2 x 1 GB modules in the mac book supported

[mightymouse]

i have 3GB of corsair ram in my macbook pro and havent had any problems. Also the newer macbook pros that have the new backlit lcds can support up to 4GB

[ikonia]

well 2 gb of ram is perfect for my requirments and the driver behind purchasing this laptop for a dedicated task was just that, fit for purpose, small/light/mobile/meets ram/cpu requirments comfortably, it has powered firewire and the correct ammount of usb. It runs the operating system required for my purposes, so I'm happy.

More than 2 GB of ram is not required, a mac book pro does not suit my needs.

Thanks for responding.

[CMC]

I've been looking for a RAM upgrade for my macbook, mine isn't a core 2 duo though, its one of the first, just the core duo... i reckon i'l probably go for 2x1Gb's matched from crucial rather than the 3Gb...

[mightymouse]

If you havent bought it yet check this out? darn i paid 100 earlier

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=548349

[Agent]

Agreed, a C2D MacBook can run 3GiB of RAM, configured as one 2GiB stick & one 1GiB stick. However running two sticks of different capacities prevents dual channel, so unless you are constantly using more than 2GiB of RAM, the performance drop of losing dual channel isn't a sensible idea - hence why Apple don't tell you that you can do so.

Sorry, but this is wrong. Dual channel does not need 2 sticks the same size to work correctly. Granted, you get the best 'performance' by doing this, but try not to buy into what the RAM manufactures tell you
Dual channel is simply how the RAM is addressed, its nothing fancy (64bit vs 128bit).

The "performance drop" between using dual chan. and not using it anyway is minimal. Even so, these differences only usually arise in synthetic benchmarks and rarely manifest them self in the real world. Differences are almost always single percentage figures.

Hardware guys knew back in 2004 how pointless dual channel was. Nothing has really changed.

In the majority of cases, in real world situations, users will see a rise from not running dual channel (although it often doesnt come to this) and having more RAM, than running it in dual channel and having lesser due to "matching" () pairs.

[Spud1]

Agent - your right in most cases, but with macbooks (at least the CoreDuo, original ones like I have) the dual channel makes a noticable difference - although I have no testing numbers to back this up. The reason is to do with the architecture of the system and OSX; in particular how the graphics sub-system works.

As an example, I currently have 2x1GiB sticks of Corsair Value Select in my macbook, running great. When I first ordered them, I did a lot of research on what sticks to buy etc etc, and I initially wanted to just replace one of my 256meg sticks with a 1gig module and leave it at that, figuring that my Macbook isn't going to be used for any intensive, ram hungry stuff (thats what a powermac or PC is for..). So I tried this first - and was surprised to see that what I had read on the apple support forums was true - everything seemed to run slower, particularly anything that used 3D.

When I swapped out the 1GiB for a 256 again things were back to normal. Then I put in the 2x1GiB sticks and noticed no difference lol - as I would expect (since more ram doesn't give you an instant performance boost does it )

Its worth noting that this was only with OSX, when I rebooted to windows I didnt experience the same problem, so I would still put the blame squarely on OSX and its video sub-system - the problem might be related to the other big OSX problem on macbooks - that it won't address more than 256 (well, just under 256)meg of memory for the graphics card - regardless of how much is installed in the system. Again this problem vanishes with Windows, which can address up to 512Meg (which is the hardware limit of the Intel card).

Its possible its a placebo-like effect since I had read about the issue previously, but there you go.

Anyway in reference to the original post, the macbook can support 2x1GiB modules without issue, and as long as you don't exceed this amount apple support are perfectly fine with repairing your macbook, as the ram upgrade is allowed within your warranty (they even give you instructions in the manual). The only possible problem you might have is finding compatible sticks - certain ones don't seem to work well in it, but i've had no problems with this corsair value select stuff, and cruicials will be fine too (although they are 3 times the price..)