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RAM-upgrade-question in a 17" 2011 Macbook Pro

preservation82

preservation82

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 5, 2016
15
0
i'd like to go from the stock 8GB of RAM to 16, and i saw a YouTube tutorial that showed how to do this:

my MBP has 1 SDD for applications and the stock 750GB for photo/video storage - i don't think that'd make any difference in this scenario but then again it's been a long time since i opened a Mac of any sort.

i'm just wondering if i found the right type of RAM on Amazon and if there are better/cheaper alternatives that could do the trick---or if i'll be punished for being a cheapskate when it comes to RAM.

is this the proper type shown in the video ??
http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Vengeance-Performance-1600MHz-CMSX16GX3M2B1600C9/dp/B00EXPNG5Y


cheers,

andrew
 
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FYI, you should have posted this in the MacBook Pro Forum, not the Mac Pro (desktop workstation) forum.

I had a Late 2011 17", the late 2011 series of MacBook Pro's do indeed allow for installation of faster DDR3 1600MHz ram (I think they're stock configured with 1333). I ran 16gb of 1600 in mine foretell over a year. It was fully recognized by the system...Just sold that lovely machine to try out an iPad Pro.

At quick glance, the ram you linked should work fine. I think I picked mine up off the shelf at best buy on sale.
 
I installed 16gb of 1333mhz ram into my 2011 17" MBP 3 years ago and it has run without a hitch. For a 2011 machine it is still blazing fast for all I throw at it. I'm about to sell it but only because I have moved to Mac Pro because the newest Macbooks are a waste of £2k IMO since they aren't as fast as 2 year old macbooks, have even less ports and offer me literally nothing I can get excited about. So, I figured, now I no longer have Applecare I might as well switch to a machine I can at least easily and cost effectively upgrade and repair myself until such time as Apple make a new Macbook I consider a worthwhile upgrade - now I have a 2010 Mac Pro - take note Apple.
 
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pretty stoked- i'll be ordering the corsair vengeance RAM tonight through Amazon.
i only need to record 1 track at a time in my DAWS (Reason/Reaper) and make basic demos
to export to Soundcloud for bandmates to collaborate on.

should be enough to last me another 3 yrs and then i suspect iPads (or something similar) will be taking over...

btw, rawweb: sorry about the wrong forum-posting... i guess i'm too new/excited about fixing up this machine !
 
You can even use much faster RAM with those:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NTQ0GOM

No problems with my Late-2011.

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that's awesome- thanks ! i'll go for that... but i do think this might be an early 2011 and not later... is it still compatible ?
 
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Yes, not a 2011 model.
However, that was sold as new until February 2011.
So, maybe the seller purchased it new in 2011... That doesn't change what it is, however.
No upgrading past 8GB, and certainly not with that much faster memory.
 
preservation82 said:
ugh- it's listed as a 2011 and the dude is on his way to sell it - 20mins...
Click to expand...

Maybe he just bought it in 2011. My Mid-2010 white MacBook don't accept anything faster than 1066MHz RAM. But it's a Core 2 Duo. I don't know if it might work even with 1333MHz.

Screen Shot 2016-01-08 at 01.42.54.png
 
Intel says DDR 800/1066 RAM for that CPU, but for mine it says DDR3 1066/1333/1600 and despite that it's able to run 1866 and 2133MHz DDR3L too.

http://ark.intel.com/products/43544/Intel-Core-i5-540M-Processor-3M-Cache-2_53-GHz

http://ark.intel.com/products/53476/Intel-Core-i7-2860QM-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-3_60-GHz

preservation82 said:
wow...then i don't really want to pay $700 for it...
Click to expand...

Seems really too expensive. You won't have Thunderbolt and SATA-III also a much slower CPU and GPUs + maximum RAM 8GB.
 
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wow- i think you guys just helped me avoid a big issue !
dude called me searching for my house- so i asked him if he had seen my texts about
the model year discrepancy... guy got REALLY pissy and said "this is a $5000 computer and
the hard drives are 2015 - you're wasting my time !" he abruptly hung up and i could hear him
cursing out in front of my house.

: I

i think i like this forum.


now i'm off to try and find a machine that actually works. : (
 
preservation82 said:
wow- i think you guys just helped me avoid a big issue !
dude called me searching for my house- so i asked him if he had seen my texts about
the model year discrepancy... guy got REALLY pissy and said "this is a $5000 computer and
the hard drives are 2015 - you're wasting my time !" he abruptly hung up and i could hear him
cursing out in front of my house.
Click to expand...

:mad:

Could you send me the link to it by private message?
 
sorry, already flagged it on CL.
dude didn't even want to hear how it meant i wouldn't be able to upgrade to 16GB RAM (which i told him was my objective from our earliest e-mails)
 
preservation82 said:
sorry, already flagged it on CL.
dude didn't even want to hear how it meant i wouldn't be able to upgrade to 16GB RAM (which i told him was my objective from our earliest e-mails)
Click to expand...

I just saw you already posted a link. The price for that configuration had been $2.349 when he bought it new directly from Apple in 2011. And he just added a 128GB SSD, what might be $50-60 including a caddy to replace the optical drive if you buy that now.

$5000 Computer... :D
 
y'know, when i find myself wanting to complain about "how hard it is" to find a proper used Mac i suddenly think of
what a jerk i sound like...so i won't complain. it's just back to the drawing board for me.
i look at Craigslist b/c of course local deals don't need a 3rd party like eBay but wow - you can run into some really "interesting" folks.
 
Those local deal websites have not a good reputation here. The prices often look too good to be true.

I saw many questions here in the forums if buying on eBay is save and wonder about it. Maybe it's because of the different consumer rights situation in the USA compared to the EU.

With looking at the sellers feedback, using PayPal and secured shipping your are save in almost every case here if something might go wrong.

I bought and sold so much on eBay (including several Macs and iPhones) and never had any problem.
 
preservation82 said:
that's awesome- thanks ! i'll go for that...
Click to expand...
Nothing wrong with getting the fast RAM, but just keep in mind that it will have virtually no impact on real-world performance, so don't spend a lot of extra money for it.

Sometimes the benchmark numbers look impressive on a chart, but what really counts is the Integer and Floating Point, which the benchmarks show as about a 1% - 2% difference between the 1333MHz and the 2133MHz.

The Memory performance is obviously much higher, but as has been shown again and again, those synthetic memory benchmarks rarely have much affect on actual real-world performance.

Really glad to hear you avoided that shady CL seller just in the nick of time! Way to go Erdbeertorte!
 
ixxx69 said:
Nothing wrong with getting the fast RAM, but just keep in mind that it will have virtually no impact on real-world performance, so don't spend a lot of extra money for it.

Sometimes the benchmark numbers look impressive on a chart, but what really counts is the Integer and Floating Point, which the benchmarks show as about a 1% - 2% difference between the 1333MHz and the 2133MHz.

The Memory performance is obviously much higher, but as has been shown again and again, those synthetic memory benchmarks rarely have much affect on actual real-world performance.

Really glad to hear you avoided that shady CL seller just in the nick of time! Way to go Erdbeertorte!
Click to expand...
This thread got me thinking about going from 8GB to 16GB on my late 2011 17"

I have a 1TB SSD installed at it gave me the greatest performance boost - how can I gauge what to expect going from 8GB to 16GB RAM?

I'll most likely stay with the 1600mHz

I don't do any gaming, just web browsing (Firefox is RAM hungry), Photoshop, Office 2013, and a few other apps.
I occasionally use Parallels which is also RAM hungry.
 

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Erdbeertorte said:
Those local deal websites have not a good reputation here. The prices often look too good to be true.

I saw many questions here in the forums if buying on eBay is save and wonder about it. Maybe it's because of the different consumer rights situation in the USA compared to the EU.

With looking at the sellers feedback, using PayPal and secured shipping your are save in almost every case here if something might go wrong.

I bought and sold so much on eBay (including several Macs and iPhones) and never had any problem.
Click to expand...


You just gotta be smart about it. People who agree to meet in populated areas are usually fine in my experience
 
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