[foppie]

hi,

i just bought a 512 MB memory stick on ebay for US$50. it's from this guy who bought a 20 inch iMAC. it's a Samsung module and he bought it in new hampshire. i live in the Netherlands and i do not have a Samsung 512 MB module. it's a 512 MB module, but not from Samsung. do i still make a matched pair with the samsung module?

thanks.

[mdc]

which iMac model do you have?

i was having the same issues after i bought my 17" iMac G5. i was looking on owc at the iMac memory and they all said "required pairs." i phoned owc and spoke to someone there and he said that the pairs are only required on powermacs.

i bought a 1gig stick from them and put it into my 17" iMac (with the standard 512) and it works fine.

[foppie]

i have a 17" 1.8 GHz combo 512 MB. i know that it works when they are not paired. but at the store they told me, that it works slower. apple this is a link to an apple support page. i think my memory is okay. it was US$ 50, so i think a bargain.

[mdc]

interesting, thanks for the link. i guess i'll be buying another 1gig stick then.

[MaxPower2k3]

Hmm... so is an iMac with the stock 512mb stick running in 128-bit or 64-bit mode?

I'm probably gonna get an iMac soon, so i'm wondering if getting a 1GB stick from another source (so, 1.5GB total) will lower it from 128-bit mode to 64-bit mode, or if it's already in 64-bit mode when it only has one stick of RAM? RAM is fairly cheap, anyway (1GB is $80 from newegg.com) so i could also just jump to 2GB immediately, but i'd rather stick to 1.5GB unless i'd get a noticeable performance hit.

[foppie]

one stick runs at 128 bits. it is only a problem when you use two sticks. they have to be paired.

[Meritocracy]

That's incorrect. Only matching pairs will yield 128 bit addressing. Single sticks or unmatched pairs are 64. Real word, not benchmarked, performance tests with the previous generation showed that you're not really going to be able to see a noticable difference with 64 vs. 128 bit memory addressing. 1.5 GB should be more than fine.

[lpetschauer]

Here's what barefeats.com had to say about it.

In short:

THE REAL WORLD VERDICT: AVERAGING 8 TESTS, NETS 0% GAIN FROM MATCHED PAIRS.

[Pierre B.]

Originally Posted by lpetschauer

Here's what barefeats.com had to say about it.

OK, so here is the question: in what situations the 128 vs. 64 bit memory addressing would make a difference?

[MaxPower2k3]

thanks for the info, looks like i'll just go for the extra gig for now