Memory upgrade question for macbook

Discussion in 'Buying Tips and Advice' started by talz13, May 29, 2006.

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  1. talz13, May 29, 2006

    talz13 macrumors newbie

    Joined:
    May 22, 2005
    #1
    I'm still going back and forth on getting my macbook and am still not quite ready to pull the trigger yet.

    My question here is if I get the macbook and buy a single 1gb ram stick, will I notice much of a performance hit from not using dual channel? I'm looking to have 2gb in there eventually, but I'm not sure that I'll be able to afford it right away. If I upgrade to 1gb on apple (not a bad price on student store compared to buying 1gb elsewhere) then I'll have the two 512 sticks sitting around being useless.
     
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  2. rob5, May 29, 2006

    rob5 macrumors regular

    Joined:
    Oct 5, 2003
    Location:
    Connecticut
    #2
    Not really. It'll be fine. Go for the MacBook! I picked mine up on Saturday and just ordered 2GB of memory. Can't wait to get it :)
     
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  3. Sun Baked, May 29, 2006

    Sun Baked macrumors G5

    Sun Baked

    Joined:
    May 19, 2002
    #3
    Having enough memory is loads more fun, than not enough.

    When you don't have enough -- more drive use and a zippy 50-75MB/s.

    Generally you won't probably notice the interleaved memory working, or not.

    But the spinning beach ball, that the VM tends to make appear, you will notice.
     
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  4. Nate4747, May 29, 2006

    Nate4747 macrumors regular

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    May 7, 2006
    Location:
    Missouri
    #4
    The place it will really hit is video acceleration (or lack thereof). Apple used dual channel because both slots can be addressed at the same time, that way the system and the video chipset aren't fighting over ram as they can both address their own respective banks. I upgraded mine with matching 2 gig sticks and it works great. I can't speak as to how it would work with unmatched pairs, but I wouldn't want to try it. I can only assume that operating in single channel mode might choke up the system while the video and the system wait for memory access.
     
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