Which ram to get 4x1gb or 2x2gb from OWC?

[langezwieper]

I've bought a mac pro in jan 2008 with the 8 core 2.8 ghz setup and 2x 1gb of ram.

Now i want to upgrade but im doubting what will give me the most performance:

4x1gb = 137 dollar
2x2gb = 95 dollar

What would you guys do? I read that one gb modules are faster because I already have 2x1 gb and with 1gb all modules will be even...

 

[Chaos123x]

Are you serious?

yes quad channel is faster if it is the same speed and the same exact brand and model.

But 2x2gb is much better deal, you never know how much RAM you will be putting into your machine so I always try to get the bigger chips.

 

[langezwieper]

Are you serious?

yes quad channel is faster if it is the same speed and the same exact brand and model.

But 2x2gb is much better deal, you never know how much RAM you will be putting into your machine so I always try to get the bigger chips.

Hm okay, but except the price, its better to have the 1gb then...
just saw this offer on owc

8GB (2GBx4) PC6400 DDR2 ECC for 189 maybe i will order that configuration and remove my currently installed 2x1gb ram, then i have the best of both worlds, a lot of ram and still a lot of speed right?

 

[NoNameBrand]

You may want to test out your system with 8GB of RAM vs 10GB. Depending on what you're doing, 10 might be more of a benefit than a faster 8 (or 6 vs 4).

http://barefeats.com/harper3.html

Looks as though the maximum speed is two sets of four sticks, where the RAM in each set is the same, but it doesn't have to be the same between the sets.

 

[POLOgt]

I have looked at a couple of memory tests with the Mac Pro Early 2008, and it is a very noticeable improvement to fill all your memory slots (8 DIMMS),

it is also more expensive, but ebay has had some sub $50 for 2x1GB Apple DIMMS for sale, I would recommend filling your system up with all 1GB unless you are doing something that requires more. That will give you the fastest speeds.

 

[madboom]

The prices have dropped yet again.

you can go directly to 16 Gb for under $400 from OWC. Even since I discovered Vmware Fusion my memory usage has been steadily increasing and 8 just wasn't really enough anymore. If you already spent nearly $3000 on a 8 core machine why not feed it right and go to 8 or 16 gigs?

Your just wasting money if you have one of these monsters and it only has 2 or 4 gigs of memory. Better off buying something with a C2D if your going to use 4 gigs or less of memory.

But I digress....

You will get more memory bandwidth with all slots filled and I think you will actually get a slight penalty for having 2 or 6 slots filled. Either run with 4 filled or 8 regardless of what size chips they are. Mixing 1 and 2 gig chips will also probably hurt your throughput so keep them the same if you can. The truth is though if you have been running with 2X1 no matter what you do more memory will help you anyway.

 

[ndriver182]

So if I wanted a total of 8 gigs would I be ok to just buy 6x1gb from OWC to go along with the 2x1gb that came with my system? Or is it really necessary to get 8x1gb from OWC to make sure all sticks are totally the same?

 

[madboom]

You should be totally fine with 6 & 2, as I understand it it's mostly important that each pair is identical not all eight sticks. As long as they all run @ 800mhz I don't see much problem with such a configuration.

Some will probably disagree with this analysis, but you should be good to go.