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8gb memory upgrade for macbook(2008)?

S

spriggan

Member
Thinking of upgrading my 2008 model macbook (default 2gb) which is apparently now capable of using 8gb due to bios update. My only concern is will it affect battery life significantly or should I just go with 4gb instead?
I use it mostly for school work and some mid-heavy photo editing work with lightroom and photoshop.
 
You won't see any changes in battery life from RAM upgrade.

I'd just upgrade it straight to 8GB just to get it over with since RAM prices are pretty cheap now.
 
I could be wrong, but I didn't think the '08 Macbook Pro's supported 8GB. I thought they topped out at 6GB and the '09 Unibody was the first to support 8GB.

Found this from barefeats:
http://www.barefeats.com/mbpp11.html

They confirm that 8GB of RAM in the late '08 model has issues.
 
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Depends on the bootrom version. Look online. There are some MacBook pros like mine that don't officially support 8gb but have no problem even in lion.
 
The early 2008 15" MBP is DDR2 I believe. DDR2 SODIMMs are expensive.

The late 2008 15" MBP is DDR3 I believe. DDR3 SODIMMs are cheap.

For my 2009 13" MacBook Pro I just went to 4 GB. Crucial 2x2 was quite cheap locally, but 2x4 (Samsung or Crucial) was about 3 times as much. I didn't trust the OCZ or Corsair stuff which was cheap, because I've had problems with them in the past on Macs.

However, I don't do heavy stuff often on my MBP. For mid-heavy Lightroom and Photoshop, I'd said definitely go 8 GB if your laptop can take it (without issues).
 
yes my core2duo 17" runs at native speed with vmware 3.8GB to win7ultimate and the rest to osx (with ssd). no slowdown at all on either side
 
I'm still using 4GB on my Macbook 5,1 (the original unibody aluminum model). No real issues, but I only rarely run VMWare and even then, its only XP.

Plus, I upgraded to an SSD - that made the biggest difference.
 
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