Best way to upgrade memory? How many sticks of ram?

You have eight slots. Each pair of two slots has to be filled with identical memory, apart from that you are free to choose. What you need to consider: 1. You have 2 x 4 slots. In each set of four slots, the first two run faster, so you want more RAM in the first two slots. 2. The Mac runs a bit faster if the memory is evenly divided between the two sets of slots. That is because only one processor can read from each set of four slots, but both processors can read from one different set each at the same time. 3. Everything else equal, you want to keep some slots free so you can add more RAM later.

The logical consequence is: Go for 4 x 2 GB (unless they are a lot more expensive per GB than 1GB chips).

 

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A93 Safari/419.3)

I seem to recall there is a guide (around) showing where to place RAM in a mac pro as it has so many slots. It's a complicated thing, does it say in the manual that came with it?

Edit: mentioned above as I am too slow at typing with my thumb.

 

i'd get the 4 x 2, putting them in the first 2 slots on each riser and then move the stock sticks to slots 3 and 4 of the top riser (at least i think that's the way it's supposed to go).

 

How could you order a MP w/1G ram? they come with 2.

 

There's this from Apple:

http://developer.apple.com/document...l/HWTech_RAM/Articles/RAM_implementation.html

And an installation video from OWC:

http://eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/index.cfm?page=Video/macproearly08/memory/med.html

My MP config is shipping with 4GB (4 x 1GB) from Apple, and I ordered an additional 8GB (4 x 2GB) from OWC. I was unsure as to the correct order to install them, and fellow Forums poster bigBird suggested:

"Pull the stock 4 X 1GB out. Split the OWC 4 X 2GB into Riser A: slots 1 & 2 and Riser B: slots 1 & 2. Then put your Apple 1GB's into Riser A: slots 3 & 4 and Riser B: slots 3 & 4. You want you biggest matched dual channel RAM accessed first, which is slots 1 & 2 of both risers."

Hope that helps!

-Steve

2x3.0GHZ/4GB/8800GT Ordered Jan 21st, Shipped Feb 8th, scheduled to arrive Feb 12th, by 7pm

 

This is correct.

 

Thanks Steve for sharing. I have a similar config but 2x1GB stock and Transintl 2x1GB and 4x2GB. This was VERY helpful!