10-04-2006, 02:54 PM

Hi there!

I just bought a brand spanking new Macbook! Everything works great, the only problem i have is the memory. It comes with 512 standard, i need more! Im thinking of buying a 1GB Chip from Scan:

(http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=353418)

I have a few question:
The macbook comes with 2 sticks of 256mb, can i take one out and put the 1gb alongside the 256mb? Will it make a difference? Ive heard that they both have to be the same and mirror each other to get the full benifit, any truth in this? If so, how much difference will it make haveing different sized ram next to each other?

Ta

10-04-2006, 03:05 PM

Yes, it's true that you have better memory speeds when both sticks are identical, but the speed penalty doesn't seem to be that huge:

http://www.macintouch.com/specialreports/perfpack02/

They ran benchmarks with and without matched ram.

And here's another user's opinion from macrumors.com:

I started with 512MB in my 17" Intellimac. I added 1 GB (1.5GB total) and was pretty happy but decided to bump it up to 2GB.

To be honest, the speed difference was unnoticeable. Maybe if I'd run benchmarks I'd have seen some difference, but, day-to-day use, no noticeable difference at all. None.

I do development work, so I do see a difference when I have lots of apps running and I'd otherwise be swapping, but, if you tend to stay below 1.5GB, you'll be perfectly fine without the matched RAM.

10-04-2006, 03:26 PM

Yes, I agree.
While technically there is a benefit, it is extremely negligible to most users.

You will be fine with adding a 1 GB stick along side your 256 MB one.

10-04-2006, 03:58 PM

I just went from having one 256mb stick in my iMac to having that plus a 1gb stick and the speed difference is unbelievable.
The only thing I can compare it to is like going from dial up to broadband. My wife even noticed it without me telling her I had fitted it.

Percentage wise though my change was pretty big so I suppose that would explain the big leap in performance.

10-04-2006, 04:00 PM

Thank for the info, i will buy the 1gb and run it along the 256. will let u know how it goes!

10-04-2006, 04:05 PM

That's what I'm currently running as well... it seems to work fine. I'll buy another gig some time down the road, but for now this seems great.

10-04-2006, 05:55 PM

Good to hear this, I plan on just buying 1 Gig ram stick to add in my MBP next to one 256.

10-05-2006, 06:10 PM

Same here - I bought a 1gb stick and run it alongside the 256mb stick.

Could tell a difference with before and after.
I'll eventually be getting another 1gb stick down the road =)

10-06-2006, 05:49 PM

More total RAM trumps matched RAM in most cases. Go for the largest RAM total that you can budget for.

Thanks
Trevor
CanadaRAM.com