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devburke

Guest
Original poster
Oct 16, 2008
1,190
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Let's say I wanted to upgrade the memory on an old iMac G5. I know that matching memory modules provide the best performance, but if a mismatched pair would provide more memory, would the advantage of having more memory overcome the advantage to having matched memory?

tl;dr Which is better, having 2x512 memory that matches, or having 512+1gb memory that doesn't match but provides more memory?
 
A few months ago I was in the same spot you are. I went ahead and added a 1 GB stick because I figured the extra 512 MB would help a lot more than the slight bonus from matched pairs.
 
Um,I've never mismatched ram,so I wouldn't know,though I've heard never to do it.but that's with my job building pc's.But on a mac?it might handle it,it might not,I don't know.
 
Let's say I wanted to upgrade the memory on an old iMac G5. I know that matching memory modules provide the best performance, but if a mismatched pair would provide more memory, would the advantage of having more memory overcome the advantage to having matched memory?

tl;dr Which is better, having 2x512 memory that matches, or having 512+1gb memory that doesn't match but provides more memory?

More memory trumps matching memory just about every single time, especially if you wouldn't have enough memory otherwise.

Unmatched memory may run a bit slower though you'd probably not notice it. But if you don't have enough memory and end up swapping to/from disk, that's thousands of times slower! Not even close.
 
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