I am upgrading my mid 2009 Macbook Pro to 8gb ram. Does it matter whether I buy it as a kit, or can it be just two 4gb stix of the same brand? Best Buy has Kingston 4GB PC3 8500 DDR3 Model: KTA-MB1066/4GETR for $34.99. On another thread, a member said that you should only buy it as a kit.
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Upgrade Macbook Pro Memory
- Thread starter roux
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if u buy a kit they are paired and will work better. 2 seperate sticks will work. but likely less fast
There are reasons to purchase kits for use in dual channel and triple channel systems. When you buy two seperate sticks of RAM, the actual chips on the RAM may be different, and that can negatively impact overall memory performance. If you go and look at the PNY RAM Best Buy is selling, you'll probably see that there's different chips on each stick. I've worked at both Best Buy and CompUSA in the past, so I've seen this on multiple occasions. Because memory kits are matched not only by speed and size, but by the chips on the sticks themselves, you are insuring the best possible performance.
Not true. There's no such thing as RAM being "paired", the kits are just convenient so you can get the RAM you want in one package. There is absolutely no difference between a kit and buying two separate sticks from the same brand.
Depends on the brand. Someone like Crucial makes their own RAM so the same part number is a indentical spec, whereas with say PNY the chips on the DIMM could well be from different manufacturers for the same SKU.
A kit will ensure you get a pair from the same batch.
A kit will ensure you get a pair from the same batch.
What? two different sticks works slower? - What, by 1 millisecond?
from where did you got this one? - man---, people come up with all kind of worthless "details" like this one, like someone will notice any difference between two different memory sticks.
Jesus Henry Christ....., lol, lol, RF,
The chipset could notice and disable dual channel if the SPD info doesn't match. On a machine with integrated graphics thats a 5-10% performance hit.
Oh, yeah, 10% from a millisecond is gonna be a big deal for you to notice. Isn't that so, pardner?
lol, lol, lol, loooooooooooooooooooooooooool---
rf
Pardner? Eh? Sorry don't understand.
It's not 10% of a millisecond, it's an overall drop on a benchmark run. 10% is typically the difference in CPU speed between the standard and say better models in the Apple range. The lack of dual channel bottlenecks the entire system. It's less of an issue on a MacBook Pro apart from those with 9400M graphics.
I usually buy my RAM upgrades as a kit from Crucial.
It's not 10% of a millisecond, it's an overall drop on a benchmark run. 10% is typically the difference in CPU speed between the standard and say better models in the Apple range. The lack of dual channel bottlenecks the entire system. It's less of an issue on a MacBook Pro apart from those with 9400M graphics.
I usually buy my RAM upgrades as a kit from Crucial.