RAM for Early 2011 MacBook Pro?

[APPLE-FANATIC]

Hi Guys,

Does anyone know the maximum for RAM for the Early 2011 MacBook Pro's, I currently I have 8gb installed, but was wanting to increase it a bit more....

 

[simsaladimbamba]

32 GB, but 16 GB is the current limit, as 8 GB 204-pin DDR3 SO-DIMM RAM modules are currently the biggest capacity modules out there.

Upgrading RAM in MacBooks and MacBook Pros​

 

[aircanman]

Hi Guys,

Does anyone know the maximum for RAM for the Early 2011 MacBook Pro's, I currently I have 8gb installed, but was wanting to increase it a bit more....

Just out of interest, what are you doing with it in order to need more than 8GB ram?

 

[APPLE-FANATIC]

Just out of interest, what are you doing with it in order to need more than 8GB ram?

Just curious if it would run my system a bit faster, especially when running certain programs that cause the fans to spin out of control for 2 minutes or so

 

[thekev]

32 GB, but 16 GB is the current limit, as 8 GB 204-pin DDR3 SO-DIMM RAM modules are currently the biggest capacity modules out there.

Upgrading RAM in MacBooks and MacBook Pros​

While 16GB dimms do exist, I am not really sure we'll see sodimms in such a form factor that will work with the current line. It may be something that you only really get with future macbook pros. The notebooks that can take 32GB are typically mobile workstations like the lenovos. They'll take 4 dimms in a notebook form factor. The lenovos aren't too bad. The others are massive hunks of metal that no one really likes to transport. If they own one, it's because no other notebook will really do the job.

Just curious if it would run my system a bit faster, especially when running certain programs that cause the fans to spin out of control for 2 minutes or so

That's not how it works. It can reduce the use of disk access for virtual memory. If a certain amount of heat is being generated by that it would reduce such heat generation. Overall more ram probably increases heat generated by memory by a negligible amount. I go with 16 because I run things that take a lot of ram. For a certain subset of tasks I could use even more.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Just curious if it would run my system a bit faster, especially when running certain programs that cause the fans to spin out of control for 2 minutes or so

That is due to CPU activity and not due to not enough RAM.

Open Activity Monitor and go to the System Memory* tab and look for Page Outs and Swap used and report back.

Using Activity Monitor to show you CPU and RAM usage​

* Mac OS X: Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor​