[YZThump]

I'm sure this has been discussed before, but I've searched for the past hour and not found it.

I have an Intel Mini and want to bump up the base RAM to 1G. Did my machine come with a single 512 stick or two 256? I just want to know if I should buy one additional 512 or will I need two.

thanks

[macboy]

Go to About this Mac -> More Info -> Memory - You'll see what you have in there!

[YZThump]

Ah Ha! 2x256 Thanks

One more Q. Can I mismatch? (leave one 256 and put in a 1G or a 512MB)

[indigoimac]

Which mini is this intel or G4, the G4 will work fine mismatched but the intel's integrated gfx will take a performance hit.

[polendo]

The G4 mini has only one memory slot (nevertheless he indicated an intel mini).. please someone correct me if im wrong. Another thing worth mentioning.. intel mini uses SO DIMM ddr2 memory vs ddr used on the G4.

regards

[dowNNshift]

The 1.66 core duo w/ combo drive (newest ones) ship with 2x 256 MB of no-name PC2-5300 SO-DIMM RAM.

Getting to that RAM is much more of an adventure than in the PowerPC mini, infact on the Core Duo mini you have to:

1. Putty knife off the case, 2. unclip the airport antenna, 3. de-route the bluetooth antenna wire, 4. un-attach the IR receiver,5. remove optical drive, 6. remove the HDD/FAN chassis, and then you have access to the two SO-DIMM slots -- my first time took me about 50 minutes (being really careful), after that it's a breeze.

The PowerPC was so easy, just putty knife off the case and swap the PC-2700 (full sized) stick of RAM -- Apple had to make it all super compact now with the Core Duos, but I'm not complaining especailly now that you can run 2GB of super fast PC2-5300 RAM.

Best price I have seen on the most reliable is at Newegg for Crucial PC2-5300 667MHz SO-DIMM RAM.... I bought some last week for $135 per 1GB module.

[dowNNshift]

Oh... BTW, you cannot mismatch without paying a HUGE performance penalty (not to mention I think the Apple EFI will get cranky with you) -- RAM these days operate on a "per channel" basis, so the rule of thumb is always buy in exact pairs or buy one large module.

Always remember to pop in your Apple Restore disk #1 and hold down the "D" key to run the Apple Hardware Test afterwards to double check your RAM's integrity.

[P]

Originally Posted by dowNNshift

Oh... BTW, you cannot mismatch without paying a HUGE performance penalty (not to mention I think the Apple EFI will get cranky with you) -- RAM these days operate on a "per channel" basis, so the rule of thumb is always buy in exact pairs or buy one large module.

Not a huge penalty, no. There is a small penalty ion not being able to make 128-bit reads and write but the aggregate bandwidth is the same.

[dowNNshift]

Originally Posted by P

Not a huge penalty, no. There is a small penalty ion not being able to make 128-bit reads and write but the aggregate bandwidth is the same.

OK, in all honesty with charts and graphs aside (we all don't compute in the 'perfect' world of Cinebench) -- The way Intel chipsets have worked the last few years, it's PER channel. If you mis-match RAM on the channel, the frontside bus will downgrade the speed, period.

If you're already spending the money to upgrade your memory, your probably going to want to get the maximum out of it. Especially since PC2-5300 RAM is pretty expensive at the moment.

[P]

I don't know what you're talking about. It used to be that in dual channel mode, the channels had to be populated identically (dual channel symmetric mode). That is not true for the 945GM chipset, which also supports dual channel asymmetric mode.

http://download.intel.com/design/mob...s/30921902.pdf

See point 1.2.2.