New MacBook Pros Can Take 6 Gigs of RAM

[Vincent Ferrari]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=3057' target='_blank'>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=3057</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"If you own one of the new unibody/Late 2008 MacBook Pros or one released November 2007 or later you can use up to 6GB of RAM &ndash; the most on a portable Mac. The new MacBook Pros have two slots and the 2GB model ship with a 1GB SO-DIMM in each. The 6GB upgrade requires replacing the two 1GB modules with one 4GB SO-DIMM (the expensive one) and one 2GB module (~$30)."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/at/auto/1234876930.usr18053.jpg" /></p><p>Now that I'm using virtualization for work-related stuff a lot more often, this might be a move I make.&nbsp; I can give 2 GB to the virtual machine in Parallels and still have the four that my MBP came with from the factory.&nbsp; Hmmmm...</p>

[Jason Dunn]

Does OS X do anything really intelligent with extra RAM, or is it pretty much like the way Windows works?

[doogald]

Does OS X do anything really intelligent with extra RAM, or is it pretty much like the way Windows works?

What do you mean by this? Do you mean that 32 bit Win versions are limited in RAM address spacing?

There is a good discussion of this here (http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/09/04/road_to_snow_leopard_twice_the_ram_half_the_price_64_bits.html).

[Phronetix]

Does anyone know why it is limited to 6? Why not 8, with a 4GB in both slots? Is there a firmware fix that could alter this max?

[WyattEarp]

The new MBP supports up to 8GB RAM (4MB x2)according the keynote and the website. No hacking required :) I'd like to try that trick in my laptop.

[Jason Dunn]

What do you mean by this? Do you mean that 32 bit Win versions are limited in RAM address spacing?

No, I mean that even with 64-bit Windows, there's not much real-world performance moving from 4 GB to 6 GB for instance. I want someone to do something cool like integrate a RAM drive into the OS; something to really spike performance with RAM being so cheap.

There is a good discussion of this here (http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/09/04/road_to_snow_leopard_twice_the_ram_half_the_price_64_bits.html).

Hmm. Interesting - I wonder if that has an impact in real-world performance?

[Macguy59]

Does anyone know why it is limited to 6? Why not 8, with a 4GB in both slots? Is there a firmware fix that could alter this max?

Because it becomes flaky and unstable w/8GB.

[Jason Dunn]

Because it becomes flaky and unstable w/8GB.

That's rather concerning - is it OS X that can't handle 8 GB, or is it that particular Macbook?