Two sticks of RAM in different amounts. Will there be issues?

[JonHimself]

I have the 13" mbp. My friend bought the wrong kind of RAM and was going to sell it to me (it'll work in the mbp). I've only ever had either 1 stick of RAM or two sticks of the same amount in the two other mac laptops I've owned previously.
Right now I have two 1GB sticks, can I take one out and put in a 2GB stick? I'll end up with a 1GB stick that it came with and this new 2GB stick for a total of 3GB. Is there anything wrong with this or should I go out and buy a second stick of the RAM my friend is selling me?

 

[revs]

That will be fine, you can mix different sizes.

If the pair matches then they both work together in dual-channel mode, which has speed advantages, however, 3GB of unmatched RAM is better than 2GB of matched.

Always go for the most RAM, even if it isnt matched, as the extra RAM outweighs the speed advantages of less, matched RAM.

 

[JonHimself]

That will be fine, you can mix different sizes.

If the pair matches then they both work together in dual-channel mode, which has speed advantages, however, 3GB of unmatched RAM is better than 2GB of matched.

Always go for the most RAM, even if it isnt matched, as the extra RAM outweighs the speed advantages of less, matched RAM.

Good to know! I assumed that it would be fine but thought maybe there was some odd limitation because I had never seen it otherwise. I'll probably just end up buying a second stick of the same 2GB anyways to match it but it's good to know I don't have to rush out to get that.

 

[sammich]

It's no problem at all. I had the stock 2 GB then replaced one of them with a 2 GB sticks later.

Aside: dual channel mode benefits are almost invisible to day to day tasks, it would not concern anyone unless that machine is used as a production machine.

 

[JonHimself]

It's no problem at all. I had the stock 2 GB then replaced one of them with a 2 GB sticks later.

Aside: dual channel mode benefits are almost invisible to day to day tasks, it would not concern anyone unless that machine is used as a production machine.

Thanks! Aside from me pretending to be a photographer and using Aperture, the most "intensive" task I do is ripping and encoding DVDs.

 

[m85476585]

When I went from 4gb to 6gb and lost dual-channel, the difference was very small in benchmarks (a few %), far outweighed by the extra RAM capacity. Almost nothing is memory-intensive enough to be significantly affected by the loss of dual-channel.

 

[jfyrfytr25]

i was going to say exactly what the guys above said. they are right on the money.