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Mac Pro 12-core ram upgrade question

T

thai thai

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 14, 2013
1
0
So, I'm helping a friend upgrade his 2011 12-core Mac Pro's ram. He has the initial 6 Gb and after telling him it might be possible to do 128, with the next OS upgrade, he got very excited. I already know about the OWC kits, but am curious about 2 things. First, I'm trying to convince him less will work, but can upgrade more if he wants to later. So that being said, would I (he) be able to use the 16 Gb x 4 kit (knowing that triple channel is optimal) and still be able to upgrade with the same manufacture to fill the remaining 4 slots, if necessary (meeting the memory matching specs) ? And secondly, if using Crucial or Kingston similar kits would work as well, anyone have experience with their modules up to the 96, 128 limits using other than OWC?

Just wanting to double (and triple) check, since it's not my money. Thanks for any insight!
 
Best value is to buy from Superbiiz. Either Samsung or Hynix for around $145 each.

Samsung
http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=D313GR16GS

Hynix
http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=D313GR16H1

Buying anywhere else means you are paying a premium for customer service and branding. It's memory, it'll work or it won't and if it doesn't you just send it back and get some more. Being that 76% of the DRAM modules used in memory come from Samsung and Hynix failure rates are the same regardless of the brand on the memory.
 
Umbongo said:
Best value is to buy from Superbiiz. Either Samsung or Hynix for around $145 each.

Buying anywhere else means you are paying a premium for customer service and branding. It's memory, it'll work or it won't and if it doesn't you just send it back and get some more.
Click to expand...

Oh, how I disagree here. RAM is an important subsystem to any computer. It will work or it wont is not accurate. There are many threads on this and other forums describing how RAM SOMETIMES works and SOMETIMES doesn't. And may or may not work if moved to a different slot, and even then it's operation may or may not be buggy. RAM quality is extremely important to me. I have used Data Memory Systems RAM since 1986, and have never had an issue related to suspect RAM. And, they have a lifetime guarantee. Their prices are a bit higher than the RAM you mention, but the piece of mind is well worth it to me.

http://www.datamemorysystems.com/dm61-765/

To the OP, there is no 2011 Mac Pro. It's either a 2010 or a 2012 model. I have a 2010 Mac Pro that was built in August of 2011, but it's still identified as a Mid 2010 Model.

Lou
 
flowrider said:
It will work or it wont is not accurate. There are many threads on this and other forums describing how RAM SOMETIMES works and SOMETIMES doesn't. And may or may not work if moved to a different slot, and even then it's operation may or may not be buggy. RAM quality is extremely important to me. I have used Data Memory Systems RAM since 1986, and have never had an issue related to suspect RAM. And, they have a lifetime guarantee. Their prices are a bit higher than the RAM you mention, but the piece of mind is well worth it to me.

http://www.datamemorysystems.com/dm61-765/

To the OP, there is no 2011 Mac Pro. It's either a 2010 or a 2012 model. I have a 2010 Mac Pro that was built in August of 2011, but it's still identified as a Mid 2010 Model.

Lou
Click to expand...

Using correct memory, placed in the right slots, all of the same voltage and capacity should only cause issues if the RAM is faulty or there is a problem with the board. Anything less than perfect working quality with a DIMM is faulty to me. That is what I meant by it works or it doesn't. Not operating 100% how it should = faulty.

Datamemorysystems, OWC, Kingston, Patriot, Corsair .. whoever are no more reliable than the modules produced by the DRAM manufacturers like Samsung, Hynix or Micron (for the Crucial brand). All you get is a different person to deal with on the phone. If I had a trusted vendor here in the UK then I'd happily pay an extra $1.25 per GB for peace of mind too, but the ODM's have the cheapest memory around and it does the job as it should. You also know the exact specifications you get in detail, unlike the other companies who it can be hard to even know who is supplying their DRAM.
 
Umbongo said:
Best value is to buy from Superbiiz. Either Samsung or Hynix for around $145 each.

Samsung
http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=D313GR16GS

Hynix
http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=D313GR16H1

Buying anywhere else means you are paying a premium for customer service and branding. It's memory, it'll work or it won't and if it doesn't you just send it back and get some more. Being that 76% of the DRAM modules used in memory come from Samsung and Hynix failure rates are the same regardless of the brand on the memory.
Click to expand...

I bought 48GB of their Hynix a while back. Since Apple supplied me with Hynix with my original purchase, I felt Hynix would be a good choice to upgrade with.

It has been my personal experience that you should purchase all matching DIMMS for greatest reliability. Mixing and matching works for some people, but I can't recommend doing that. I've done it in the past and it's a hit / miss type of thing.
 
so can the mac pro rum buffered memory? my memory is unbuffered.
thanks
 
gatd said:
so can the mac pro rum buffered memory? my memory is unbuffered.
thanks
Click to expand...

Umbongo is probably better qualified to answer this, but here's my understanding...

There's three relevant types of DIMMs... registered/buffered and un-registered and then fully-buffered. (And of course, there's ECC variants of all of these as well).

The 2008 Mac Pro's use fully-buffered DIMMs (FBDIMMs) which buffers both the data and control lines. This adds latency, but allows for use of riser cards to house the memory like the one Apple employs in the 3,1 Mac Pro.

The 2009-2012 Mac Pro's come with registered DIMMs (RDIMMs) where only the control lines are buffered. The added register/buffer allows for multiple sticks per channel which is important if you want to use the 4th DIMM slot (for each CPU) in these machines since that slot shares a channel with one of the other three. I believe you can also use un-registered DIMMs if you only populate one stick per channel (eg. 3 sticks max). Without the register you save a clock cycle or something to that effect which reduces latency by a tiny amount. And as you might expect, you can't mix and match RDIMMs with un-registered DIMMs.
 
thai thai said:
So, I'm helping a friend upgrade his 2011 12-core Mac Pro's ram. He has the initial 6 Gb and after telling him it might be possible to do 128, with the next OS upgrade, he got very excited. I already know about the OWC kits, but am curious about 2 things. First, I'm trying to convince him less will work, but can upgrade more if he wants to later. So that being said, would I (he) be able to use the 16 Gb x 4 kit (knowing that triple channel is optimal) and still be able to upgrade with the same manufacture to fill the remaining 4 slots, if necessary (meeting the memory matching specs) ? And secondly, if using Crucial or Kingston similar kits would work as well, anyone have experience with their modules up to the 96, 128 limits using other than OWC?

Just wanting to double (and triple) check, since it's not my money. Thanks for any insight!
Click to expand...

I went with the 96GB upgrade from OWC (6 x 16GB) as this optimal for triple channel mode and works well for me. It still allows me two more open slots should I decide to go to the 128GB max. Mavericks works great with it as VMware Fusion allows me to run over a dozen VM's while running a couple of dozen Mac apps and still have plenty of memory to spare.

I have not run any benchmarks to see what the speed difference is between triple channel mode and double channel mode so I can't help out there.
 
I would honestly just go on eBay and buy RAM pulled from workstations. Most of the time, it's refurbished, and sometimes, it's never even been used -- just a straight pull.

I got the 6x4GB in my Mac Pro for just north of $100. It's pretty nice Elpida (Hynix and Samsung are also excellent) with large heat spreaders. Apparently they were pulled from a Dell workstation.
 
I have been perusing some of the products mentioned. I noticed that the link to Hynix ram had a voltage of 1.35 V, while other ram was 1.5 V. Can anyone enlighten me on the difference, and whether it matters?

Thanks,
 
I ended up getting a 6 * 8 GB upgrade from macramdirect.com. They had Hynix ram at a decent price. I couldn't quite justify the 96 GB upgrade, since I don't really make a living with my computer. I guess I can always add another 2 * 8 GB later if I need to.
 
Umbongo said:
Best value is to buy from Superbiiz. Either Samsung or Hynix for around $145 each.

Samsung
http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=D313GR16GS
Click to expand...

Saw this a few weeks ago and went with this recommendation.

Samsung Part Number: M393B2G70BH0-YH9
eBay Listing: http://www.ebay.com/itm/161164324928

I searched on eBay and found some for $125 each. Bought two for $260 with postage. Not the best bargain around (only $27 each extra for new ones), but I had a bunch of other stuff going from the US to Australia (where I am) and I wanted the RAM included in that shipment. Still, $260 for 32Gb RAM is an ok deal.

I'm still with the standard 2 x 2.4GHz processors, but will be going to 2 x 3.33GHz processors early next year (either four core or six core each, depends on what I can find at the time).

The two 16Gb DIMMs are working fine at 1066MHz, and will be ready to go to 1333MHz when I move to faster processors next year.

Edit: Was stuffing around and just found an eBay listing for the same RAM, with a Buy It Now price of $150 (plus $5 post) for the same 2 x 16GB DIMMS. I don't need 64Gb RAM, but who can say no at that price?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/191005866458

How it appears in the System Profile with the 32Gb:

Mac_Pro_32Gb_RAM.jpg
 
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