crwdns2934065:0crwdne2934065:0: 4,1crwdns2936485:0crwdne2936485:0
15
6
5
I have seen so many different answers to this. Can I use 8GB of RAM on this machine? Many Tech people say only 4GB is the max while other users say 8GB works just fine. I have the 2.4 GHz Mac. Can 8GB run fine?
crwdns2934109:0crwdne2934109:0
crwdns2934065:0crwdne2934065:0: 490,3crwdns2936485:0crwdne2936485:0
35
338
973
It’s a bit confusing! Apple only tested 4 GB and only supports 4 GB.
But, things are not so bleak! You can go with 6 GB and you might be able to go with 8 GB! The issue is the quality of the RAM. The RAS and CAS of the given SO-DIMM may not work well with the slower RAM I/O channel this system has, you want slower SO-DIMMs not faster (1066 MHz PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM)
You also need macOS Snow Leopard (10.6.8) or newer upto El Capitan 10.11.6 with Boot ROM Version MB51.007D.B03. Sierra (10.12.6) and newer is not workable as the firmware is not 64-bit clean.
crwdns2934105:0crwdne2934105:0
@danj - So the Mac may actually be faster with 4GB?
@jadonlyon - Well… it’s not quite that simple!
Lets use an analogy to help you see what’s happening under the covers. You have a water trough to pull water with a bucket to put out the fire, so you could use a small bucket or a large one, if it’s a small fire the small bucket will do, a bigger fire will need the bigger bucket. But the speed of you running between the trough and the fire is the same so you aren’t going faster are you, all your doing is carrying more water to the fire.
Now let’s say the fire is much larger! So instead of one bucket you need quite a few. So again you aren’t running faster, just needing more trips.
So to truely get speed you need to move the data faster besides in larger buckets! This is where upgrading the HDD to a SSD can offer that in addition to the larger amount of RAM. So between the two you’ll get the best performance.
But be careful! This series SATA port is not able to support most of the SSDs sold today as they are too fast! You need a SATA II (3.0Gbps) drive so review the spec sheet for the given drive, if it doesn’t clearly say it offers backward support for SATA II don’t buy it! And I would try to get at least 6 GB of RAM if you are working on bigger programs or data sets.
@danj - Great analogy my man! Thanks for the help!
crwdns2936751:024crwdne2936751:0 0
crwdns2936753:07crwdne2936753:0 0
crwdns2936753:030crwdne2936753:0 0
crwdns2942667:0crwdne2942667:0 48
