Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

16GB RAM in my Early '11 MBP?

I

iSheahan

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 21, 2008
46
0
I currently have an early 2011 MacBook Pro, build 11E53, 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7 with 2 - 4GB 1333 MHz DDR3 memory modules and would like to see if my MBP will handle 2 - 8GB modules. I'm wondering if there is a site somewhere that has a chart showing the max capabilities of different Macs...

What is anyone's experience, if any, with that amount of RAM? Does the logicboard recognize that?

What are good memory brands to buy? Corsair, Kingston are the two I know of.

Is there anything specific I need to know about the chips when I buy them?

Thanks for the info!
 
iSheahan said:
I currently have an early 2011 MacBook Pro, build 11E53, 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7 with 2 - 4GB 1333 MHz DDR3 memory modules and would like to see if my MBP will handle 2 - 8GB modules. I'm wondering if there is a site somewhere that has a chart showing the max capabilities of different Macs...
Click to expand...

Yes, it can use a max of 16GB of RAM. You can find specs on all Apple products, including maximum RAM:
 
iSheahan said:
I currently have an early 2011 MacBook Pro, build 11E53, 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7 with 2 - 4GB 1333 MHz DDR3 memory modules and would like to see if my MBP will handle 2 - 8GB modules. I'm wondering if there is a site somewhere that has a chart showing the max capabilities of different Macs...

What is anyone's experience, if any, with that amount of RAM? Does the logicboard recognize that?

What are good memory brands to buy? Corsair, Kingston are the two I know of.

Is there anything specific I need to know about the chips when I buy them?

Thanks for the info!
Click to expand...

Hey, a couple of days ago I upgraded my 2011 13 inch base MBP to 8gb ram and SSD. The difference is mind blowing, not only the ssd but also the ram. 8GB is more than enough. I keep apps like photoshop, after effects, 10+ tabs on safari, Skype and sometimes even Diablo3, and I still have about 500m-1GB free ram. So, 16gb is just not worth it.

And yes, you'll need 1333 mhz ram. Mine's are Corsair which are the best RAM atm.
 
GGJstudios said:
Yes, it can use a max of 16GB of RAM. You can find specs on all Apple products, including maximum RAM:
Click to expand...

Thank you for the very informative information! To the point and what I needed. Better than my google search.

miles01110 said:
You don't need to actually install 16 GB of RAM to confirm that your machine will support it. A simple Google search will tell you the answer.

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7...r-macbook-pro/
Click to expand...
I would hope I didn't need to install to test that - that's an expensive experiment.

While I did google before posting here (as you can tell from my number of posts, I usually find my answers via google or other already posted questions here in the forums), my results were not as clear as they can be at times.

I do wish people would stop saying "here, **************************". Yes, we get it - people should do their own research first. Who's to say I didn't? Besides, having a multi-facetted question as I did, GGJstudios was quite accurate in satisfying my post.

Anyway, thanks to both of you for your answers.

----------
EarthNeutron said:
Hey, a couple of days ago I upgraded my 2011 13 inch base MBP to 8gb ram and SSD. The difference is mind blowing, not only the ssd but also the ram. 8GB is more than enough. I keep apps like photoshop, after effects, 10+ tabs on safari, Skype and sometimes even Diablo3, and I still have about 500m-1GB free ram. So, 16gb is just not worth it.

And yes, you'll need 1333 mhz ram. Mine's are Corsair which are the best RAM atm.
Click to expand...

Love this secondary idea of using SSD!

That was my other thought - to ditch the RAM upgrade effort and use SSD. But that gets expensive, I currently have 750GB HDD, and wouldn't get anything less than 500GB, and that's with moving a lot of files off to an external HDD (like photos, videos). My iTunes library has to stay on the main disc because I travel so much, it's too big of a pain in the ass to do it any other way.

So, 500GB SSD with my already installed 8GB RAM will make Photoshop, Parallels and Xcode travel in warp speed...? I might research that direction.

Thanks, EarthNeutron.
 
iSheahan said:
Thank you for the very informative information! To the point and what I needed. Better than my google search.


I would hope I didn't need to install to test that - that's an expensive experiment.

While I did google before posting here (as you can tell from my number of posts, I usually find my answers via google or other already posted questions here in the forums), my results were not as clear as they can be at times.

I do wish people would stop saying "here, **************************". Yes, we get it - people should do their own research first. Who's to say I didn't? Besides, having a multi-facetted question as I did, GGJstudios was quite accurate in satisfying my post.

Anyway, thanks to both of you for your answers.

----------



Love this secondary idea of using SSD!

That was my other thought - to ditch the RAM upgrade effort and use SSD. But that gets expensive, I currently have 750GB HDD, and wouldn't get anything less than 500GB, and that's with moving a lot of files off to an external HDD (like photos, videos). My iTunes library has to stay on the main disc because I travel so much, it's too big of a pain in the ass to do it any other way.

So, 500GB SSD with my already installed 8GB RAM will make Photoshop, Parallels and Xcode travel in warp speed...? I might research that direction.

Thanks, EarthNeutron.
Click to expand...

Advice: get a 128GB SSD and an external enclosure for your HDD. You can move your iTunes/iPhoto library to your external drive, because those take up the most space.

I just bought a Samsung 830 128gb SSD, which is currently the fastest and most reliable SSD on the market. I paid about 120$ for it, so it wasn't quite expensive. The difference in speed is huge, now my MacBook boots in 6 seconds, opens any app in just under 1 second (except for after effects which takes about 4-5).


TOTALY WORTH IT!

btw I have a youtube channel which I just stared and I'll be posting a tutorial on how to install the SSD/RAM to a 2011 MacBook Pro machine and I'll do a review of them no later than sunday.

be sure to check it out: https://www.youtube.com/user/ZONEofTECH
 
iSheahan said:
Love this secondary idea of using SSD!

That was my other thought - to ditch the RAM upgrade effort and use SSD. But that gets expensive, I currently have 750GB HDD, and wouldn't get anything less than 500GB, and that's with moving a lot of files off to an external HDD (like photos, videos). My iTunes library has to stay on the main disc because I travel so much, it's too big of a pain in the ass to do it any other way.

So, 500GB SSD with my already installed 8GB RAM will make Photoshop, Parallels and Xcode travel in warp speed...? I might research that direction.

Thanks, EarthNeutron.
Click to expand...

I was in a similar situation, and I did not want to go the optibay route, so I bought a 750GB Momentus XT. It really is fantastic. There are benchmarks all over the web that show it's near SSD performance once it learns which programs you open most frequently. Really worth a look if you prefer to have more space and don't want to optibay.

I couldn't be happier with mine, it's very fast without the exorbitant cost and sacrifice of space.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back