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What brand of Ram can i buy from Best buy for mac book Pro?

M

michael31986

macrumors 601
Original poster
Jul 11, 2008
4,590
704
HI, I have a Mac book pro Its from 2011 i have the 2.4ghz intel core i5. I currently have 4gb of ram, but i really need to upgrade to 8. I think it will help my start up time and also my booting of programs. not sure if anyone can confirm this.

Either way which ram from bestbuy can i buy that would work for this macbook? can i buy one 8gb ram chip or i need to buy 2 separate 4gb ram chips?

thanks guys!!
 
Depending how you use your machine you might see some benefit from 8GB. Restart your machine then launch whatever apps you normally use then just use the machine for a day. At the end of the day start Activity Monitor and see if you have pageouts. If page outs is high, you will likely benefit from more memory. If page outs is low or zero you will likely not benefit from more memory.

You need to use 2X 4GB chips. This one at Best Buy will work.
 
michael31986 said:
HI, I have a Mac book pro Its from 2011 i have the 2.4ghz intel core i5. I currently have 4gb of ram, but i really need to upgrade to 8. I think it will help my start up time and also my booting of programs. not sure if anyone can confirm this.

Either way which ram from bestbuy can i buy that would work for this macbook? can i buy one 8gb ram chip or i need to buy 2 separate 4gb ram chips?

thanks guys!!
Click to expand...

Adding RAM will not make your computer start up any faster or make your programs load faster. For that you would need an SSD (solid-state drive). The most RAM you can use is 16GB total.

There are two RAM slots in your computer, and they currently each have a 2GB chip in them. 2 slots * 2 GB chips = 4GB total.

You could add a single 8GB chip, and that would give you 10GB total: 2GB + 8GB.

You could also replace both of your existing chips with 2 4GB chips and have 8GB total.

Either way, you need 204-pin, PC3-10600 DDR3 1333 MHz chips. Any brand will work but most people will recommend Kingston or Crucial. I have bought PNY and Corsair from Best Buy from my Macs with no issues.
 
robvas said:
Adding RAM will not make your computer start up any faster or make your programs load faster. For that you would need an SSD (solid-state drive). The most RAM you can use is 16GB total.

There are two RAM slots in your computer, and they currently each have a 2GB chip in them. 2 slots * 2 GB chips = 4GB total.

You could add a single 8GB chip, and that would give you 10GB total: 2GB + 8GB.

You could also replace both of your existing chips with 2 4GB chips and have 8GB total.

Either way, you need 204-pin, PC3-10600 DDR3 1333 MHz chips. Any brand will work but most people will recommend Kingston or Crucial. I have bought PNY and Corsair from Best Buy from my Macs with no issues.
Click to expand...

oh really? i thought more ram would help it speed up. I mean im looking at activity monitor and i have 0 page outs as of now and 1.17 free
 
michael31986 said:
oh really? i thought more ram would help it speed up. I mean im looking at activity monitor and i have 0 page outs as of now and 1.17 free
Click to expand...

If that is after a few hours of normal usage for you, you are not likely to see any benefit from more RAM.

Here is a good article showing the results of adding memory. Note how little difference it made in most of the tests.

More memory may help apps launch faster the second time you launch them because some of the app may be cached in memory. But that first launch is going to depend largely on drive read speeds.
 
And last I checked BestBuy sells PNY DIMMS. I have NOT had good luck with PNY in Mac's.
 
michael31986 said:
oh really? i thought more ram would help it speed up. I mean im looking at activity monitor and i have 0 page outs as of now and 1.17 free
Click to expand...

This is the problem these days. Thanks to all the cheesy commercials and ads from companies selling memory to fix slow-downs people are seemingly brainwashed into believing them. Technically, a computer will slow right down if you need more memory, but if a computer slows down that doesn't necessarily mean it needs more memory.
 
robvas said:
I used their 8GB Mac Kit for PNY ($39.99) in my unibody MacBook and it worked perfectly.
Click to expand...

Consider yourself lucky, I think if you research further you'll realize you're the exception rather than the rule. I've bought more than one set, I have one set remaining that hasn't (yet) failed.
 
Weaselboy said:
If that is after a few hours of normal usage for you, you are not likely to see any benefit from more RAM.

Here is a good article showing the results of adding memory. Note how little difference it made in most of the tests.

More memory may help apps launch faster the second time you launch them because some of the app may be cached in memory. But that first launch is going to depend largely on drive read speeds.
Click to expand...

I agree with weasel boy . If you are not getting page outs and want speed you will really notice get an SSD.

ps
huge Page ins can cause slowdowns as well on HDD as it can not read and write simultaneously.
 
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