Help with Memory

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Hey all,

I just got my MBP a few weeks ago and already upgraded my hard drive and am planning on upping my memory as I'm noticing some slowdowns when photo editing in Lightroom2 and when I'm doing some gaming.

Now I hear that Macs are notoriously picky about their memory... But looking at the stuff that manufacturers advertise for Mac it's about $80 for 4gb, while non Mac stuff is $60 for 4gb and high performance CL5 stuff is $100 for 4gb.

So I'm mainly wondering if I'll be able to spend less and have it work right with standard stuff or be able to spend a bit more and get some high performance stuff. Personally I'd rather get the high performance, but if my best bet will be the Mac stuff... 4gb will be an upgrade either way.

Thanks for reading and any opins / suggestions! :D
 

pigoo3

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I would suggest just buying the $80 4 gig upgrade that will 100% work with your Mac. If you buy the $60 4 gig upgrade & it doesn't work...then you will have to go thru the hassle of returning it, and THEN ordering the $80 upgrade that you should have ordered in the first place.

OWC (Macsales/com) has some of the best prices out there. If they're charging around $80 for your laptops 4 gig ram upgrade...then there is a reason for it.

I would suggest getting your 4 gig ram upgrade from:

Performance Upgrades; FireWire USB SATA Storage; Memory, more at OWC

You can be sure that it will work, and if for some reason you have problems, they have great customer service, and will take good care of you!:)

Hope this helps,

- Nick

p.s. Of course you could try the $60 ram you mentioned, maybe it will work, maybe it won't. If it doesn't...what do you think myself & others are going to say???;)
 
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Thanks Pigoo. Yeah, since I'm buying it online and not in a store I don't really want to deal with shipping it back and all. Though I think I'll go for the Mushkin from NewEgg for $70 after MIR and free shipping.

But I'll never figure out how on an Intel system a Mac can be more picky about memory than a standard Intel system.

Oh well, no performance ram for me.
 

pigoo3

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But I'll never figure out how on an Intel system a Mac can be more picky about memory than a standard Intel system.

You can read tons of threads on this forum where folks have tried using less expensive memory in their Mac's...and then have all sorts of trouble.

Just because some $60 dollar 4 gig upgrade for a Windows computer, and an $80 dollar 4 gig upgrade for a Mac appear to be exactly the same...they may not be...because there may be some little "teeny-weeny" specification that either or both of the upgrades are not mentioning that could make all of the difference.

And thus that is the difference that causes incompatibility in a Mac.

Unless you like experimenting (and the hassles that go with it)...you're better off just buying what's guaranteed to work.

Good luck,

- Nick
 
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I'm going with stuff labeled by the manufacturer as made for mac.

But what you quote is the computer geek in me trying to wrap my brain around and figure what they could have done to the stuff to make it so picky about the memory. Just cause I'm a geek and wonder about things like that :p

And if I could get different kinds of memory locally and just play around and experiment... I would ;D
 

pigoo3

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I'm going with stuff labeled by the manufacturer as made for mac.

But what you quote is the computer geek in me trying to wrap my brain around and figure what they could have done to the stuff to make it so picky about the memory. Just cause I'm a geek and wonder about things like that :p

And if I could get different kinds of memory locally and just play around and experiment... I would ;D

I totally understand wanting to know how things work...or why things don't work!:)

I've been messing around with Mac's for about 23 years...and for most of that time "Mac ram" was always much different than "Windows" computer ram (AND was ALWAYS much more expensive)!!! Either the ram basically didn't fit (different pin design) or the spec requirements on the "Mac" memory were just different.

Now that Apple is using Intel CPU's, you would think that the ram needed for Windows & Mac's would be near identical...but there still seems to enough folks posting ram problems on this site (from using the "cheaper" ram they find at various computer stores/websites)...that there still must be enough of a difference in the ram to matter.

I'm sure there are folks that have been successful using the "cheaper" ram...but then there seems to be a good number of folks that also have trouble.

This is especially a problem if someone buys cheaper (non-Mac certified) ram on e-Bay, a retail store, or a website...that does not accept returns on opened or installed ram. This is where experimenting can get expensive, frustrating, and stressful.:(

- Nick
 

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