[mitch]

I am a video editor and I'm planning on buying a new MacPro to use with the Final Cut Pro suite. To save money I was thinking of buying the RAM separately - not from apple.

A friend has a very similar setup, and he told me that he did the same thing - bought the RAM separately. He said Final Cut Pro had all kinds of problems, and after trying to troubleshoot the situaltion, he called a repair man, who told him he had to get RAM direct from apple in order to run FCP specifically. So he did, and the problem cleared up.

I'm wondering if anyone knows anything about this. Was this just a case of bad RAM? Does one NEED to buy RAM from apple, or are there certain 3rd party outlets that will work and some that won't?

Any info is helpful. Thanks.

[MichiganRich]

What a load of crap. Any kind of RAM will work as long as you buy *exactly* the right type that your computer requires. I've never bought memory at the Apple inflated prices and other than a warranty return here and there, I've never had a problem.

Where do people think 'The Apple RAM' comes from, anyway? It's all pooped out of Chinese factories like all the other stuff.

[mduell]

3rd party RAM is fine, but you need 3rd party RAM with oversized heatsinks designed for the low airflow in the Mac Pro. Several manufacturers/vendors have them, including Crucial and Newegg.

[tomrock]

There are several threads about Mac Pro ram on this page. But make sure you buy from someone who knows Macs if you're not crystal clear about what you want. Find the latest Performance Upgrades, Firewire and USB Hard Drives, SATA, Memory, Laptop Battery, and more at OWC is an example.

[steveclifforduk]

I have always bought my ram from Crucial (UK) for my Macbook and now my Macbook Pro, and never had an issue, and it's SO much cheaper from them!

Just select you Mac model and it will give you all the compatible ram for you Mac.

Good Luck!

[MarkLT1]

I am running 3rd part RAM in my MacPro. I do very memory intensive scientific work on this machine, come close to maxing out the RAM on 20+ hour simulation runs (e.g.- I am taxing the ram heavily). I have never had a problem with the memory. As others have mentioned, make sure you get RAM with large heatsinks designed for the MP.

I purchased my memory from OWC: Mac Pro Memory - Mac Pro Quad Xeon Memory, Mac Pro 8-Core Xeon Memory DDR2 667MHz Fully Buffered 240 Pin DIMM PC5300 Upgrades at OtherWorldComputing.com

[zerostar]

Originally Posted by MichiganRich 

Where do people think 'The Apple RAM' comes from, anyway? It's all pooped out of Chinese factories like all the other stuff.

thanks for that....

[mduell]

Newegg has a whole page of Mac Pro compatible RAM from different manufacturers.

[G-Force]

Is the apple-qualified memory from OWC okay? It's so much cheaper than their other Apple-certified memory or memory from Crucial. I'm wondering if it's too good to be true?

[MarkLT1]

Originally Posted by G-Force 

Is the apple-qualified memory from OWC okay? It's so much cheaper than their other Apple-certified memory or memory from Crucial. I'm wondering if it's too good to be true?

G-Force-

OWC has a 30-day money-back guarantee on all of their memory. They also have a lifetime replacement guarantee. I would think
1) you would be able to test the RAM and make sure it works well in the first 30-days. If not, they will happily give you your money back
2) If the RAM is deficient later on, they will send you replacement sticks of RAM under the lifetime warranty.

I have found OWC to be a very nice company to deal with, and personally, wouldn't hesitate to try out their qualified RAM, as I know they stand behind their products.

[G-Force]

Thanks MarkLT1 for your insights. I'm going to try out the OWC qualified memory.