[PowerBookOwner]

Anyone have any experience with this RAM?

1 gig PC2100 by KingMAX (from NewEGG.com)

$190 is an awesome price.

I have an extra 256 meg PC2100 that I can toss into my soon to arrive iBook G4 12" to tide me over until I mail order this one.

Anyone else have any good experiences with 1 gig sticks?

[NYK Ace]

i got it from newegg

couldnt be happier, works like a charm

[KianD]

Surely PC-2100 isn't going to work - its DDR memory, and the iBook uses SDR - or at least it should be using SDR as it has a 133 bus.

DDR SODIMM's and SDR SODIMM's are keyed differently

Although from my own experience I wouldn't put it past Apple to use weird shape configs - anyone else remember the machines that used FPM RAM on DIMM's?

[CKr]

Weird configurations? The iBook does use DDR memory. So that ram will work in the iBook. The bus runs at 133MHz while the memory runs at 2x133 @ 266MHz. Hence the Double Data Rate or DDR; it pumps twice the data through in one clock cycle.

[swichd]

Originally posted by KianD:
Surely PC-2100 isn't going to work - its DDR memory, and the iBook uses SDR - or at least it should be using SDR as it has a 133 bus.

DDR SODIMM's and SDR SODIMM's are keyed differently

Although from my own experience I wouldn't put it past Apple to use weird shape configs - anyone else remember the machines that used FPM RAM on DIMM's?

G3 iBooks use PC100/133 RAM, while G4 iBooks use DDR.

[MARINEOSX]

I have DDR in mine works fine for me and it is pc 2700

[tooki]

Originally posted by KianD:
Surely PC-2100 isn't going to work - its DDR memory, and the iBook uses SDR - or at least it should be using SDR as it has a 133 bus.

DDR SODIMM's and SDR SODIMM's are keyed differently

Although from my own experience I wouldn't put it past Apple to use weird shape configs - anyone else remember the machines that used FPM RAM on DIMM's?

Uhh, FPM was the standard for DIMMs originally. Nothing unusual about that!

tooki

[D'Espice]

Originally posted by KianD:
Surely PC-2100 isn't going to work - its DDR memory, and the iBook uses SDR - or at least it should be using SDR as it has a 133 bus.

DDR SODIMM's and SDR SODIMM's are keyed differently

Although from my own experience I wouldn't put it past Apple to use weird shape configs - anyone else remember the machines that used FPM RAM on DIMM's?

Welcome to 2004 G3 iBooks use SDR-SDRAM PC100/133 while G4 iBooks use DDR-SDRAM PC2100 (although Apple puts in PC2700, they only run at 266 MHz aka PC2100).

[KianD]

Originally posted by tooki:
Uhh, FPM was the standard for DIMMs originally. Nothing unusual about that!

tooki

It was weird because at the time the last FPM-DIMM machines from Apple were being sold, everyone else was using SDRAM DIMMs. The Macs would take FPM or EDO DIMM's; which were rarely available and hugely expensive.

If the iBook G4's use DDR why do they market the bus as being 133? 133 dualpumped is 266, thats what every other company markets it as. Marketing as 133 doesn't help the implication that their machines are slow - a 1.2Ghz/133Mhz bus laptop was what Intel machines had in 2001.

Marketing deparments. Who understands them

[D'Espice]

Simple explanation. The iBook G4's memory controller supports DDR-SDRAM however the data path from the memory controller (northbridge) to the CPU is only SDR (aka System Bus) since the CPU does not support DDR at all. There's rumors of a G4 with full DDR support but so far, they're just rumors.

[tooki]

Originally posted by KianD:
It was weird because at the time the last FPM-DIMM machines from Apple were being sold, everyone else was using SDRAM DIMMs. The Macs would take FPM or EDO DIMM's; which were rarely available and hugely expensive.

I think your timeline's a little skewed. After SDRAM became available, Apple switched to SDRAM with the next major new architecture: the G3. It's not as if Apple kept using FPM or EDO for years after SDRAM came out!

Originally posted by KianD:
If the iBook G4's use DDR why do they market the bus as being 133? 133 dualpumped is 266, thats what every other company markets it as. Marketing as 133 doesn't help the implication that their machines are slow - a 1.2Ghz/133Mhz bus laptop was what Intel machines had in 2001.

Marketing deparments. Who understands them

Nope, Apple's tech specs are dead-on. You're confusing system bus and memory bus. They are not the same thing, though they often are clocked the same.

The G4 chip supports up to a 133MHz system bus. The G4 chip does not support a bus faster than that. The memory controller is faster, so it can use DDR RAM. Yes, this is a curious arrangement, but it's also the reason that DDR RAM doesn't make a huge difference in performance on G4s. Of course, the CPU isn't the only device that accesses RAM (the graphics card, PCI cards, communications controllers, etc all can have DMA), so it can help in that respect.

tooki