New MacBooks and MBPs can handle up to 6GB of RAM

Is it just me or is it pretty mindblowing what Moore's Law is doing to our computers these days? I remember when 64mb of RAM was great, and even a few years ago, I wondered why anyone would ever use 1GB of RAM (I've got 2GB in my gaming PC, and I still almost think it's too much). But apparently TidBITS has been doing some testing, and they've discovered that not only can the new MacBooks hold 4GB of RAM as Apple recommends for a limit, but stuffing a whopping 6GB in there is possible and doable. There are two DDR3 slots in the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros, and they come with either 1GB or 2GB in each DIMM slot.

TidBITS says you can switch out one of those 2GB DIMMs for a 4GB, and voilà, as long as they're the same speed and type, apparently almost everything is hunky-dory. TidBITS says there are two drawbacks: one, that dual-channel architecture requires identical DIMMs, so that's out if you're running a 4GB and 2GB configuration. Plus, it'll cost you an arm and a leg, especially if your leg is priced at around $600, which is what a 4GB stick runs. Even the DDR2 is pricey at that level (then again, if you don't like memory prices, just wait about five minutes, because that's basically how often they change).

And for some reason, there's an issue with running two 4GB sticks in there (for a total of 8GB), but TidBITS surmises that may be fixed by the time Snow Leopard rolls around. Personally, I'd love to see a program that needs 6GB of RAM -- maybe a high end 3D modeler or a financial simulator of some kind. But it's good to know that if you really need that much memory (and have the cash to spend on it), there you go.

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Source: http://db.tidbits.com/article/9839

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Analysis / Opinion Hardware Apple Macbook Pro MacBook

Is it just me or is it pretty mindblowing what Moore's Law is doing to our computers these days? I remember when 64mb of RAM was great,...

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Kelmon

Heck, I still remember spending hundreds of pounds about 15-years ago for 8MB of RAM for my old 486/Pentium (I forget which one now). I am constantly shocked by how cheap computing is compared to what it used to cost.

November 05 2008 at 2:41 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

tim

do you think i can add to 3gb in my 17" core duo? its not a core 2. i hope so, because i need it lol. i do a lot of photoshop and lightroom.

November 04 2008 at 10:23 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Peter Payne

I gave up my tower Mac Pro at home because I got tired of maintaining that many Macs (main machine at work, laptop, big machine at home, VRs inside the Macs). Since I open 100+ Photoshop images at a time, I can easily use this. So hmm, I'm a lot more interested in the new machines than I was.

November 04 2008 at 10:08 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Valentino

This limit is senseless, nobody actually tested them with a 64bit OS. Its OSX that only supports 6gb on ram on the macbook and macbook pro. At least try running macosx server or ubuntu 64bit. Why is nobody doing this test instead? The guys at fixit admitted only doing the test with ubuntu 32bit, of course they would only see 4GB...

November 03 2008 at 11:42 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Valentino's comment

Joergen Geerds

Total nonsense. OSX supports a ton of RAM, despite the fact that it's a mixed 32/64 bit OS. Sure, each application can have only a 3GB slice of the cake, but having a ton of RAM still lets the system breathe easier under heavy load.
The limiting factor on MBPs and iMacs is probably the hardware memory controller, if that is only a 32bit chip, then it's not going beyond the 4GB limit, if it's a 33bit controller you can have 8GB :-)

November 04 2008 at 12:42 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Valo

Wow so can my old MacBook Pro, this is nothing new.

November 03 2008 at 10:09 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Michael

Man, I need this for Crysis and Half-Life.

November 03 2008 at 7:48 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

yinyang

oops - damn auto fill!!

What I meant to post was...

The 6Gb on the older MBPs has been around for a while now -

http://forums.mactalk.com.au/29/58184-g-skill-4gb-ram-single-stick-works-macbookpro-1x4gb-1x2gb-6gb-works.html

I've been running 6Gb on my early 2008 MBP and Aperture seems to appreciate the extra 2Gb, especially if I've got lot of other things unning as well.

It's a bit pricey (AU$200 for 4Gb DIMM) but it means I can hold off going to the new MBPs for a while yet!

(apologies for the mistaken post previously...! /sheepish grin)

November 03 2008 at 7:15 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

yinyang

got this message on Optus (in Australia), but it doesn't seem to affect anything - can still find network and make calls, and everything else feels "snappier"!!

November 03 2008 at 7:11 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

studio

well i have 4gb in mine and am waiting for something to render in after effects as we speak i need a laptop as i travel around and need lots of ram for my video work

if when snow leopard hits we get support for 8gb of ram i will upgrade

November 03 2008 at 7:06 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Sir. Poopy Pants

It's a classic trade-off familiar to computer science folk: the time-memory trade off. Usually, the memory footprint is reduced at the cost of performance and conversely, performance is improved at the cost of memory use. Luckily, RAM is plentiful and cheap nowadays. No use in having 4GB of RAM if you aren't going to do anything with it. I sure wish I had an extra 2GB to play with in my Perl bioinformatics script.

November 03 2008 at 6:49 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply