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

Huh?

mathcolo said:
8GB??? If you have 8GB memory in your MacBook Pro then you're dead spoiled:rolleyes:
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I have a 3.2 GHZ Mac Pro with 16GB or Ram. I find that I routinely use about 8GB or RAM. 8 GB is not spoiled. Perhaps 16 GB is because I don't use half of it. I tried loading every application I have and I managed to get my useage up to about 9GB.

8 GB would be perfect in a MacBook Pro. That is what I need for video editing on a 17". I'm praying the new ones will come with 8GB of RAM, or if not that Snow Leopard will allow it.
 
Well. About to test this is my new Macbook Alum. However, I am an idiot and accidentally ordered a 4gb stick (good) and 2gb kit (bad) from crucial. So my test will only be for 5GB of RAM instead of 6. Crucial is sending the new 2GB stick on Monday. But I imagine same principles should apply for 5 that do for 6 since its more than 4. Let you all know soon.

Any insights as to the best way to test RAM usage?
 
UltraNEO* said:
I have 20Gb of RAM in my MacPro, connected to an 30" ACD TFT, does that make me even more spoilt? Oh... there's also a hi-speed 32Gb compact flash card in the camera too!! :D
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I'm not trying to be an ass, but why would anyone need 20gbs of ram? I could only think that you have several users connected to the same computer.
 
So...

I now have 5GB of RAM running in my MacBook Alum (nVidia chipset).

So far, it seems to be flying and i have opened as many programs as I can:

VMware VM allocated with 2.5GB of RAM
Photoshop CS3
iWeb
iPhoto
iTunes
Safari
Firefox
All MSFT for MAc 2008 apps (Entourage, Word, Excel, PPT)
Mail

My activity monitor shows the following:

Wired: 2.4GB
Active 1.56GB
Inactive 782MB
Used: 4.72

The free memory keeps jumping around with the inactive. Free is at 20-35MB

VM size: 63GB
Page ins: 3.59GB
page outs: 29MB
Swap used: 84MB

Not sure what all this means but those are the readings. It is amazing how fast everything is right now. Ill keep it open and see what happens. Let me know what else I should try...

UPDATE: As I played around, and opened safari tabs and photoshops windows, the swap files jumped to 500mb and the page outs jumped to 250mb....
 
Since I can't get straight answer from Apple, I hope somebody makes 3GB sticks, so we can see if 7GB works
 
I'm thinking about ordering one 4GB stick for my new MBP so it'll be 1GB+4GB=5GB total. Would there be a noticeable difference compared to my current 1GB+1GB=2GB setup?

Also, could someone link me on newegg a compatible RAM for the newer MBP? I don't wanna buy the wrong one. :)
 
you are correct. its ddr3. They are not on newegg yet. you have to go to crucial.com. the 4gb sticks are a whopping ~$600. i have 5gb now and the real question is how much better is 5 than 4. a 2x2 4gb kit is only $140. but to answer your question depending on what you do, 4gb will make a big diff over 2gb. i think i will return the 4gb stick, get the 2x2 for 140 and upgrade the hd to the WD scorpio black 7200rpm 250gb drive. ill save my money for the intel x-25 ssd when it comes down in price
 
imac

hi, i tried to read through the posts but could not get a clearer answer. does this mean that 6gb ram, 4x1 & 2x1, will work in my early 2008 imac with the 1066mhz fsb?
 
question for Threadstarter

In the newegg review you put in the Other Thoughts section:

I got all 8GB running on my new macbook pro 2.6Ghz with 8GB or ram and 512Vram it's SUPER FAST NOW! Final Cut Pro Will love you with this much ram.

So how did you do it? Didn't you say that it would only recognize 6gb?
 
nawoo said:
question for Threadstarter

In the newegg review you put in the Other Thoughts section:

I got all 8GB running on my new macbook pro 2.6Ghz with 8GB or ram and 512Vram it's SUPER FAST NOW! Final Cut Pro Will love you with this much ram.

So how did you do it? Didn't you say that it would only recognize 6gb?
Click to expand...

I didn't put that. I don't even have a 2.6GHz MacBook Pro. I have the 2.4GHz Model.
 
Cave Man said:
It'll boot with 8 gb and seem to run fine until you breach 4 gb. Once that happens the system slows to a crawl. However, if you only have 6 gb RAM you can hit 4 gb without any system slow down.
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My experience parallels yours. I'm running 6GB (2G+4G) in my "late 2008" MacBook Pro 2.8. It's working great. It sees all 6GB in Activity Monitor. I ran a memory test app (DLT) that uses whatever you specify. It grabbed all 6B then released it when done. Ditto when I rendered the Total Benchmark in After Effects (multiprocessor mode - spawns two subprocesses that grab up to 3GB each).

Just for fun I tried 8GB. It boots and appears to see it all but (like some of you have said) if I run any app that uses over 4GB, the machine goes into molasses mode. And when you quit (or if you can quit) the memory hungry app(s), it does not release the memory.

The only problem with 6GB is that the modules don't match so interleaving won't occur. That could potentially produce a performance hit, depending on what app you run. I plan to do some benchmarking on 6G vs 4G. I'll let you know I learn on this thread.
 
barefeats said:
The only problem with 6GB is that the modules don't match so interleaving won't occur. That could potentially produce a performance hit, depending on what app you run. I plan to do some benchmarking on 6G vs 4G. I'll let you know I learn on this thread.
Click to expand...

A lot of people seem to be agonizing over dual channel with 4GB vs. no dual channel with 6GB.

I think no agonizing is required.

If you *ever* use more than 4GB, install 6GB. The performance hit from swapping is hundreds of times worse than any hit you might get from not having dual channel.

If you never, ever use more than 4GB, you have no reason to install 6GB, so keep your 4GB and dual channel.

Basically, swapping is the worst thing that can happen for your computer's performance. Avoid it at all costs.
 
dal20402 said:
A lot of people seem to be agonizing over dual channel with 4GB vs. no dual channel with 6GB.

I think no agonizing is required.

If you *ever* use more than 4GB, install 6GB. The performance hit from swapping is hundreds of times worse than any hit you might get from not having dual channel.

If you never, ever use more than 4GB, you have no reason to install 6GB, so keep your 4GB and dual channel.

Basically, swapping is the worst thing that can happen for your computer's performance. Avoid it at all costs.
Click to expand...

Is everyone doing this in the new MBP with DDR3 pulling the DDR3 RAM and using DDR2 RAM? I really need to go to 6Gigs as I do a lot of Virtual machine work in both Parallels and Fusion and when I have either one running my available RAM drops to about 20 megs real quick. I'd love to be able to keep my DDR3, but am not about to drop almost $600 for the crucial 4 gig DDR3 stick.
 
This may be a stupid question, but have any of you who tried 8 GB checked Console.app for any error printouts?
 
rellik75 said:
Is everyone doing this in the new MBP with DDR3 pulling the DDR3 RAM and using DDR2 RAM? I really need to go to 6Gigs as I do a lot of Virtual machine work in both Parallels and Fusion and when I have either one running my available RAM drops to about 20 megs real quick. I'd love to be able to keep my DDR3, but am not about to drop almost $600 for the crucial 4 gig DDR3 stick.
Click to expand...

Aren't DDR3 SODIMMs 204 pins, while the DDR2 SODIMMs are 200 pins?
 
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