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New MacBooks and MacBook Pros Support Up to 6GB

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Apr 12, 2001
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ZDNet points out that memory sales company Ramjet has published on their website that the recently MacBook and MacBook Pros can support a maximum of 6GB of RAM. This configuration is possible with the use of one 2GB and one 4GB stick.

This finding is consistent with the experiences of previous MacBook Pro owners. 8GB of RAM has been shown to cause stability issues under Mac OS X when the additional RAM is accessed. For some reason 6GB appears to be the practical limit on the latest MacBook Pros, despite hardware support for 8GB.

Apple officially advertises that the new laptops can only support up to 4GB of RAM.

Article Link: New MacBooks and MacBook Pros Support Up to 6GB
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2008/10/30/new-macbooks-and-macbook-pros-support-up-to-6gb/
So I was never clear on this, can the early 2008 MBPs "support" 8 GB of RAM as well (or rather, run on 6 GB but has the hardware for 8GB)?
 
So this is current. As in they support 6GB right now....

and with a later software update support 8GB?
 
So do we have a verifiable reason why 8 GB doesn't work? It is a switch OS X does when seeing the hardware model identifier or what?

Stridder44 said:
So I was never clear on this, can the early 2008 MBPs "support" 8 GB of RAM as well (or rather, run on 6 GB but has the hardware for 8GB)?
Click to expand...
Santa Rosa based Mac laptops are limited to 6 GB as well. I haven't seen any tests done on the iMacs that I know of.

Small White Car said:
Interesting. I wonder if Snow Leopard will bring the ability to run 8 GB.

Of course, I'm sure they'll keep advertising them as only taking 4 GB, to help sell the next generation of laptops that "officially" support 8 GB!

Oh well. I like these secret features for folks like us that pay attention.
Click to expand...
Yet it works on the Mac Pro under Leopard today.
 
Interesting. I wonder if Snow Leopard will bring the ability to run 8 GB.

Of course, I'm sure they'll keep advertising them as only taking 4 GB, to help sell the next generation of laptops that "officially" support 8 GB!

Oh well. I like these secret features for folks like us that pay attention.
 
Reminds me of the old MODE32 and non-32 bit clean roms back in the 020/030 days. Could put a shedload of ram in a mac, but it wasn't utilized unless another process was run.

Connectix, where are you? LOL

So the chipset in the current MBP and MB support 8GB of RAM but somehow the board or specific portion of the OS as loaded on the portable does not and is the limiting factor.

Nice.
 
If the new MacBook will accept (and, more importantly, use) 8GB of RAM under Snow Leopard, then that seals the deal AFAIC. I'll sell my white 2007 MacBook after Steve tells me that this is true.

Until I can have 8GB running properly under OSX in a MacBook, there's no compelling reason for me to make any changes.

By the way: The same goes for my iMac; let me use 8GB of RAM and I'll have a reason to upgrade.

(No, the MacPro is a behemoth and doesn't interest me in the slightest.)
 
Eidorian said:
So do we have a verifiable reason why 8 GB doesn't work? It is a switch OS X does when seeing the hardware model identifier or what?

Santa Rosa based Mac laptops are limited to 6 GB as well. I haven't seen any tests done on the iMacs that I know of.

Yet it works on the Mac Pro under Leopard today.
Click to expand...

The mac pro has 4 ram channels with a sever controller.
 
Could it be a heat issue? Have people investigated whether the stability issues are due to overheating? Maybe not, they tend just to auto-shutdown if they're getting too hot before they show signs of instability.
 
bilbo--baggins said:
Could it be a heat issue? Have people investigated whether the stability issues are due to overheating? Maybe not, they tend just to auto-shutdown if they're getting too hot before they show signs of instability.
Click to expand...

No, it's not to do with heat. Leopard is just unstable when 8GB is used in MBP's. It has been tested... Read the MR thread above.
 
Performance

What sort of performance penalty is there not having matching sticks?
 
MagicWok said:
No, it's not to do with heat. Leopard is just unstable when 8GB is used in MBP's. It has been tested... Read the MR thread above.
Click to expand...

So the consensus is that the chipset driver or something specific to the MacBook Pro is at fault since the Mac Pro can run with tens of GBs of RAM without issues (I have 10GB that I use a lot).
 
MagicWok said:
I would also presume that by using 2gb+4gb you lose the dual data-architecture as you're no longer using matching pairs.

Does the extra memory negate this loss?
Click to expand...

I think the extra RAM helps if you use it. Most would not realy put it to use if all they did was email and the web. But if you were a big user of VMware's Parallel or video editing with FCP or even Aperture. But for casual use it is hard to justify more then 4GB

As you point out the memory does technically run faster with 4Gb then with 6GB
 
I've asked this before but maybe I'll try agian.

What I would like to see is somebody with a 6GB MBP take the two DIMMS and swap slots the RAM is in. What I'm wondering is if Apple simply didn't implement an address line to one of the slots to prevent 8GB installations. If the 4GB DIMM only works in one slot then we have learned something more than we know today.

As for RAM upgrades I don't think I'd bother to go past 4GB right now. You really want to see how Snow Leopard clears things up. Because if the problem is software and not hardware it could be fixed in a newer release of Snow Leopard or lower level software.

Sadly I suspect that the RAM limit is an artificial reality that Apple built into the hardware.

Dave
 
the typical user uses less than 1gb anyway.

I don't quite understand people when they say "the more ram the better".... If in fact they know how ram works they would know if you are not using the extra ram... it's actually sitting there without use, but your mind tells u your computer is working faster :D:D

That's hilarious when people want to put 4 gigs of ram and use it for MS Word, internet, email and itunes... And when questioned about the 4gigs, they reply... "yeah, yeah... well I'm going to need it because I'm going to be opening up power point presentations" LMAO. Well as long as there are people like that, the companies will have the money rolling in.


6GB ram? wow. That's nice. For someone who actually uses more than 1 gig. Pro users will def like to know it can support 6g's.
 
ChrisA said:
I think the extra RAM helps if you use it. Most would not realy put it to use if all they did was email and the web. But if you were a big user of VMware's Parallel or video editing with FCP or even Aperture. But for casual use it is hard to justify more then 4GB

As you point out the memory does technically run faster with 4Gb then with 6GB
Click to expand...

and with the new graphics chips providing a big part of the performance increase, does the RAM speed affect them?

i would want to see some very extensive benchmarks before i decided between 6 gigs and matched speed. the equation is getting too messy.....
 
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