Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Late 2011 MBP 4gb, 8gb or 16gb?
- Thread starter Rocko99991
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
if you are going from a HHD to and SSD it will be a significant difference in speed. For RAM how ever you will not see a speed change in the same way with light usage. If you use a lot of taps and different programs at the same time RAM will give you a perceived speed bonus as more active files is kept on the fast memory and is not moved to the SSD as often (swap). Personally I think a 8GB is a really nice spot for a light duty machine as you in many cases would not hit the limit daily and have some additional space if you need memory intensive programs (photo, video, some games and such).
Sounds like you have the SSD already? ( that is the big speed increase)
I did not notice much when I changed my 2012 from 4g to 16g of memory - but the cost of memory being what it is I went for maxing it out at 16g.
If you go the halfway "8g route" you will later have to replace both chips again to further upgrade to 16
I did not notice much when I changed my 2012 from 4g to 16g of memory - but the cost of memory being what it is I went for maxing it out at 16g.
If you go the halfway "8g route" you will later have to replace both chips again to further upgrade to 16
Considering he said light usage and it is a 2011 machine I think 16GB might be overkill.
A way to go the halfway route if one is considering upgrading to 16GB in the future would be getting 1 8GB slot and install it with one of the existing RAM moduls.
I have a mid 2012 with ssd (500GB) and 16GB of ram. I put in 16GB because it was cheap, and i do a ton of multitasking on this guy, but it is a bit overkill! 500GB ssd is because i unload ALL of my home media here
for a 2011, which can only support High Sierra, a 250GB ssd and 8GB ram should suffice but depends on what you use it for and how much life you want to get from it.
for a 2011, which can only support High Sierra, a 250GB ssd and 8GB ram should suffice but depends on what you use it for and how much life you want to get from it.
The 2011 & 2012 MBPs are approaching the zone where RAM will slowly increase in price. At some point in the not to distant future, the supply side will dwindle. As the available supply dwindles, the price rises. So, my respectful suggestion is to max out your RAM in these models. 16 GIG RAM is fairly inexpensive at this time, depending on where you prefer to buy. (07/07/2018). Available RAM in the 2011 • 17" model (and probably others) affects how much main RAM can be assigned for the VIDEO card. In my case the Integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000. See the photo.
![Gary's MBP.png]( "Gary's MBP.png")
A little since it is dual channel, so you will lose 1 channel which could affect speed. But you should be able to run 1x8GB + 1x4GB and have a total of 12GB. From what I can find this should not be a problem at all
If I fire up Xcode on my late 2011 then my activity monitor shows almost 10 gigs of ram used. So for me 16 gigs was the right decision.
That should not be an issue either.
as long as all the other things on the ram are the same a drop in performance compared to 2 identical RAM should be negligible.
Edit: An old thread here discussing it. Consensus is that if there are a performance difference it is not perceived
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mixing-ram-sizes.1826766/
I think with a traditional hard drive & 16 GB of RAM, there does not seem to be much speed improvement.
Adding a solid-state drive dramatically changes that equation. The 16 GB RAM versus 4 GB of RAM Boots even a solid-state drive more quickly. In my experience. Does it change your MacBook Pro into one of these new 3+ gigahertz machines? No.
There is a perceptual difference booting up with 16 gigs of RAM versus lesser amounts of RAM in my view.
Adding a solid-state drive dramatically changes that equation. The 16 GB RAM versus 4 GB of RAM Boots even a solid-state drive more quickly. In my experience. Does it change your MacBook Pro into one of these new 3+ gigahertz machines? No.
There is a perceptual difference booting up with 16 gigs of RAM versus lesser amounts of RAM in my view.