Core Duo imac memory upgrade

[kilcitykills]

Hi, any help would be much appreciated.

I've had my imac for about a year and want to upgrade the ram, i purposely ordered it with a single 1GB chip so i would only have to order one chip when i upgraded.

My question is will i see a significant difference between ordering an identical chip from apple (expensive) so they are matched or would a cheaper alternative (crucial or kingston etc.) provide the same performance. Basically how important is that the ram is 'matched' ?

thanks in advance

 

[dex22]

Good question.

The mac knows the shape of the memory (how wide and how deep it is) plus details about its performance characteristics (timing signals, how much latency)

Apple installs memory which meets their specifications. Other memory which is sold may meet, exceed, or not quite meet all the specifications. If it meets or exceeds the specifications, and if the machine is dual-channel capable, it will be enabled. If the memory doesn't meet the specs in some way that the Apple memory does (like slightly longer latency) then you'll still get a total memory performance boost, but dual channel won't be enabled.

This is a complex way of saying that as long as you buy memory that matches or exceeds the specs of your existing memory, you should be fine. As your machine is a little bit older now, almost everything that's branded will do so.

 

[theheyes]

Go with the cheaper option.

Don't buy the expensive chip from apple and for gods sake dont go out and buy a matched 2GB pair. Its just money down the drain. The only way you're going to notice a difference in performance is by running benchmarks and looking at the (slight) difference in numbers.