anybody using mismatched ram on a macbook pro

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jgest
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anybody using mismatched ram on a macbook pro

Post by jgest »

I know it is recommended not to mismatch ram. Does this apply to the ram amount, or to manufacturer? I always thought It was for the amount, but a friend argued the other-day that that was not the case and it only applied to the manufacturer. I'd love to add another gig (in my budget) that would give me 1.5 gigs of ram, until I add the other gig, or 2 later.
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MIDI Life Crisis
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Re: anybody using mismatched ram on a macbook pro

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

jgest wrote:I know it is recommended not to mismatch ram. Does this apply to the ram amount, or to manufacturer? I always thought It was for the amount, but a friend argued the other-day that that was not the case and it only applied to the manufacturer. I'd love to add another gig (in my budget) that would give me 1.5 gigs of ram, until I add the other gig, or 2 later.
I believe the pairs must be matched in terms of speed and size. I cannot imagine that the Mac would recognize the specific mfg of the chips as long as the technical specs match EXACTLY.
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azusa749a
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Post by azusa749a »

OWC has a benchmark test about 3 or 4 months ago, its title "To Pair or Not To Pair".
I don't have a bookmarks for it.
All it says is there is no significant difference, you can use any RAM. :D
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midiw
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Re: anybody using mismatched ram on a macbook pro

Post by midiw »

jgest wrote: Does this apply to the ram amount, or to manufacturer?
According to a mac tech friend if you upgrade memory make sure you have matching size in each slot for best graphics performance.

The manufacture you select does not matter although it is advisable to purchase from a top of the line ram mfg.
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Re: anybody using mismatched ram on a macbook pro

Post by Frodo »

midiw wrote:
jgest wrote:According to a mac tech friend if you upgrade memory make sure you have matching size in each slot for best graphics performance.
This is something that has puzzled me. The pro towers ship with 2x 512. If I put 4 x 1GB in, does this mean that keeping the 2 x 512 sticks installed is going to impact negatively on performance? 5GB "worse" than 4GB? Hmm.
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midiw
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Re: anybody using mismatched ram on a macbook pro

Post by midiw »

Frodo wrote:
Hmm.
That also makes me wonder.

Give apple care a call or visit a apple service centre because that is a good question.

In regards to your performance question I would run apple's diagnostics to check the performance or TTPro 4.5x.

If I had a PRO 5 then I would MAX the RAM to 5 GB. Sell off the 512's on eBay. I've max'd my iMac's 17 and 20's and ended up with a handfull of 512's. That's just the way Apple plays the game.

Apple always installs the min RAM it can get away with because they expect the user will spend the bucks to MAX the RAM. That's just good business I guess.
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