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tooki · Dec 2, 2005 , 12:52 PM

What brand to choose?
Apple RAM is always the most expensive. It's guaranteed to work, but generally wildly overpriced.

Crucial is a top-grade vendor. It's not the cheapest, but guaranteed to work. Crucial's parent company (Micron) is one of Apple's RAM suppliers.

Samsung and Hynix RAM, available from many sources, are also some of Apple's suppliers, and of high quality.

Other World Computing is the leading Mac upgrade vendor. Many users swear by OWC's budget RAM.

This is in no way an exhaustive list. ramseeker compiles Mac RAM prices daily, organized by model. Most of the vendors listed have reputations for good product.

ghettochild · Dec 5, 2005 , 01:04 PM

I got crucial sticks in both my iMac and PB. purchased 'em when they were on sale, thus significantly cheaper. work perfectly, no probs at all so far.

bkarlsen · Dec 13, 2005 , 10:32 PM

I got a 1GB stick of Samsung OEM ram off of Newegg.com and it is working great. I expected it to since it is the memory that Apple is currently charging $300 for upgrading. Was able to get it through Newegg for just about $90.

mkral · Dec 28, 2005 , 05:17 PM

I found 18004memory.com off of ramseeker. They always seem to be close to the lowest cost I can find. I've had trouble with 2 sticks of RAM I've ever bought from them, both times (one time right away & the other time 17 months later) I called & they exchanged the ram right away. No complaints here.

Moon Potato · Jan 3, 2006 , 03:08 AM

I purchased a 1GB stick of Kingston RAM along with my new powerbook, and kept getting hard freezes. Even though Hardware Test said the memory was OK, the problems stopped when I removed the DIMM. Next time I'm going with Crucial.

Maflynn · Jan 4, 2006 , 06:13 AM

I've purchased almost exclusivly from crucial and I've not been dissapointed once.
Because of circumstances beyond my control - I couldn't purchase ram at crucial so I picked up some from my local apple store (for my G5). More money then crucial but all in all it seems to be performing.

shakai · Jan 6, 2006 , 03:47 AM

i also bought kingston and i installed it the same day i got my powerbook...it kept on freezing...i thought my powerbook was a defect...

GUER03 · Jan 13, 2006 , 07:39 AM

I was at the Apple store locally last night and spoke to 2 guys who had their Powerbook G4 1.5Ghz and I asked them about memory because I am about to add a stick to mine. They both told me that they had installed Kingston in their PBs and they both had problems with them. One guy said he installed a stick of a GB and it gave him lot's of hard freezes. He said Kingston replaced it for him and the new one would freeze up as well.

I guess I won't be buying Kingston for my PB 15" because that's the main one I hear about not being compatible.

Anyone know anything about Patriot memory?

icruise · Jan 15, 2006 , 03:50 AM

The new intel iMacs have a note on their Apple Store entries saying:

"To maximize memory performance, it is recommended that memory SO-DIMMs be installed in pairs."

Does this mean that the chips you install have to be of the same capacity? I ask because if you buy the standard configuration you will get one 512MB stick. If you want more than 1GB of RAM, are you going to have to remove the 512MB it came with and go with 2GB? Would just installing a 1GB stick to go with the 512MB stick result in a perceptible decrease in performance?

And does this apply equally to the MacBooks?

pbnewb · Jan 18, 2006 , 01:03 PM

I think that this is to do with the fact that, all other things being equal, 2x512 sticks will be faster than 1x1gb. Of course, 2x1gb will be as fast too. The issue is to do with simultaneous requests being faster on average if you are accessing two parrallel stores than one.
I don't think 'unmatched' sticks are going to be any slower than 'matched' ones apart from the fact that two will be faster than one.

ICD2k3 · 11:18 AM

Hey guys, im looking to get a gig stick for my powerbook to bump my ram from 512 to 1.2gb. I was wondering about samsung ram as compared to crucial. For my model (15in 1.33) the samsung ram is about $60 cheeper than crucial at http://www.macsolutions.com/1gbpcsopog4a.html. Suggestions? is crucial worth the extra money over samsung?

ajbaker · Jan 26, 2006 , 09:09 AM

Whilst not an expert, I doubt as a user you would see any noticable performance difference having two different chips as compared to one. Having said that, I didn't even think it was possible to have two of different sizes - can anyone confirm this?

macboy · Feb 3, 2006 , 08:16 AM

I'm a very soon to be mac user. Just wanted to know - is it easy to upgrade the ram by yourself on a powerbook? I heard somewhere a while ago that it sort of voids all your Apple warranty if not installed by Apple itself???

mkral · Feb 3, 2006 , 08:41 AM

Very easy to upgrade the Ram on a powerbook. IIRC, it is also the only user installable upgrade that will not void your PBook warranty.

FireWire · Feb 11, 2006 , 08:58 AM

First, I don't know why a thread about RAM for Mac is located in the PowerBook forum, as there is none for other models, and beside the physical configuration of the stick (DIMM, SO-DIMM, numbers of pins) the RAM characteristics should be roughly the same for every Mac, no?

I own a flat panel iMac and I was recently looking for information about what brand of memory should I buy, and I never thought of checking in THIS thread. I believe this information should have been better served in a new forum, about general Mac technology/hardware.

By the way, despite the mixed experience with the ValueRAM brand from Kingston memory, I went ahead and ordered a 1 Gb stick, and so far everything is working fine, no crash, no kernel panic. I tested the RAM with TechTool 4.11 (I lost my Apple Hardware Test CD) and found nothing wrong. For information, the P/N# is KVR333X64C25/1G (200-pin SO-DIMM).

Chase265 · Feb 13, 2006 , 06:40 PM

How do you guys feel about buying Crucial ram from ebay?

hkd · Feb 20, 2006 , 08:55 PM

Can someone explain the difference between these for me?

http://www.crucial.com/store/MPartsp...&WSPN=CT368654 for $205

vs.

http://www.crucial.com/store/partspe...LE=CT12864X335 for $140

Always · Feb 28, 2006 , 08:18 AM

I need to upgrade ram for my 15 inch powerbook as well. PLS advise

Cheers

jorgem4 · Mar 1, 2006 , 10:00 PM

My sister and I are looking into upgrading the RAM in our machines.

I own a 1.33 GHz 12 in. PB

My Sis a 1.5 Ghz 12 in. PB

I was wondering if this Crucial Ram would work for both of us?

Thanks.

Chase265 · Mar 2, 2006 , 01:10 PM

bought my Crucial ram from Newegg for my PB 1.67. Cheapest place plus its newegg...so can't go wrong

http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16820145068

its even cheaper now then when I bought it a month ago.
installed with no problems.

Star-Fire · Mar 4, 2006 , 08:28 AM

Just a heads up, I had a 1 gig 4200 DDR2 in my Gateway (sold for the MBP) and figured WTH I'll try in the MBP, works perfect now I have 2 gigs

BTW it is a kingston chip.

ajbaker · Mar 15, 2006 , 05:11 AM

Anyone hazard a guess as to whether this will work in my new MacBook Pro (ok, so it hasn't been ordered yet!)

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/produ...oductID=353418

This is the cheapest I have found in the UK and seems to be a similar price to that in the US.

zombie67 · Mar 23, 2006 , 10:31 PM

my 2.0G MBP is on the way, need to buy one 1GB now! just check curcial.com they have different memory for 1.83G and 2.0G.

For 2.0G:
$157.99 CT511220

For 1.83G
$142.19 CT500626

What is the difference between those two? Can I buy the one for 1.83G but use it for my 2.0G MBP?

Thanks!!!