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macbook up to 4gb on apple website???

hishat

hishat

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 14, 2007
178
8
United Kingdom
hi, i stumbled across a couple of threads. took a look at the apple macbook (updated) it says it will now hold up to 4gb?? does that mean the full 4?? surely if it cud only access 3.3gb then they would say....or does the updated macbooks accept 4gb of accessable memory??

any ideas if der will b a software update for us C2D macbook (3rd Gen) owners? (considering the updated macbooks support the full 3gb)

cheers guys
 
The Macbook will be able to access all 4gb because Leopard is 64-bit. Previously I believe Tiger was 32-bit and the Napa platform didn't support beyond 2gb...but correct me if I'm wrong, I'm new to Mac.
 
asdfTT123 said:
The Macbook will be able to access all 4gb because Leopard is 64-bit. Previously I believe Tiger was 32-bit and the Napa platform didn't support beyond 2gb...but correct me if I'm wrong, I'm new to Mac.
Click to expand...

can anyone confirm this for me?
 
It's a hardware thing. The previous MacBooks will not be able to support addressing all 4GB of RAM due to the chipset they used. The new MacBooks just released today have the Santa Rosa chipset, which allows this.
 
The new macbooks use updated internals, refered to around here as santa rosa, this enables the addressing of 4GB. The older macbooks can't see more than ~3.3GB this is due to their hardware. There will be no software update to change that.
 
32-bit will address only slightly over 3gb. If you use one of the older Macbooks it won't matter since you can't have 4gb anyways. Because 64-bit handles data differently in larger chunks, it can support over 100gb of RAM (forget exact number).
 
Brianstorm91 said:
Well why are they still flogging the old models on the UK Store :mad:
Click to expand...

i think der testing the new santa rosa chips on macbooks on the americans first...before they bring it out to us brits.. jus saves them alot of hassle...i presume..no offense to the americans...jus fink thats the way apple think...(personal opinion)
 
asdfTT123 said:
The Macbook will be able to access all 4gb because Leopard is 64-bit. Previously I believe Tiger was 32-bit and the Napa platform didn't support beyond 2gb...but correct me if I'm wrong, I'm new to Mac.
Click to expand...
You are wrong. It has nothing to do with the OS. We have covered this many times before. Thank you for your enthusiasm but please, do not post guesswork if you don't know the answer.

MR Guide to understanding Intel Mac RAM

The reason why the new MacBooks can address 4 Gb is because they have the SantaRosa chipset. The prior chipset's hardware memory controller was hardware limited to addressing a maximum of 3.3 Gb of RAM because the upper 700 Mb of the address space was dedicated to addressing other hardware components and thus not available to use as RAM addresses.
 
2^32 = 4,294,967,296B
4,294,967,296/1,024 = 4,194,304KB
4,194,304/1,024 = 4,096MB
4,096 /1,024 = 4GB

I think this is how you figure out how much ram a x-bit system can uniquely address.

for 64 bit it ends up being
2^64/1,024/1,024/1,024 = 1.718E10 or about 17,180,000,000GB worth of unique addresses.... This should last most people to the end of their lives...

But as far as the actual hardware implements it, I don't know...

If 32-bit can only utilize 2GB, it means that it is using 1 bit for something else, which would give
2^31/1,024/1,024/1,024 = 2GB

I don't even know if this is at all anything you were looking for....oh well.:apple:
 
hishat said:
i think der [sic] testing the new santa rosa chips on macbooks on the americans first...before they bring it out to us brits.. jus [sic] saves them alot [sic] of hassle...i presume..no offense [sic] to the americans...jus [sic] fink [sic] thats [sic] the way apple think...(personal opinion)
Click to expand...

An ambassador for the English language sir, you are not.
;)
 
CanadaRAM said:
You are wrong. It has nothing to do with the OS. We have covered this many times before. Thank you for your enthusiasm but please, do not post guesswork if you don't know the answer.

MR Guide to understanding Intel Mac RAM

The reason why the new MacBooks can address 4 Gb is because they have the SantaRosa chipset. The prior chipset's hardware memory controller was hardware limited to addressing a maximum of 3.3 Gb of RAM because the upper 700 Mb of the address space was dedicated to addressing other hardware components and thus not available to use as RAM addresses.
Click to expand...

Research the differences between 64 and 32 bit operating system and you will see that 32-bit cannot address 4gb, while 64 can. This is definitely true of Windows.
 
asdfTT123 said:
Do not be an idiot. Research the differences between 64 and 32 bit operating system and you will see that 32-bit cannot address 4gb, while 64 can. This is definitely true of Windows.
Click to expand...

Right, except that Tiger is not a straight 32bit OS, and neither is Leopard. Leopard is a true 64bit OS, with 32bit capabilities.

And the reason it is true for Windows is because Windows comes in either 32bit or 64bit, they have unified the two yet like OS X has. I can't speak for all the linux distros, but I do not know of any that have unified yet either.

If the OS was the limiting factor then why would they offer 16GB RAM as an option on the MacPro?

Do not be a d!ck, research the difference between OS X and Windows and you will see that OS X is not Windows. The 4GB cap is a hardware limitation on the MacBook Pro and now MacBook. Previously the cap was 3.3GB and then before that it was 2GB.
 
hishat said:
thats you. LOL

hey, maybe a hint for the future...keep your corrections to yourself.
Click to expand...

Hey, I am a student too, and I don't feel the need to over-abbreviate. The abbreviations make it harder to understand. Maybe a hint for the future...keep your LOL's and other abbreviations to yourself.

As for the hardware/software limitation of RAM it is probably more based around hardware, but it also probably based around the software. Enough to say, that both parties are right enough. As for the Mac Pro, I bet they have different memory modules for every (or every couple) slots so that they act somewhat independently.
 
If I buy one of the new MacBooks with 1/1 RAM, so a total of 2GBs. Will I later be able to update this model to 4GBS or 2/2?
 
asdfTT123 said:
Research the differences between 64 and 32 bit operating system and you will see that 32-bit cannot address 4gb, while 64 can. This is definitely true of Windows.
Click to expand...

Panther 10.3 could access 8 Gb and more on a G5 tower. Riddle me that?

If I buy one of the new MacBooks with 1/1 RAM, so a total of 2GBs. Will I later be able to update this model to 4GBS or 2/2?
Click to expand...

Sure, you can upgrade on your own to 4 Gb. The 2 x 1 Gb will have to come out to make room.
 
CanadaRAM said:
Sure, you can upgrade on your own to 4 Gb. The 2 x 1 Gb will have to come out to make room.
Click to expand...

OK, so I can buy it then with just the 1 GB base, then upgrade it to 3GB with memory purchased elsewhere (I see that OWC is already offering a 4GB upgrade for this MacBook for $159). I was confused as we have an iBook, and we can only take out one of the RAM inserts, I believe. So this isn't an issue with MacBooks?
 
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