Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Can the old DDR2-667 SODIMM work with the new iMac?
- Thread starter jameszhu
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
It's a crap shoot. The Montevina platform does support DDR2-667 RAM. You can try using it but that's no guarantee.
It would result in a marginal decrease in performance. You do have 2 paired 2GB sticks though (right?), which would enable your imac's dual channel function, that should offset the performance decrease.
No you can not use DDR2-677 SODIMM ram in a Motherboard that requires DDR2-800 SODIMM memory. You computer will not boot period.
However you can use DDR2-800 SODIMM memory in a motherboard designed for DDR-677 SODIMM. The Ram can slow *itself* down to meet the requirements for the motherboard but not the other way around.
*UPDATE*
I have never seen that before ever. I know you can put faster spec ram into a slower spec motherboard, but I have never seen it work the other way around never.
-iGrant
Chipsets can support a wide variety of RAM speeds nowadays regardless of their frontside bus.
Like I said in my earlier post, I have never seen that before. I think that is awesome, but its just not something I am use to seeing. WOW
-iGrant
While dual channel operation results in a 6% - 8% improvement in real world terms, you should be comparing dual channel 667 MHz to dual channel 800 MHz -- and there's no escaping that the 667 MHz RAM is running at a 16% lower speed.
Slight off-topic - will faster memory than specified work?
That's interesting - I have a G4/800MHz iMac which takes PC133 SODIMM or SDRAM. Someone I work with has got some surplus PC2700 SDRAM memory going free, so do you think this would this work in my G4?
HB
That's interesting - I have a G4/800MHz iMac which takes PC133 SODIMM or SDRAM. Someone I work with has got some surplus PC2700 SDRAM memory going free, so do you think this would this work in my G4?
HB
It being a G4, you have to make sure of three things, first being that the memory is built using low density chips and secondly that the ram has the sam pin connection as the motherboard and third that it is not beyond the hard ware limit for recognizing memory. For example you can not put 3gb in a Power Mac G4, just 1.5gb depending on the model you have you will either have 3 or 4 slots for ram.
-iGrant
no...those to RAM chips are not compatible. PC2700 is DDR SDRAM and PC133 is just SDRAM. Sorry...but i believe that is a no go. But i may have some PC133 lying around somewhere.
-JE
Yes, it is backwards compatible.
You can use 667Mhz DDR2 SODIMMs in the new iMac.
If you couple slower ram with faster ram, the faster ram will slow down to the slowest ram.
You can use 667Mhz DDR2 SODIMMs in the new iMac.
If you couple slower ram with faster ram, the faster ram will slow down to the slowest ram.