so in this case it is better to have more available to the VM to make it more stable and not allow swapping as much.
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This +1 As someone who could be using 3 VM's at once, 16GB of ram would be amazing. As is, I either keep them to 1GB of RAM each (which is really not enough) or else I have to turn VM's off.
 
It wouldn't surprise me if they can take more than 16...classic Apple style of letting users figure this out on their own. So far it can take at least 16GB of RAM and 1666Mhz speeds.
 
NickZac said:
It wouldn't surprise me if they can take more than 16...classic Apple style of letting users figure this out on their own. So far it can take at least 16GB of RAM and 1666Mhz speeds.
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16GB is a chipset limitation... not something Apple imposed. :eek:
 
RedReplicant said:
16GB is a chipset limitation... not something Apple imposed. :eek:
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I don't put anything past Apple. I could see ole' Steve convincing Intel to not tell anyone that their chips can handle 32GBs as a 'myztery' for us to figure out.
 
Today I installed the 16 GB RAM into my 2011 MacBook Pro 17" 2.3GHz. I purchased the Samsung 8GB modules from Ramjet. For my needs, they are great-but expensive!! With the OCZ 240GB Vertex 3 I installed last week, this is one fast computer.
 
Whoever buys 16 gb of ram in a mbp needs to reevaluate how they spend their money.
 
vincenz said:
Whoever buys 16 gb of ram in a mbp needs to reevaluate how they spend their money.
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It depends on the user. Some of us will gladly pay to play with the 16 gigs, as it assists us in the tasks that we do to make a living.
 
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