max. ram for new 2.4ghz unibody macbook pro

hey just wondering if anyone knows the max. ram for the new unibody macbook pro? i am buying a 2gb and upgrading myself straight away as i have done with my previous macs but wondering if they can run higher than the 4gb they say for the 2.4ghz model? i know the old macbooks ran 3.3 when apple said a max of 2gb.

thanks

jabbutcher

The unibody MacBook Pro can be maxed out at 4gb according to Apple, but the real thing is, you can put up to 6 GB of memory from 3rd party like Find the latest Performance Upgrades, Firewire and USB Hard Drives, SATA, Memory, Laptop Battery, and more at OWC or RAMJET Inc. - High Performance Mac Memory

They both sell the 6Gb kit for the new unibody MacBook Pro.

thanks very much, do you know if it will run all 6gb's or will it just use the four?

It will run the 6GB but Apple only say it officially supports 4GB.

Yeah, it will run 6GB smoothly. The additional performance of the 6GB of RAM will far outweigh the loss of the dual channel memory addressing. You should see a performance improvement, not a decline.

macfrik said:

Yeah, it will run 6GB smoothly. The additional performance of the 6GB of RAM will far outweigh the loss of the dual channel memory addressing. You should see a performance improvement, not a decline.

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I'd like to see benchmarks running it both ways. Dual channel memory addressing is efficient and fast especially with the newer DDR3 modules. Do you know if anyone has run tests?

Regards.

Remember a 4gb stick is close to $500. Is it really worth it for 2 extra GB?

Ok, here's a benchmark test from eshop.macsales.com showing the results of non-paired memory modules (2gb+4gb). MacBook Memory Performance Testing - 512MB to 4.0GB, Pairs vs. non-Pairs, real-world performance comparisons at | OtherWorldComputing.com

Also, you don't have to pay outrageous prices for 6gb of memory for your macbookpro. Only $179 here 6.0GB Kit (2.0GB+4.0GB) PC2-5300 DDR2 667... (5300DDR2S6GP) at OWC

Although, I'm sticking to 4gb (2x2gb) cause it's around $50 at some places online. The extra $130 for the addtl 2gb is too rich for my blood. Guess I'm not hardcore...

thanks for all the help guys, getting 2x2gb 1066mhz for £62 about $90 i think

I am thinking about that kit as I am planning on a Mini pretty soon and I could run 3GB RAM in that.

I would also like to see benchmarks. Dual-Channel is the way to go IMO unless the benchmarks are improved greatly. The 4GB RAM I upgraded too in my UMBP runs amazing with Photoshop CS1 running via Rosetta and using Office 08 runs flawlessly.

The link MYmacROX provides is interesting and certainly indicates that 3-unpaired is far better than 2-paired but I wonder if this effect is linear...that is, would the improvement form 4-paired to 6-unpaired be anywhere near as impressive. I'm wondering if 4 gigs takes you beyond a threshold - for some programs - where more ram wont necessarily help. Now if you're running intensive programs for specialized uses (brain image processing in my case) then the more the better.

See this link. It's pretty interesting and suggests (at least for basic uses) 4 is the way to go.

"late 2008" MacBook Pro - 4GB vs 6GB RAM config

The 6GB kit for $179 was DDR2 unibodys need DDR3

4gb vs 6gb

traded said:

See this link. It's pretty interesting and suggests (at least for basic uses) 4 is the way to go.

"late 2008" MacBook Pro - 4GB vs 6GB RAM config

Click to expand...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the this article is stating that 6gb ram will perform at about the same as 4gb (2x2gb) for tasks utilizing the paired memory modules; in other words, they seem to suggest that users may reap similar or better results using 6gb of ram despite the lack of paired memory benefits.