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Affordable way to get 12GB RAM upgrade into i7 iMac?

R

RealEvil

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 5, 2007
334
32
Hi,

I have 4*2GB chips now which should be plenty but I am MS developer and am running several VMWare Fusion Windows 2008 VMs. Ideally I would like to have about 8GB RAM just to use on those VMs but my current OSX usage (and my wife's - I use hot switching to her programs run too) requires 4GB ram just for OSX, leaving me just 4GB to assign to VMs.

Has anyone seen any cheap 4GB DDR3 SO-DIMM chips? I live in the UK so I suppose this is more a UK question but I would accept any advice from anyone.

Thanks
 
Might as well get 16gb while you are at it? Go big or go home, right? ;)
 
It depends what you consider affordable; 4gb DDR3 chips come at their very cheapest about £200 a piece (Crucial). They were slightly cheaper in the past, but I'm assuming the raw materials went up in price, as RAM fluctuates quite a lot. Only you know whether it's worth saving 600-800 quid and putting up with too little RAM, or whether it's worth it to splash out. :)
 
affordable hmmmm that is something philosophical which cant be answered
for some £100 is affordable others think £1000 is affordable
just look in your wallet , if there are around £1000 lying around and wasting space than get the ram
before the money burns a hole in your pocket
 
RealEvil said:
I guess what I am asking is - have you seen any bargains at around the £150 a chip price?
Click to expand...

Nope, at least not what I have seen. Those 4GB chips having been staying fairly elevated for awhile. I'm not sure we will see a drop in price until spring or summer '10 to be honest. Even the 2GB chips have fluctuated and increased in price recently. 2x2GB were $60-70 a few months back and now they are ~$100 +/- $5. If you are really looking for a quality 2x4GB set like Crucial or Mushkin, you will have to wait a bit longer for the prices to fall.
 
I have done just this affordably.

Bought 2 x 4gb Hynix from this dude on ebay and they work perfectly:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Memory-HYNIX-...mory_RAM_ET?hash=item3ca8507dcb#ht_500wt_1182

Cost around £250 including shipping as he's open to offers. I think the latency (CL8) is slightly different to Apple's stock (CL6/7?) but they run fine. I looked at the stock ram in the i7 and it was Hynix as well. Been running this config with VMWARE win7 utilising 4gb and everything is solid as a rock.
 
you dont have much choice as the new imac lusts after ddr3 ram , which is at the moment the most expensive option when it comes to ram , so upgrading comes to a price , you can either safe up the money you need or wait a couple years when it might become cheaper ,
 
Uncle Pinny said:
I have done just this affordably.

Bought 2 x 4gb Hynix from this dude on ebay and they work perfectly:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Memory-HYNIX-...mory_RAM_ET?hash=item3ca8507dcb#ht_500wt_1182

Cost around £250 including shipping as he's open to offers. I think the latency (CL8) is slightly different to Apple's stock (CL6/7?) but they run fine. I looked at the stock ram in the i7 and it was Hynix as well. Been running this config with VMWARE win7 utilising 4gb and everything is solid as a rock.
Click to expand...

Wow thats a good price! I will email him to ask about a best price.
 
but
Certainly, one of the most important timings is the CAS Latency(cl), which is also the one most people understand. Since data is often accessed sequentially (same row), the CPU need only select the next column in the row to get the next piece of data. In other words, CAS Latency is the delay between the CAS signal and the availability of valid data on the data pins (DQ). The latency between column accesses (CAS) then plays an important role in the performance of the memory. The lower the latency, the better the performance. However, the memory modules must be able to support low-latency settings.
in other words cl8 might work but it might slow down things a bit
 
im interseted in grabbing 2x4GBs to go into my iMac i7 (to make it 12GB all up).

here in australia there isnt much RAM to choose from for a good price. im still trying to decide what avenue to go down, ebay? crucial.com?

suggestions?
 
DoFoT9 said:
im interseted in grabbing 2x4GBs to go into my iMac i7 (to make it 12GB all up).

here in australia there isnt much RAM to choose from for a good price. im still trying to decide what avenue to go down, ebay? crucial.com?

suggestions?
Click to expand...

easy answer "crucial" or" ocz "or "kingston", eventually "geil" ..about in that order .......and hands away from value ram
for ebay ? you fancy gambling ? but even ebay can be safe and some bargains made ,if you really trust the seller , if he has a proper return policy , the later is even more important, so ask before you click "buy it now" otherwise the ram might come doa and you lost your money , some are so nice to write very small somewhere on their listing no refund , no return and things that sound like that, so ebay yes , but be more then careful
 
MacHamster68 said:
easy answer "crucial" or" ocz "or "kingston", eventually "geil" ..about in that order .......and hands away from value ram
for ebay ? you fancy gambling ? but even ebay can be safe and some bargains made ,if you really trust the seller , if he has a proper return policy , the later is even more important, so ask before you click "buy it now" otherwise the ram might come doa and you lost your money , some are so nice to write very small somewhere on their listing no refund , no return and things that sound like that, so ebay yes , but be more then careful
Click to expand...

ive been thinking crucial.com from the beginning pretty much. its a guaranteed purchase! the problem is that im in australia, so places like newegg.com and whatnot dont really post out this way. $500US ($550Aus) is a pretty large amount to fork out for 8GB RAM, but a bit better then the $700Aus ($630US) - brand is Micron.

for a kingston 4GB chip you are looking at $1050Aus! so yea, f*ck that! (linky)

oh question! CL7 or CL9? i was thinking go CL7.
 
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