Mac Memory
rwx recently asked:
I have to go at noon and buy 2G of RAM for my mbp to bring it to a total of 3g of RAM. Do you have any advice on this purchase in terms of brands or whatever? It seems like you have all sorts of opinions about mac hardware, but searching your blog didn't turn anything relevant up, so i thought i'd mail you and ask.
RAM sold by Apple is, of course, notoriously expensive:
2x2GB SO-DIMMs DDR2 (PC2-5300)
Apple 2x2GB MacBook Pro RAM: $1,000.00
Crucial 2x2GB MacBook Pro RAM: $119.00
Apple Tax: 740%
In the past Apple have given me some grief about third party RAM when I've attempted to avoid their mark-up. These days, Apple's larger market share and attention among high-octane nerds has made third-party RAM companies take notice. Several companies sell "Mac Memory" which isn't necessarily different than regular memory but at least comes with a sticker on the chips marking it as "Mac Memory" which will hopefully reassure the AppleCare techs if they think it's bad but can't prove it. You can also buy essentially the same part from the same company without the "Mac Memory" certification and save $10-$30 if you're sure that stuff like latency and chip run won't trip you up. (I got screwed on this once in a set of x86/Linux systems way back when, so I don't take chances anymore.)
I have to go at noon and buy 2G of RAM for my mbp to bring it to a total of 3g of RAM. Do you have any advice on this purchase in terms of brands or whatever? It seems like you have all sorts of opinions about mac hardware, but searching your blog didn't turn anything relevant up, so i thought i'd mail you and ask.
RAM sold by Apple is, of course, notoriously expensive:
2x2GB SO-DIMMs DDR2 (PC2-5300)
Apple 2x2GB MacBook Pro RAM: $1,000.00
Crucial 2x2GB MacBook Pro RAM: $119.00
Apple Tax: 740%
In the past Apple have given me some grief about third party RAM when I've attempted to avoid their mark-up. These days, Apple's larger market share and attention among high-octane nerds has made third-party RAM companies take notice. Several companies sell "Mac Memory" which isn't necessarily different than regular memory but at least comes with a sticker on the chips marking it as "Mac Memory" which will hopefully reassure the AppleCare techs if they think it's bad but can't prove it. You can also buy essentially the same part from the same company without the "Mac Memory" certification and save $10-$30 if you're sure that stuff like latency and chip run won't trip you up. (I got screwed on this once in a set of x86/Linux systems way back when, so I don't take chances anymore.)
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