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Nobody wants your RAM.

Detektiv-Pinky said:
What do you think about replacing just one RAM module with 2 or 4 Gb?

You could than have a 3 or 5 Gb configuration!
Click to expand...

3GB is an acceptable configuration, but pairs work best. 5GB is unlikely because 4GB sticks of DDR3 are extremely expensive ($500).
 
chrmjenkins said:
3GB is an acceptable configuration, but pairs work best. 5GB is unlikely because 4GB sticks of DDR3 are extremely expensive ($500).
Click to expand...

Agreed. Don't even think about putting unpaired RAM into your machine. It's a bad idea and you will see worse performance overall. You need 1 by 1 or 2 by 2 in that machine to have it truly function correctly. Good luck finding a 4GB chip... The problem there would be that the machine would need a software update to recognize 2 4GB chips. Yes, the chipset will allow it, but the software will not.

Max on these machines for now... 4GB in a 2 by 2 configuration.
 
Yep.

After upgrading about 6 iMacs at work, one iMac at home, my daughters laptop, and my MBP, I have about 16 of those 1GB chips just laying around.
I'm thinking of building something out of them.
Or something.

WRC
 
radionickhead said:
Well that blew the wind out of my sales..
Click to expand...

So you're a windy salesman? Or you sell ballons?

wcalderini said:
After upgrading about 6 iMacs at work, one iMac at home, my daughters laptop, and my MBP, I have about 16 of those 1GB chips just laying around.
I'm thinking of building something out of them.
Or something.

WRC
Click to expand...

Build a caricature of Jobs and send him a picture of it, along with a picture of you in a robe with the title "I love you."
 
piano08man said:
Agreed. Don't even think about putting unpaired RAM into your machine. It's a bad idea and you will see worse performance overall. You need 1 by 1 or 2 by 2 in that machine to have it truly function correctly. Good luck finding a 4GB chip... The problem there would be that the machine would need a software update to recognize 2 4GB chips. Yes, the chipset will allow it, but the software will not.

Max on these machines for now... 4GB in a 2 by 2 configuration.
Click to expand...

Well, I have seen some reports (not on the current Macbooks) that show that unmatched modules, contrary to popular believe, are not that much of a slow down. I think it is definitely an improvement over a swapping system.

What do you mean by software-update? OSX is able to handle more than 4Gb and people have installed more than 4Gb in their previous gen Macbook Pros without any kind of software update...:confused:
 
funkdis said:
Ill be upgrading it myself not becuase i'll save $20/30, its just i want to take my MB apart, I think of it as lego, take it apart, put it together, take it apart, put it together. :) I've done it with everything in life, even my Tv's, VCR's, Dvd, car, stove, piano...... lt goes on and on.

but the Apple price is actually very well priced, its actually about 15% cheaper for Apple Japan to upgrade your ram then it is to do it yourself. not bad at all i say.
Click to expand...
And at the end, if you're like me, you'll have a couple of screws laying around and don't know where they came from :D
 
Detektiv-Pinky said:
Well, I have seen some reports (not on the current Macbooks) that show that unmatched modules, contrary to popular believe, are not that much of a slow down. I think it is definitely an improvement over a swapping system.

What do you mean by software-update? OSX is able to handle more than 4Gb and people have installed more than 4Gb in their previous gen Macbook Pros without any kind of software update...:confused:
Click to expand...

Sorry, I should have clarified a little bit more. It's not technically the OS that would need an update. It's the hardware itself. To properly utilize 8GB of RAM, the firmware for the machine would need to be updated and possibly a system update as well. Sure, you can get the machine to run on and recognize more than what's reported as the maximum amount of RAM, but I'll still hold to the fact that in certain situations, it will not run as well as you hope.

Specifically, video intensive applications seem to run slower when RAM is unpaired versus paired, even if the unpaired amount is more RAM. You may notice a slight improvement in everyday activities... but I can tell you from experience that two systems (one running 2 GB paired and one running 3GB unpaired) will not run at equal capacity under a high load. The 2GB system runs noticeably better.
 
I just called apple to see if I could upgrade the ram, and it would cost around 85GBP with the discount (and they'd keep the other ram as stated) - but they'd have to cancel my order and process it again..and I'm in no mood for waiting 3 more weeks...
I figured I could buy 4gb ram from a 3rd party company for as much..and to be honest after thinking about it, its probably a risk selling the current 2GB in the macbook anyway - since if anything happened to it and you wanted to take advantage of apple care you'd have to put the original ram back inside - if you've sold it then you're in trouble :/
so I guess technically I didn't really miss out on a deal but if my macbook ever needs fixing im going to have to swap ram around which isn't that big a deal.
Anyone agreeing with me would make me feel a bit better :D
 
piano08man said:
Agreed. Don't even think about putting unpaired RAM into your machine. It's a bad idea and you will see worse performance overall.
Click to expand...

:confused: Again, completely wrong. I ran my previous gen Macbook with 3GB of ram for the entire year that I owned it (minus a brief test run with the original ram). Both my experience and tests by companies like OWC have shown that the advantage of 2+1GB rather than 1+1GB is substantial for almost all tasks.
 
srobert said:
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. On Apple's tech specs page for the MacBook:
Click to expand...

At least they've stopped soldering one bar in, as they did in my 12" Powerbook G4 :mad:

An advantage of buying third party RAM is that the warranty is usually much better than Apple's warranty.
 
piano08man said:
Sorry, I should have clarified a little bit more. It's not technically the OS that would need an update. It's the hardware itself. To properly utilize 8GB of RAM, the firmware for the machine would need to be updated and possibly a system update as well. Sure, you can get the machine to run on and recognize more than what's reported as the maximum amount of RAM, but I'll still hold to the fact that in certain situations, it will not run as well as you hope.

Specifically, video intensive applications seem to run slower when RAM is unpaired versus paired, even if the unpaired amount is more RAM. You may notice a slight improvement in everyday activities... but I can tell you from experience that two systems (one running 2 GB paired and one running 3GB unpaired) will not run at equal capacity under a high load. The 2GB system runs noticeably better.
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot for this explanation! It is good to get some feedback on Real experience rather than some artificial benchmarks...

I am not doing video intensive stuff right now. And 2 Gb is usually plenty for my work. I is only that the system starts swapping memory out, when I begin to use XP with Parallels. I think I will go the 2+1 road and if this does not work out I can still put 2+2 in later ;)
 
munckee said:
:confused: Again, completely wrong. I ran my previous gen Macbook with 3GB of ram for the entire year that I owned it (minus a brief test run with the original ram). Both my experience and tests by companies like OWC have shown that the advantage of 2+1GB rather than 1+1GB is substantial for almost all tasks.
Click to expand...

Here we go. One guy says it works great, the other one says the opposite ::confused:

What should I believe now? :rolleyes:
 
Detektiv-Pinky said:
I am reminded of this saying: There are lies, there are damn lies and there are Benchmarks.
Click to expand...

I'm sure there are... I've offered my experience. I've showed you what info I used to make my decision. From there its up to you to decide what the "lies" and what the benchmarks are. :eek:
 
Detektiv-Pinky said:
Thanks, and interesting figures, especially that in some configurations the 2x2 seems to be slower than 2x1 (Xbench, 2.4 model).


I am reminded of this saying: There are lies, there are damn lies and there are Benchmarks.
Click to expand...

Less than 3%. Not statistically significant.
 
radionickhead said:
I just called apple to see if I could upgrade the ram, and it would cost around 85GBP with the discount (and they'd keep the other ram as stated) - but they'd have to cancel my order and process it again..and I'm in no mood for waiting 3 more weeks...
I figured I could buy 4gb ram from a 3rd party company for as much..and to be honest after thinking about it, its probably a risk selling the current 2GB in the macbook anyway - since if anything happened to it and you wanted to take advantage of apple care you'd have to put the original ram back inside - if you've sold it then you're in trouble :/
so I guess technically I didn't really miss out on a deal but if my macbook ever needs fixing im going to have to swap ram around which isn't that big a deal.
Anyone agreeing with me would make me feel a bit better :D
Click to expand...

Relax, unless your maxing the macine out all the time, you will not and I repeat not be unhappy with your new machine. I've just bought one for my daughter and believe me it's fine with 2Gb, I have 4Gb in my 2Ghz white macbook and its quite a bit faster than that.
 
Never buy memory from Apple. You're just encouraging them to rip-off their own customers.

For memory which is far less costly and much higher in quality than what Apple sells, buy online from Crucial.com.

4GB kit for new aluminum MacBook 2.0 GHz:

http://www.crucial.com/store/listpa...GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (13-inch DDR3) MB466LL/A

4GB kit for new aluminum MacBook 2.4 GHz:

http://www.crucial.com/store/listpa...GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (13-inch DDR3) MB467LL/A

Yes, they are both the exact same kit. Right now, the price is US $141.99.

If you buy from Crucial, Crucial will not confiscate your stock memory cards like Apple routinely does. Don't encourage Apple's anti-consumer practices.
 
ThomasJL said:
Never buy memory from Apple. You're just encouraging them to rip-off their own customers.

For memory which is far less costly and much higher in quality than what Apple sells, buy online from Crucial.com.

4GB kit for new aluminum MacBook 2.0 GHz:

http://www.crucial.com/store/listpa...GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (13-inch DDR3) MB466LL/A

4GB kit for new aluminum MacBook 2.4 GHz:

http://www.crucial.com/store/listpa...GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (13-inch DDR3) MB467LL/A

Yes, they are both the exact same kit. Right now, the price is US $141.99.

If you buy from Crucial, Crucial will not confiscate your stock memory cards like Apple routinely does. Don't encourage Apple's anti-consumer practices.
Click to expand...

If you read through the thread, you'd see that what to do with the original RAM was the OP point.

I still maintain that Apples price at $150 installed is pretty good. Crucial hasn't had any DDR3 2G sticks in-stock that I've seen. I went w. OWC because it was available.
 
munckee said:
I'm sure there are... I've offered my experience. I've showed you what info I used to make my decision. From there its up to you to decide what the "lies" and what the benchmarks are. :eek:
Click to expand...

Oh, this was not against you - I am quite thankful for your reply.
I think it shows that in general it is better to have more RAM, when your applications use it, than have it perfectly paired.

However it also shows that there could be an adverse effect on performance if you are running apps that require a lot of I/O, but do not fill up your memory...
 
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