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Will Snow Leopard increase memory capacity on the Unibody MacBooks?

L

luiso455

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 26, 2008
17
0
We all know that you could never have enough memory in our computers, so I have a fairly simple question to ask. When OS 10.6.0 comes out a.k.a. Snow Leopard, will all the Intel Core 2 Duo machines have an increased ram capacity. It looks more and more everyday as if 4GB is becoming a standard in machines and all across the board (Dell,Hp,Apple) computer these days are handling 8GB of ram with ease. So does anybody know if when Snow Leopard comes out, will there be a potential for my MacBook to contain 8GB of ram?

P.S Right now with 10.5.6 how much ram can my Aluminum MacBook hold officially...? 6.....8.....16? ;-) :apple:
 
luiso455 said:
We all know that you could never have enough memory in our computers,
Click to expand...

Sure you can, just plan your memory capacity in accordance to your usage and keep a little extra for future expansion.

It's not hard either with the Activity Monitor to gather data about usage patterns.
 
KnightWRX said:
Sure you can, just plan your memory capacity in accordance to your usage and keep a little extra for future expansion.

It's not hard either with the Activity Monitor to gather data about usage patterns.
Click to expand...
I think the OP just meant that more RAM is always good - as in "you can never have too much RAM" - not that they had not planned well enough for their current needs.
 
Boston Fan said:
I think the OP just meant that more RAM is always good - as in "you can never have too much RAM" - not that they had not planned well enough for their current needs.
Click to expand...

while i get what you are saying. you can DEFINITELY have too much RAM :D

right now, unless i'm virtualizing windows on parallels and video chatting + rendering HD video WHILE watching a DVD, running every Adobe prorgram x2 (under windows, AND os x)

i dont see a need for 32GB of RAM


but then again.... if you have a computer based job where you can afford to upgrade your RAM that much. you probably require it
 
Again, It's just an expression. You don't post nutritional facts when someone goes "You can't have too much cheese", do you? :p

To the OP - as someone already mentioned, it's a hardware issue. Just like the first C2D MacBooks could only address 3.3 GB of RAM despite the fact they had 64-bit CPUs, newer models also have certain hardware limitations. These cannot be changed through software in the future.
 
michael.lauden said:
while i get what you are saying. you can DEFINITELY have too much RAM :D

right now, unless i'm virtualizing windows on parallels and video chatting + rendering HD video WHILE watching a DVD, running every Adobe prorgram x2 (under windows, AND os x)

i dont see a need for 32GB of RAM
Click to expand...

I understand what you are saying..... but really what you are saying does not mean that some one can have to much ram. Just because some oen does not need it does not mean they should not have it.


mbradyrn said:
No, it's not a software/firmware issue
Click to expand...
That is not exactly true... There are a lot of cases where a motherboard can accept more ram with a firmware/bios update (PC world).. So don't rule out that issue just yet. And There couuld be a firmware patch to fix the 8gb issue of macbooks.

When having too much ram starts doing harm, that is when you have too much ram.... Not when you dont need it ;)
an example would be the 8gb causing instability in the macbook.. ;)
 
VPrime said:
When having too much ram starts doing harm, that is when you have too much ram.... Not when you dont need it ;)
an example would be the 8gb causing instability in the macbook.. ;)
Click to expand...

Or this example:
If I were to take out one of my 1GB chipsets and replace it with a 2GB chipset, my macBook won't start. If I leave it that way, I will always have too much RAM. (as opposed to never have too much RAM). ;)
 
luiso455 said:
We all know that you could never have enough memory in our computers, so I have a fairly simple question to ask. When OS 10.6.0 comes out a.k.a. Snow Leopard, will all the Intel Core 2 Duo machines have an increased ram capacity. It looks more and more everyday as if 4GB is becoming a standard in machines and all across the board (Dell,Hp,Apple) computer these days are handling 8GB of ram with ease. So does anybody know if when Snow Leopard comes out, will there be a potential for my MacBook to contain 8GB of ram?

P.S Right now with 10.5.6 how much ram can my Aluminum MacBook hold officially...? 6.....8.....16? ;-) :apple:
Click to expand...

The Dells and HPs you mention also ship with Vista which is know as a huge memory hog. 4 GB in Vista is much different that 4 GB in OS X. OS X sitting at an idle after a fresh reboot and no programs open doesnt eat up almost 2 GB
 
VPrime said:
I understand what you are saying..... but really what you are saying does not mean that some one can have to much ram. Just because some oen does not need it does not mean they should not have it.
Click to expand...

That's where capacity planning comes in. Instead of just buying the maximum amount, plan your needs accordingly and budget for future expansion, and you'll spend the right amount of money instead of too much money.

This goes for everything, not just ram (do you really need that Mac Pro to browse the web and play some WoW ?).

VPrime said:
When having too much ram starts doing harm, that is when you have too much ram.... Not when you dont need it ;)
an example would be the 8gb causing instability in the macbook.. ;)
Click to expand...

Waste of money is considered harmful, at least to me. It's what started this whole economic crissis thing in the first place.
 
Ohhh.

Thanks for all the reponses. I guess I'm "stuck" with my 4GB of ram. ;-)

Apple FTW!
 
NewMacbookPlz said:
Generally, the effect of more RAM is greater than the loss of dual channel support.
Click to expand...

Not if the extra RAM is sitting there unused because of poor planning. Right now, with only 2 GB installed, I have about 1 Gig of RAM that's free.

Of course, I'm not actually using my computer besides from MSN and Firefox. For some people, 4 GB is already overkill, 6 GB is just a waste of money. For the people that need it, of course the extra RAM is better since swapping pages out is the bigger performance hit.
 
i didn't say that you wouldn't have a performance hit. the guy said, "I'm stuck with 4GB", and I said, "No, you're not". And that is true. If you're going to upgrade to 6GB just for the sake of doing it, that's dumb anyway. But if you need more than 4GB, the benefit of having more will outweigh the performance hit with the loss of dual-channel. that's been tested and proven over and over.
 
Roy Hobbs said:
The Dells and HPs you mention also ship with Vista which is know as a huge memory hog. 4 GB in Vista is much different that 4 GB in OS X. OS X sitting at an idle after a fresh reboot and no programs open doesnt eat up almost 2 GB
Click to expand...
A little exaggeration never causes too much harm but that's just false. On a system with 1GB+ of RAM installed, Vista will in general use a little over 512MB after booting, and thats with the sidebar and a few extra processes going on in the background.
 
You can never have too much RAM; if you have extra RAM, you can always mount the excess as a RAM disk for using as a scratch disk for Photoshop or Final Cut (way faster than any SSD and only a tad slower than directly accessing RAM.
 
michael.lauden said:
however... right now you may want to look at some benchmarks before you decide to spend a million dollars + lose your dual channel support...


http://www.barefeats.com/mbpp11.html
Click to expand...
Except that their conclusion is that 6gb is preferable:

CONCLUSION
... you should have no worries about a speed penalty imposed by non-matching memory modules and loss of interleaving.

And when you consider the 6GB configuration potentially means less virtual memory swaps, then the only consideration is the cost. Maybe instead of ordering your MBP with the $500 128GB SSD, you should save your money for a 4GB memory module.

Looks like a winning combination to me. You can never be too thin, too rich, or have too much memory.
Click to expand...
 
That is not exactly true... There are a lot of cases where a motherboard can accept more ram with a firmware/bios update (PC world).. So don't rule out that issue just yet. And There couuld be a firmware patch to fix the 8gb issue of macbooks.

This is an interesting question -- In the past, limitations on Ram were sometimes because Apple put out specs before a bigger Ram size was available -- I have a wall street with 512k ram to prove it -- so sometimes times, all you have to do is try it and see.

With the MBP you have it's a hardware issue, not solvable by software or firmware manipulation.

That being said in an authoritative way -- I remember saying that my performa 6400 would never be upgradable because the cpu was soldered -- but then came daughter cards -- so, you never know.
 
i would love 8gb of ram, then i can get better response out of my vm sessions and OSX :)
 
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