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6GB in MacBook (Pro); Yes it works. - 8GB... well...

Replying to myself:

Found one review of the 4GB g-Skill stick in a white macbook on newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=20-231-202

So far so good in White MacBook

Pros: No more paging of my RAM! in an attempt to max out my RAM, I maxed out my CPU! :D :D :D :D

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: After seeing some reports of 6 GB working in the last 2 generations of MacBook Pro (Santa Rosa and newer) I had to try it out on my white MacBook.
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This isn't much to go on. Any other comments?
 
I don't know if I can trust the Newegg reviews for this product. I know a few review posts in there are just copy and paste from what I put here... and I haven't put a single review of any product I bought from Newegg yet.

I think there was one post here that referred to a MacBook (not Pro). I'll try to find it and give you a link.
 
The new Late Model MBP supports 1067MHz Ram. What kind of performance loss will you experience by dropping down to the 6GB setup using 667MHz? and can you even do that? I remember back in the day Ram was backwards compatible but is it that way on these new MBP's?

Thanks.

Jason.
 
Jasontech said:
The new Late Model MBP supports 1067MHz Ram. What kind of performance loss will you experience by dropping down to the 6GB setup using 667MHz? and can you even do that? I remember back in the day Ram was backwards compatible but is it that way on these new MBP's?

Thanks.

Jason.
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DDR2 RAM was 200 pin; the DDR3 RAM is 204 pin. Incompatible, I believe.
 
duykur said:
since i am using a laptop whith 496mb (yes 496mb) of ram i can't even imagine how fast 8 gb would be...
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496 MB in your laptop, the only way to get that is with a 256MB, 128MB, 64MB, 32MB, and 16MB SO-DIMM. Most (almost all apple) laptops only have two slots. To have 512MB minus 16MB sounds like a software problem. :p
 
gatortpk said:
496 MB in your laptop, the only way to get that is with a 256MB, 128MB, 64MB, 32MB, and 16MB SO-DIMM. Most (almost all apple) laptops only have two slots. To have 512MB minus 16MB sounds like a software problem. :p
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not when a video card is shared with system memory.
 
ayeying said:
not when a video card is shared with system memory.
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in that case my macbook has 3952MB of RAM. Why not just say 512?

And not all that 16MB is always taken by the card, just when it needs it. (which might be quite often if you're running a recent OS on it).

Anyway even if the card is using part of it, it's still part of installed RAM. I says 512MB.
 
RedTomato said:
in that case my macbook has 3952MB of RAM. Why not just say 512?

And not all that 16MB is always taken by the card, just when it needs it. (which might be quite often if you're running a recent OS on it).

Anyway even if the card is using part of it, it's still part of installed RAM. I says 512MB.
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Beats me why that user said 496MB. I have 256MB taken by the 9400M video card and I still say 2GB ram instead of 1.75GB.

Anyways, another note, I have tested 6GB with a Mid 2007 iMac (7,1) and it works flawlessly.
 
ayeying said:
Beats me why that user said 496MB. I have 256MB taken by the 9400M video card and I still say 2GB ram instead of 1.75GB.
...
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Simply put, one would still say 2GB because even if the video card uses some of it, you still have in total 2GB. Kind of the same reason system profiler tells you your total capacity not "Total capacity of memory that is available to you as a user that is not already taken up by system resources yet:"
 
Cave Man said:
Not explicitly. Some Macs can take 4 gb (which is reported by System Profiler), but only 3.1 to 3.3 gb are usable because of the memory controller (which is only reported by Activity Monitor or top).
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So you were nit-picking/over-analyzing. :D Especially when it didn't have much to do with the original context of why I replied in the first place.
 
Well, the devil is in the details. The Core 2 Duo Calistoga-based Macs can only address about 3.2 gb or so of RAM even if 4 gb are installed (which is reported by System Profiler), while the Santa Rosa-based Macs can address the entire 4 gb (and even more). You may think it's nit-picking, but to me it's just maximum clarity.
 
I read the thread but still cant seem to get a straight answer. Is it a hardware limitation or software because Leopard supports up to 32GB of RAM in the Mac Pro
 
daneoni said:
I read the thread but still cant seem to get a straight answer. Is it a hardware limitation or software because Leopard supports up to 32GB of RAM in the Mac Pro
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Unfortunately no one knows. And for some unknown reason, the people who actually had the 8GB to test with refused to attempt to use a true 64bit OS on the system to check. Had they either downloaded a 64bit ISO of Ubuntu or installed Vista 64bit they could have had the answer for us.

I really hope it is an addressing issue in Leopard. As I'd love to go to 8GB towards the end of summer.
 
Shawn Parr said:
And for some unknown reason, the people who actually had the 8GB to test with refused to attempt to use a true 64bit OS on the system to check. Had they either downloaded a 64bit ISO of Ubuntu or installed Vista 64bit they could have had the answer for us.
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You're not telling the truth. I did dl 64-bit linux and it reported only 4 gb of RAM in my MBP with 8 gb installed. Be careful when standing on your high horse, you might fall on your @$$.

clyde2801 said:
I don't want to sound too conspiracy theory here, but is there a possiblity that apple intentionally hobbled the maximum ram possible to sell more mac pros?
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Could very well be. Something like this would be congruent with Apple's way of doing things.
 
8gigs would be nice to have...I hope this issue is "fixed" by the time 8gigs become very affordable.

clyde2801 said:
I don't want to sound too conspiracy theory here, but is there a possiblity that apple intentionally hobbled the maximum ram possible to sell more mac pros?
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doesn't make much sense to me. It would make sense to limit the macbook to less than 4 gigs and let the MBpro have 8gigs.
 
Cave Man said:
You're not telling the truth. I did dl 64-bit linux and it reported only 4 gb of RAM in my MBP with 8 gb installed. Be careful when standing on your high horse, you might fall on your @$$.
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Well, I apologize. I missed the post where you linked to the other thread. Do you still have 8GB of RAM? Interested in downloading the Ubuntu 8.10 64bit ISO to see if it gives any love?

I think the issue here is one of PAE drivers. The Mac Pro obviously can see and use more than 6GB of RAM, however it has a much more mature Intel chipset. The nVidia chipset is way newer, and as such there may be either a bug or an issue being worked around in the chipset driver that Apple uses.

This might also explain why your previous 64bit debian experience only showed 4GB of RAM. If there wasn't a new enough fully featured PAE driver for that nVidia chipset the system may have fallen back to a 'safe mode' of sorts and only allowed for 4GB. Although the nVidia chipset is new enough that even 8.10 may not have a new enough driver at this point. Not to mention that nVidia has been weird about linux drivers in the past.
 
Hey guys this is my first post here. I've been doing some searching and wondered since the new 10.5.6 came out and I just got an update to my firmware has anymore testing been done with 8gb with since this update has been out. I have one of the new Alum Macbook Pro's and i've been trying to figure this out. So far looks like 6gb is the consensus?
 
MBX said:
i just got my g-skill 4gb today from newegg (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231202)
and have 6gb of ram in my mbp now. and i can say it works like a charm!

no negative side-effects whatsoever.
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Sweet. Looks like you have one of the older MBP's tho if you are putting DDR2 in. But at least it would seem that setup (4+2) should work in the new ones like everyone has said before. I just went into the apple store today and played with 2 MacBook Air's, one with SSD and looked at the huge difference in launching apps etc. So now I'm looking at getting 6gb ram and a Patriot 128 SSD into my MBP. Just going and playing with those 2 MBA's side by side was enough to make me want an SSD!
 
johnnie said:
I don't think SSD would worth your money, if it was me I would wait until SSD price down to something more acceptable. :rolleyes:
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Those patriots don't seem to be too bad of a price for a 128gb, but I know what you mean. I'm sure by the end of next year they'll be pretty cheap for a 250 or 320 gig SSD
 
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