I have 2010 MacBook Pro and want to upgrade to 8GB RAM

[snaky69]

I'm guessing the processor the 2010 MBP is pretty old by now and was wondering if it can catch up to 16GB of RAM.

In other words, for older processors is it not worth getting 16GB rather than just 8GB because it wouldn't be able to handle any more than 8GB worth of workload?

Or would you be able to have a lot more applications running on 16GB in spite of the older processors?

That's just not how it works.

Here's a quick analogy: Think of your processor as a person working at a desk, said person cannot work any faster than his/her normal workrate.

The RAM is the desk. The smaller the desk, the smaller the amount of work your person can work on at any given time.

So, if the desk is too small, that person will be sitting idle while waiting for the desk to fill back up (paging to and from the hard drive). There isn't really a downside to having too big of a desk. The person gets to pick and choose which part of the work he/she wants to work on.

So basically, having more RAM does not make your computer any faster, unless you were running out of it in the first place. If you are not running out of RAM and find your computer slow, you need to look at other bottlenecks in the system, depending on your workload. If you're gaming, it's most likely the graphics card, if you're cruching numbers (such as encoding video, editing video, CAD) then it's likely the CPU, and if you find opening and closing of apps or large files too slow, it's likely the hard drive is the culprit.

 

[MrGimper]

Really? I've been grossly misinformed in that case. I apologize.

8GB RAM it is then.

Raptor

I believe the ability to use 16GB RAM on the 15 and 17 came in on the early 2011 models.

I have a 15 early 2011 with 16GB in it.

 

[brdeveloper]

No, it won't. Only the 13-inch 2010 model can use that much RAM. The 15 and 17 are limited to 8 GB because of the chipset used.

I think you are correct. I thought the OP had the 13" (320M gpu) one.

 

[galaksy]

I have
1. an HP laptop with 4GB,
2. 2010 13'' MBP with 2 GB (one slot is out of order),
3. White MacBook 2008 with 2GB (screen is dead)
4. 15'' MBP (early 2010) with 4GB and 128GB SSD in it (the screen is badly cracked). It's starting to smell like it's rotting too. What could it come from? Should I just take out the SSD and RAM and throw it away because of the smell that may be harmful to health?

I would like to buy an external monitor so that I finally have some big screen. Maybe a dual monitor. And I would like 16GB of RAM, or at least 8GB of RAM.

How should I create this desktop?

The only way the 15'' MBP could be useful I guess would be if I put in an extra 4GB RAM for a total of 8GB, but it stinks and I am afraid it might be harmful to health.

Then I guess I could revive the White MacBook but it only goes up to 4GB which would be too little.

Maybe I should buy a single stick of 8GB RAM for the 2010 MBP 13'' that I have, and connect it to the external whenever I need the big screen and disconnect every time I need to use it while lying down on bed, to relieve the backpain from sitting too much.