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Is it possible now for 8GB RAM in late 08 MBP?

M

MarkSTi04

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 18, 2008
103
0
Illinois Side of St. Louis, MO
Can anyone shed some light on the RAM upgrade issue with the November 2008 MBP? Did Apple ever make it possible to get 8GB running right in my model? I know they have 8GB available as an option on the new MBP.

I asked the guy at the Apple Store when I got Snow Leopard if I would be able to upgrade to 8GB of RAM and he told me that the hardware would not let me do it. I have seen on the forums before that guys have 6GB running fine on there MBP, but 8GB had issues. Any help would be great.

Thanks

Mark Moseley
 
Hmm that kind of sucks but I guess Ill have to make due with upgrading to 6GB and live with it. Im not planning to buy another MBP for awhile. The next Mac Im gonna buy is ether gonna be a Mac Pro or iMac.
 
MarkSTi04 said:
Hmm that kind of sucks but I guess Ill have to make due with upgrading to 6GB and live with it. Im not planning to buy another MBP for awhile. The next Mac Im gonna buy is ether gonna be a Mac Pro or iMac.
Click to expand...

There's an argument that it would be useless to go 6GB if you won't utilize it and you lose dual channel at the same time. You're better off just going 4GB unless you know you're going to need the 6GB.
 
I wonder if anyone has tested this with Snow Leopard yet. I came to the forum tonight to find an answer to this question as well. I have 4 in my MBP now and would love to kick it to 8.
 
iMerlin said:
I wonder if anyone has tested this with Snow Leopard yet. I came to the forum tonight to find an answer to this question as well. I have 4 in my MBP now and would love to kick it to 8.
Click to expand...

id like to know that to, just installed SL yesterday, like to upgrade to 8GB.
(late 2008 model)
 
And perhaps try running Snow Leopard in both 32-bit mode and 64-bit mode (to get the corresponding kernels) to see whether that makes any difference.
 
Please show me some benchmarks with real applications showing 4GB as a bottle neck....
 
I would also love to find out and also if someone could test to find out see what difference it makes for the 8gb with 32bit vs 64bit kernel
 
Someone must retry, there were those people that tried with leopard so they must still be able to get their hands on the ram to test, also some of the testers said they wonder if snow leopard would make a difference so hopefully we will know soon.

Also if it is an EFI issue thats what people said, all apple need to do is release an update. The hardware should support 8GB.
 
If the restriction is in Leopard, why Apple release it for the '09 models? To make you buy the new one?
If it is in the firmware, then the same question applies.
I hope that this update doesn't take the same time as it was for the Airport Extreme and the AirDisk ~ Time Machine functionality...
For the first time :apple: made me feel I bought a Verizon computer... 8-S:confused:
 
insignificantMB said:
I was waiting for snow leopard to be able to use 8gb in my late 08' mbp. I guess not anymore, does anyone know if the ram for the 2.53 ghz mbp will work on my 2.4 ghz mbp? (my 2.4 unibody wasnt listed)

http://www.crucial.com/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=86A4DF69A5CA7304

Or are there any other companies that might have individual 3 gb memory modules?
Click to expand...

Just to confirm, that's a 4GB kit that you linked. That is, two 2GB modules. But yeah, it should work fine in your 2.4 unibody.

By the way, are most of you guys interested in the 8GB and in buying them right now? Because I believe at current prices 8GB will cost around the same as a base 13" unibody MacBook Pro.
 
The answer I got from a RAM seller tech support person: "The limitation is hardware based and even with 10.6 is still 6 GB."
So who is right? NVIDIA ?
 
trondah said:
Please show me some benchmarks with real applications showing 4GB as a bottle neck....
Click to expand...

I don't have benchmarks, but it is quite easy for me to max out 4GB and have the thing swap out like crazy. It's not exactly fast when it starts doing that. Think running multiple (in my case 2) virtual machines, or editing multiple high-res photo's in Photoshop. It doesn't take a genius to know that if you use/do memory intense programs/tasks, you benefit from more. In some cases, more is always better.
 
throttlemeister said:
I don't have benchmarks, but it is quite easy for me to max out 4GB and have the thing swap out like crazy. It's not exactly fast when it starts doing that. Think running multiple (in my case 2) virtual machines, or editing multiple high-res photo's in Photoshop. It doesn't take a genius to know that if you use/do memory intense programs/tasks, you benefit from more. In some cases, more is always better.
Click to expand...

Running two Vista VM's in Fusion should consume 2GB, how does that max out your 4GB of memory? I guess if you do some heavy photoshop on top of that it should start getting tricky.

What I'm asking though, is not if it's possible to max out 4GB by trying really hard, of course it's possible. What I'm asking is if you really max out 4GB by doing your daily normal work. Probably not by a long shot.
 
trondah said:
Running two Vista VM's in Fusion should consume 2GB, how does that max out your 4GB of memory? I guess if you do some heavy photoshop on top of that it should start getting tricky.

What I'm asking though, is not if it's possible to max out 4GB by trying really hard, of course it's possible. What I'm asking is if you really max out 4GB by doing your daily normal work. Probably not by a long shot.
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Yea, with just daily tasks, I consistently have 1.5 GB free. That changes when running Windows on Parallels. I can get as low as 13 MB free memory. In that way, 8 GB will benefit.
 
Would this be a reason for why some can and some cant have more than 4GB?

Users who want to run the new 64-bit kernel on late modeled Macs (pretty much anything released after early 2008) can do so by booting with the 6 and 4 keys held down. If you're wondering whether your Mac has a 64-bit EFI firmware, you can type the command "ioreg -l -p IODeviceTree | grep firmware-abi" into the Terminal. The response will identify the machine as either having 32-bit or 64-bit EFI.
Click to expand...
 
trondah said:
Running two Vista VM's in Fusion should consume 2GB, how does that max out your 4GB of memory? I guess if you do some heavy photoshop on top of that it should start getting tricky.

What I'm asking though, is not if it's possible to max out 4GB by trying really hard, of course it's possible. What I'm asking is if you really max out 4GB by doing your daily normal work. Probably not by a long shot.
Click to expand...

I've got 4GB and am left with 32MB free quite often when using photoshop CS4. Doesn't even have to be a resource intensive task for it to hog all the remaining RAM. I wonder if this is a Snow Leopard + CS4 issue...

Fabian
 
I think you guys misunderstand how the OS handles memory. If you have no free memory that's a good thing. All available memory should be utilized as cache, which is what it normally does when running applications that needs it. 1,5GB free is 1,5GB wasted.

Just because you don't have any memory free, does not mean your applications don't have memory to use if needed.
 
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