MBP memory specs and tips?

[fredu]

I've read pretty much all threads that have to do with MacBook Pro memory, and found none helpful enough. So let's straight this thing out once and for all

What are the specs for MacBook pro memory? DDR2-667 and memory size (1Gb in my case) are the only things I understand. What else? Are there different kinds of this memory (for instance for laptop and desktop use, any special for apple?) Are the sizes measured in millimeters or inches or anything or number of pins or anything?

Then I've found quite a few tips on buying specific brands of memory, but none of them are available here in Finland. The ones I've found (but don't know if they are the right kind) are by companies such as: Twinmos, Buffalo, Kingston and Corsair. (Prices in that order too, twinmos being the cheapest). Any comments on these? Experiences?

Any help or pointers are appreciated!

 

[Anonymous Freak]

I've read pretty much all threads that have to do with MacBook Pro memory, and found none helpful enough. So let's straight this thing out once and for all

What are the specs for MacBook pro memory? DDR2-667 and memory size (1Gb in my case) are the only things I understand. What else? Are there different kinds of this memory (for instance for laptop and desktop use, any special for apple?) Are the sizes measured in millimeters or inches or anything or number of pins or anything?

Then I've found quite a few tips on buying specific brands of memory, but none of them are available here in Finland. The ones I've found (but don't know if they are the right kind) are by companies such as: Twinmos, Buffalo, Kingston and Corsair. (Prices in that order too, twinmos being the cheapest). Any comments on these? Experiences?

Any help or pointers are appreciated!

What you want is a "PC2-5300 SO-DIMM". That describes the physical shape, size, number of pins, memory technology, and memory speed of the memory. The only other thing to pay attention to is capacity (1 GB is what it sounds like you want.) At this point, all three Intel Macs use the same memory, so you can just ask for 'Intel Mac memory', and most places will know what you mean.

If you want a brand recommendation, I've always had good luck with Crucial. (In fact, while working at Intel, theirs was the only memory we used in our lab and demo machines.) They are EXTREMELY high quality, and decently priced.

If you want to get into the nitty-gritty technical details, and want to squeeze every drop of performance out of your memory as possible, you would want to buy a matched pair of modules that are rated with as low 'CL' numbers as possible (currently 3,) or the four-number bararge of CAS, RAS, CAS-RAS Delay, and tRAS (currently 3-2-2-9.) But you could end up paying three times as much money for memory that only gets you 1-2% performance improvement.