4 Gigs of RAM in iMac Core 2 Duo

[diehardmacfan]

I was wondering if the iMac could hold 4 gigs of ram as two 2 gig chips. Right now the maxed out amount from apple is 3 gigs. I would also be able to get faster speeds because it would be installed in matching pairs.

But the motherboard according to intel can hold 4 gigs of RAM.

I was wondering if this is possible or if any one has tried it. I think that it is possible, but i think apple isnt offering that option because they need to sell their 1 gig chips and their 512 mb chips.

In the past many apple computers could hold more ram than their techincal specifications say t hatt they can.

Thanks for your responses.

Julian

 

[WildCowboy]

It can hold 4 GB, but the system can only recognize about 3.2 GB, so it's pointless to put in a full 4 GB. This is true of any 32-bit chipset, but many PC vendors will happily sell you 4 GB of RAM that you can't fully use.

 

[nate13]

i thought the core 2 duo's were in fact 64 bit...?

 

[CanadaRAM]

Oh dear here we go again.

Search, please. We have only answered this question weekly since the C2D machines were released.

It's a 64 bit OS (mostly). It's a 64 bit processor. But the supporting chipset is these particular machines can only access 3.0 (or a little more) RAM. So Apple sensibly caps it at 3. Thats the way it is.

An HP or Dell C2D laptop will take 4 Gb -- but will only use 3.3 Gbs of that and ignores the rest.

 

[Sun Baked]

i thought the core 2 duo's were in fact 64 bit...?

64-bit registers, 48-bit virtual RAM addressing, 36-bit physical RAM addressing, in a 32-bit chipset.

 

[scottlinux]

i thought the core 2 duo's were in fact 64 bit...?

They are but the motherboard they are sitting in on these apple machines cannot take full advantage of the chip. That's the hype over the Santa Rosa chipset coming soon...

 

[Cave Man]

They are but the motherboard they are sitting in on these apple machines cannot take full advantage of the chip. That's the hype over the Santa Rosa chipset coming soon...

I don't think the logic board has any effect on this, but is due to limitations of the current chipset (that Santa Rosa will hopefully resolve).

 

[aquajet]

Oh dear here we go again...

There really should be a sticky about this.