Did anyone have success with two 4GB SODIMM making it 8GB? The 965 Mobile chipset is supposed to support it but Apple claims 4GB is the maximum.

and if i may ask, why would someone need more than 4GB of RAM on a notebook? Even 4GB aren't still a necessity...

Very true!!

And it might be a other thing than the chipset....

Don't worry, they know what they do; they get paid for it!

I think it is necessary, when one runs Parallels Desktop and at the same time Photoshop. It would definitely require that amount of memory. Since the 4GB SODIMMs are readily found, there might be someone here who knows that 8GB can work!

I will buy that if it works.

O.o

Cool seasurfer, come back and let us know how it works!

Don't mind what the people say -- there is NEVER enough ram! (For us power users, that is )

I hear that!

Apple always quote the maximum RAM they offer as the maximum RAM. Look at the Mac pro (v1) Apple had this listed as maximum 16Gb but it will go to 32Gb with 8 four gig sticks!

If the chipset supports 8GB, then it should work. No guarantees.

Hrmm.. this is kinda like.. "Hey, why don't we stick a V8 engine in our Model T?"

Apple lied about the max ram on the first gen mac pro (apple claimed max 16GB, others discovered it could take 32GB like the xserve) and the first gen macbook (apple claimed max 2GB, others found the actual limit was just over 3GB). Why should we assume they are telling the truth now?

afaict other than the bios replacement and the apple ID on the TPM chip the intel macs are very similar to intel reference designs.

I don't think you can address more than 4gb in SR Macbook. In pre SR macbook you can't even address 4.

I know the topic moved forward from that issue, but the step from 2Gb to 4Gb in the MBP3.1 has made a world of difference for running 64-bit Vista in the VMWare's Fusion. And just the bare Vista with IE, no fancy software in Windows.

To anyone else who has to run apps in 64bit Vista in virtualization software I would highly recommend shelling extra $60-$100 to upgrade to 4Gb.

Heres what most people miss. 32bit software doesn't read more than 2.99GB of RAM. There are various hacks you can do to get it to see all 4, but it doesn't use it all. Unless you are running 64bit vista, or apparently Leopard, there is aboslutely no need for 8GB.

Cheers
Cameron

On the contrary, 32 bit software can "address" 4gb exactly, since your pointers are 32 bit integers (2^32). The problem comes from the fact that some address space needs to be reserved for the kernel. Hence you end up with 3.2-3.3GB, depending on your OS.

There are various "hacks", indeed, like PAE (Physical Address Extension), but applications need to be written specifically to use PAE, otherwise they won't be able to make use of that extra memory.

As long as your app doesn´t need to access physical memory directly (very few apps do that) the only requirement is that your OS supports PAE.

Maybe with Linux, but that's not the case with Win32 SDK.

If this was true, it would be in the news already don't you think? Try it, i don't know anyone else who has got it to work. If you've got the cash to splash.

Well it's a known limitation of 965/SR chipset, written all over the place. It can't address more than 4GB. So I really don't know what this thread is mostly about.

My desktop's P965E chipset can support 8GB (as per the manual), but it has to slow the RAM down to 533Mhz to do it.

http://www.intel.com/products/motherboard/DP965LT/index.htm

If the amount of RAM the laptop can handle is limited by the laptop maker, there's usually no way around it. I know my old Dell E1705 tops out at 2GB because the BIOS and circuitry for the RAM slots simply wasn't designed to handle larger capacity memory. The chipset itself can certainly support more. It's a form of built-in obsolesence. I just replaced that laptop because I wanted something with more RAM.

I find it unlikely Apple would let someone throw 8GB in any of their laptops. They need something to hook you into buying the next model. 8)

People on other forums also seem to think it can handle 8gb. It will be interesting to see what the answer is.

Good news, it works:

http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archiv...8gb-of-ram.aspx

Santa Rosa or better required. It's $800+ for 2x4gb. But man, that along with MCEtech's 1TB kit:

http://store.mcetech.com/Merchant2/merchan...Product_Count=0

17" HD LED screen + 1TB RAID 0 + 8GB RAM. Where do I sign up

Bad new, but not really: http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archiv...acbook-pro.aspx

Later testing from the same guys shows the 8 gigs cause problems (horrid performance). Looks like you're better off just sticking with 4 gb. Maybe Apple does have a clue when they put limits on their machines...