Important Question (third party RAM and warranty)

[DarkKingz]

Hi, im new to apple in general and im planning on buying the new 13" macbook (black coloured one)

Knowing the general basics on how maxing the ram is generally a good idea and how lots of people have mentioned buying from a 3rd party (instead of from apple) is an excellent idea, i have a question:

If i buy ram from a 3rd party source to up the memory to 2gb and purchase the extended apple care for 3 years from apple, does installing the 3rd party memory make my extended apple care void and therefore a waste?

If it does indeed make the warranty void because of me tampering with the hardware, any suggestions on how to get the extended warranty while getting cheap memory?

Thank you all for your help.

 

[WildCowboy]

No, it does not void the AppleCare warranty, as it's a user-upgradable component. However, if you do have a problem, the first thing they will probably tell you to do is to remove the third-party RAM to see if that's what's causing your problem.

That said, Apple has created some problems with the new MacBooks by only offering matched pair RAM modules. In the past, you could get a machine with only one slot filled, and you would be free to purchase whatever brand of RAM you wanted for the second slot. But now Apple ships your computer with both slots filled (because matched pairs of DDR2 RAM see a slight performance enhancement over unmatched pairs), so if you want to upgrade, you need to get rid of an Apple module. You can still use unmatched pairs, and 1.5 GB of unmatched RAM (512 MB Apple + 1 GB third-party) would still be faster than matched Apple 512 MB modules, but you'll have that extra Apple 512 MB module laying around if you do upgrade.

 

[DarkKingz]

So according to your expert opinion, would it be better to just buy the bare basics for a black macbook, buy two 1gb ram from a 3rd party, and just dump the two 256 provided by apple?

Or maybe upgrade to 1gb through apple, then dump one of the 512 ram and buy a 1gb ram from a 3rd party.

Thanks for the info, been a great help.

 

[jsw]

I recommend buying one 1GB stick, throwing out (or selling) the 256MB stick it replaces, then seeing if 1.25GB works for you. If not, then get a matching 1GB stick.

However, I'd recommend against 2x512MB sticks, because you'd pay about the same as you would for the 1GB upgrade but would be forced to eat a more expensive stick if you upgrade further.

Edit: FWIW, on my Intel iMac, I saw a huge bump going from 0.5GB to 1.5GB. I saw no bump going from 1.5GB (unmatched) to 2GB (matched), except once I'd hit the point I was swapping noticeably at 1.5 GB. Because of the integrated graphics, such a point will be 80MB lower for you, but I'd think that 1.25GB might just be sufficient. 1GB on my mini duo is a bit tight; 1.25GB might be fine.

 

[DarkKingz]

Awsome thanks for the help guys.