Adding more RAM to Mac Mini increases Intel 3000 GPU's memory?

[hakkamukka]

I purchased the base model MM a couple of days ago. Coming with only 2GB of memory, only 288MB is allocated to the graphics chip. I have just noted that after changing it up to 2x4GB third party (Corsair) memory, the Intel 3000 now has 512MB allocated to it according to the 'About This Mac'.

Has anyone else experienced this?
Apart from that, OS X is now far more usable then its previous state of 2GB RAM

 

[The-Pro]

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3246
at the bottom under Intel HD 3000 it says it will allocate 512MB when 8GB is installed. So seems normal. Under Windows it uses can apparently use up to 1.6GB

 

[shortcut3d]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

Confirmed with up to 16GB RAM the Intel HD 3000 OSX maximum is 512MB and Windows 7 is 1.65GB maximum. RAM speed also has an effect on performance.

 

[HazyCloud]

It sure does increase performance. I have the base mini with 8 GBs and it's much better than the factory 2 GBs. I can also confirm the Intel 3000 is at 512 MB after adding 8 GBs.

 

[accessoriesguy]

yes on the mac mini the GPU does not have dedicated built in memory, instead it shares memory from the RAM. Apple has it to increase the memory when more RAM is added.

Integrated memory should be quicker but cost more. Your only losing a couple micro-seconds this way. Depending on the design they could get this very low. Would this make a visible difference, no. Since this is a low end chip and not for performance, I think this was a great route for apple to take, not to mention not having to have different versions of a chip.