2012 Mac Mini RAM

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Hi everyone. I"m looking to purchase this RAM for my Mac Mini.

OWC 1600DDR3S12S 12.0GB (8GB+4GB) PC3-12800 DDR3L... in stock at OWC

I've been talking to some friends and they claim getting RAM that isn't the same (i.e 4GB + 4GB) is bad for the computer. DISCLAIMER: They aren't exactly experts. So to ease my worrying or to confirm their rumors I wanted to check here before ordering.

Thanks.
 
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Those days of having matching pairs of ram are long long gone. Back in the days of the old 286 386 and 486 Pentium's you had to use matching pairs of memory . But now days as long as the memory clock speeds are the same its fine to use mixed sizes. I have 1x2 1x8 and 2x4 in my desktop and it runs perfect. Showing 18 gig total.

EDIT: According to Apple specs on your mac mini from 2010 it is only capable of using 8 gig total ram
http://support.apple.com/kb/SP585
I couldn't find specs for early 2010 models Im guessing the early and mid 2010 are the same.
 
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Gary86
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Those days of having matching pairs of ram are long long gone. Back in the days of the old 286 386 and 486 Pentium's you had to use matching pairs of memory . But now days as long as the memory clock speeds are the same its fine to use mixed sizes. I have 1x2 1x8 and 2x4 in my desktop and it runs perfect. Showing 18 gig total.

EDIT: According to Apple specs on your mac mini from 2010 it is only capable of using 8 gig total ram
Mac mini (Mid 2010) - Technical Specifications
I couldn't find specs for early 2010 models Im guessing the early and mid 2010 are the same.

Thank you. My Mac mini is a 2012 model. I appreciate your great reply.
 

bobtomay

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Just to clarify and you really should know what you are doing in this case:

Your system board has a dual channel memory controller. In order for dual channel to achieve it's fastest operation, you need matched pairs of memory. For just a little understanding of dual channel see this.

With unmatched pairs, you will essentially be running in single channel operation. You'll have use of the additional memory, but at a slower than optimum speed.

Is that bad? Not as "bad" as it use to be and you may or may not notice the difference. At the price of RAM today though, I always recommend matched pairs. I even have a matched pair in my old '06 MBP with 2 x 2GB in order to maintain dual channel speed, even though that system is hardware limited to being able to use only 3 GB.
 
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Gary86
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Just to clarify and you really should know what you are doing in this case:

Your system board has a dual channel memory controller. In order for dual channel to achieve it's fastest operation, you need matched pairs of memory. For just a little understanding of dual channel see this.

With unmatched pairs, you will essentially be running in single channel operation. You'll have use of the additional memory, but at a slower than optimum speed.

Is that bad? Not as "bad" as it use to be and you may or may not notice the difference. At the price of RAM today though, I always recommend matched pairs. I even have a matched pair in my old '06 MBP with 2 x 2GB in order to maintain dual channel speed, even though that system is hardware limited to being able to use only 3 GB.

Hmm, interesting. In this case, I guess I'll just go with 16GB. Still saving $200 compared to upgrading with Apples 16GB option.
 

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