Need help with an upgrade!

[fauxosprey]

Hi guys! i am new around here and i am in need of some help! i am pretty clued up when it comes to computers i have built my own rig but i need help deciding on the best upgrade for my macbook pro!

i was given by a family member a 17" macbook pro with a core i7 in it sitting at 2.4ghz with 4 cores and 8 threads and has a hd 6770 in it but only 4gb of ram ... when i first got it i did a clean install on it and everything was grand for a few months but as i used it more and more it began to slow down and now 95% of the time i get the dreaded spinning beach ball of death

so my question to you is what do you think would be the best upgrade for me to do to my mac ... i think that a ram upgrade to 8gb if not 16gb should sort my issues as i cant see the cpu or the graphics card being a bottle neck

any help is appreciated thanks

 

[JTToft]

RAM is a good idea. I'd do one stick of 8 GB in addition to one of the 2 GB already installed. Makes it simpler to upgrade to 16 GB later on.

SSD is a better idea and will zip that machine right up. Get a Samsung 850 EVO of your desired capacity and put that in there in place of the hard drive.

 

[fauxosprey]

okay thanks for the reply! i wasnt sure if i was able to mix size sticks of ram together. and am i right in saying that if the speeds dont match the faster one will just run the same speed as the slower one or is it better to get the same speed stick of ram?

also the macbook has an old replacement hdd in it as the factory one died on me and the only one i could get my hands on was what i think is a 5200rpm model so will a hdd upgrade to a faster hdd or even possibly a ssd help a lot?

 

[JTToft]

okay thanks for the reply! i wasnt sure if i was able to mix size sticks of ram together. and am i right in saying that if the speeds dont match the faster one will just run the same speed as the slower one or is it better to get the same speed stick of ram?

also the macbook has an old replacement hdd in it as the factory one died on me and the only one i could get my hands on was what i think is a 5200rpm model so will a hdd upgrade to a faster hdd or even possibly a ssd help a lot?

- Correct on RAM. You can mix both sizes and speeds. Both modules will run at the speed of the slowest module. The machine can use up to 1600 MHz.

Upgrade to a "faster" HDD will pretty much do nothing at all. Upgrade to an SSD will make an astronomical amount of difference.

 

[mikecalderone]

I Have a Late 2011 Macbook Pro 17" That has 16GB Memory and a 240GB SSD, and it super quick and snappy.
You need an SSD Hard drive to fix your issue. It is a great upgrade to the 17 Model.

 

[fauxosprey]

okay thanks for the replys guys ... hardware shopping it is for me now then i dread to think how mich money i have invested into my gaming rig and this macbook

 

[Samuelsan2001]

okay thanks for the replys guys ... hardware shopping it is for me now then i dread to think how mich money i have invested into my gaming rig and this macbook

SSD all the way it's the best upgrade you can do, and much of your slowness may well be a failing hard drive.

I think yours is a 2010 model so you have an 8gb RAM limit, amazingly in that year the 13 inch was 16gb capable but the 15 and 17 inch only took 8gb.

 

[JTToft]

I think yours is a 2010 model so you have an 8gb RAM limit

- If it has a Radeon 6770M, then it's a Late 2011. 2010s had NVIDIA.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

- If it has a Radeon 6770M, then it's a Late 2011. 2010s had NVIDIA.

2011 15 and 17 inch machines had a core i processor not the core 2 duo.... If I remember correctly.

 

[fauxosprey]

2011 15 and 17 inch machines had a core i processor not the core 2 duo.... If I remember correctly.

It is a late 2011 model

 

[JTToft]

2011 15 and 17 inch machines had a core i processor not the core 2 duo.... If I remember correctly.

- Correct. But Core 2 Duo isn't mentioned anywhere in this thread.
And 2010 15" and 17" also had Core i5/i7.

 

[Ms Monthana]

I agree with comment RAM is a good idea.