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coolchan

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 20, 2006
27
0
I'm planning on buy one of the MacBooks. I've read somewhere that the Intel motherboard is capable of using dual channel RAM. Considering that Apple store's RAMs are overpriced. Now is it a good idea to buy a pair of 512MB RAM instead of one 1GB RAM. If I want to upgrade later, buy a pair of 1GB RAM later on?
 

Anonymous Freak

macrumors 603
Dec 12, 2002
5,604
1,389
Cascadia
coolchan said:
I'm planning on buy one of the MacBooks. I've read somewhere that the Intel motherboard is capable of using dual channel RAM. Considering that Apple store's RAMs are overpriced. Now is it a good idea to buy a pair of 512MB RAM instead of one 1GB RAM. If I want to upgrade later, buy a pair of 1GB RAM later on?

The Intel chipset is capable of dual-channel RAM, it is up to the motherboard designer to choose wether to enable it or not. I called Apple Tech Support, and they claimed that it does *NOT* have dual-channel. I had the same dilemma. I ended up ordering the single-DIMM configuration. (RAM is cheap. If I find out later that it does support dual-channel, I'll upgrade to 2 GB.)
 

coolchan

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 20, 2006
27
0
Ok, I've just called my local Apple Tech support. The guy I spoke to didn't know what Dual Channel RAM was lol. So he asked another guy, and the other guy said that it is supported. Although he doesn't sound too convincing.
 

Anonymous Freak

macrumors 603
Dec 12, 2002
5,604
1,389
Cascadia
I think we're only going to conclusively find out when someone gets their MBP (mine is scheduled to ship on Feb 15th, arrive by Feb 23rd. I was too cheap to spring for the faster shipping,) and run memory bandwidth tests with one stick of RAM, and again with two.
 

nutmac

macrumors 603
Mar 30, 2004
6,175
7,763
coolchan said:
I'm planning on buy one of the MacBooks. I've read somewhere that the Intel motherboard is capable of using dual channel RAM. Considering that Apple store's RAMs are overpriced. Now is it a good idea to buy a pair of 512MB RAM instead of one 1GB RAM. If I want to upgrade later, buy a pair of 1GB RAM later on?

According to "Learn More" Memory link from iMac BTO page, it seems dual-channel is enabled. But MacBook Pro page does not mention it would perform faster when RAM is installed in pair, suggesting it is not.
 
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