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Adding RAM to a Mid-2007 2.4gHz 20" iMac

S

scoostraw

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 2, 2006
21
0
Upper Midwest US
I recently acquired a Mid-2007 2.4gHz 20" iMac (738028K9X86).

It currently has 3GB of RAM (one 1GB and one 2GB card). The official Apple maximum appears to be 4GB, but apparently 6GB works also.

My question is... would it be better to take it to 4GB and have the cards equal in size (2 x 2GB) or take it to 6GB and have the cards unequal in size (one 2GB and one 4GB card)? Supposedly the system runs marginally faster with the cards 'balanced'.

If anyone has any actual experience with performance I'd be interested in hearing about it. I normally run apps like photoshop, filemaker, browsers and the like.
 
scoostraw said:
That's what I was thinking.

Does it make a difference which slot has the larger card?
Click to expand...
Yes, you have to use the first slot

Worst case you are looking at 1-4% performance loss by going single-channel vs dual-channel. But 6GB is going to be faster than 4GB in real-world use ;)
 
robvas said:
Yes, you have to use the first slot

Worst case you are looking at 1-4% performance loss by going single-channel vs dual-channel. But 6GB is going to be faster than 4GB in real-world use ;)
Click to expand...
Thanks Rob. I think these machines came with 1GB standard - one 1GB card in the first slot. When you say you have to use the first slot, I'm not sure what you mean exactly with regard to upgrading to 6GB.

The everymac site says "Apple officially supports 4 GB of RAM, but third-parties have been able to upgrade the system to 6 GB of RAM using one 2 GB and one 4 GB SO-DIMM module." I guess my question is - does it matter which slot has 2 and which has 4?
 
scoostraw said:
Thanks Rob. I think these machines came with 1GB standard - one 1GB card in the first slot. When you say you have to use the first slot, I'm not sure what you mean exactly with regard to upgrading to 6GB.

The everymac site says "Apple officially supports 4 GB of RAM, but third-parties have been able to upgrade the system to 6 GB of RAM using one 2 GB and one 4 GB SO-DIMM module." I guess my question is - does it matter which slot has 2 and which has 4?
Click to expand...

Try both dude. It doesn't bite. Anyway, that 4Gb stick is gonna cost you more than a 250gb ssd
 
scoostraw said:
Oh great. So that's why there isn't one already in there...
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i believe that at the time 2gb sticks were the maximum. years after they made 4gb sticks but, for example, here in italy it's 70 euros. meanwhile i bought the newest ddr4 16gb (8+8) for 63. lol.
 
scoostraw said:
Yup. $95 from macsales. About 50 bucks for a generic from China on eBay.

That's about half of what I spent on the entire system. I think for now I'll just bump up from 3GB to 4GB.
Click to expand...
4gb+SSD is the sweet spot. Ssd is no ram but in case of swapping it helps ..
 
Trebuin said:
I have the same iMac with 6gb upgraded from 4gb. It really helps with the newer OSs.
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Nice system. And a 256GB SSD also I see. I would imagine you're pretty happy with your performance?

So you really noticed a difference going from 4GB to 6GB RAM.. I can get a 2GB stick for about 11 bucks, but that only takes me from 3GB to 4GB. It's probably what I'll do for now tho.

Is there a reason you have not upgraded to El Capitan?
 
scoostraw said:
Nice system. And a 256GB SSD also I see. I would imagine you're pretty happy with your performance?

So you really noticed a difference going from 4GB to 6GB RAM.. I can get a 2GB stick for about 11 bucks, but that only takes me from 3GB to 4GB. It's probably what I'll do for now tho.

Is there a reason you have not upgraded to El Capitan?
Click to expand...
Actually, I have upgraded, and with parallels, I need every bit of that 6GB. If you run parallels, the system will show its age.
 
Yeah VMware became really laggy after Mavericks. I guess Yosemite and El Capitan eats a lot of graphical resources so stuff lags inside vm
 
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