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It isn't always cheaper. Be careful when buying ram though since Macs are pickier about which ram they recognize.

The 1gb kits from crucial all cost around $130. From Apple it only costs $100. So buying the middle amount of ram from Apple may actually be cheaper. Buying the maximum amount of ram usually isn't.

You seem to forget the 512M ram which you already pay for as part of the computer , so your $100 is actually for 512M extra ram, that is expensive.

In your example
1G "1x1G" Crucial might cost $149(which is very high, you can found 1G at around 80's in Fry's) or 300 for 2(2x1G).
at
Apple
(2x1G) will run you $500 plus Apple will keep your 512M that come with your already pay for computer. so in reality you are paying $600 for 2G of ram at Apple

Upgrading your hard drive or ram will not void your warranty. And it actually is good to have paired RAM so it isn't a good idea to be putting in a 512 and a 1gb stick to make 1.5.

As a rule, always get the least amount of ram from Apple and upgrade it yourself. It is always cheaper, no matter what math anyone tries to push past you. I came to this realization long ago.

FF

I did a little comparison:

the base macbook comes with 2x256 DDR2 memory modules. Now, on the cheap side of things (I'm sure Apple is charging more than this for the 256 sticks), You can get a 256 PC-5300 stick for $40 from the web. That's $80 you're paying for 512MB of memory. Not great.

Now, instead choose 1GB (2X512). This time, I go to newegg: I can get 2x512MB sticks for an average of $60 a piece. That's $120 for 2x512MB. Compare that to a now (at the least, really) $180 from apple (add the [speculative] 2x256 price to the upgrade price to go to 2x512 from Apple).

Now let's go for 2GB from Apple (2x1GB). Add $500 to the least price of 2x256 from the web (which is no doubt lower than Apple's price), which comes to $580 for 2GB of ram. Compare that to generally less than $200 for 2GB of comparable ram elsewhere (newegg).

As you can see, there's big difference between Apple's prices and what you can get on your own. And just remember, the price of the original 256MB sticks is purely speculation, as I'm sure Apple is charging more than $40 per stick.

FF

Also, if you get the base amount from Apple, and get 1x1GB of ram from newegg at $100 (generally), you have 1.25GB of ram, and if you plan to upgrade to 2GB later, there's obvious savings.

Last edited by fatherfork (2006-09-04 5:22 pm)

TheNakedPhilosopher wrote:

I don't have a percentage slowdown, anybody got one for watchout? Or at least how it "feels" from someone who's tried non-paired memory in a MacBook?

While this may not be a valid response to your question, i can say that upgrading from a paired total amount of 512MB to 1.25GB (1x1GB and 1x256MB), it is substantially faster.

While I understand that two 512MB stick will be faster that what I have now, it will ultimately be cheaper to go ahead and get the full 2GB later, upgrading from two 256MB sticks (two days from now, actually).

FF

As a comparison, with 2x256MB sticks in my macbook, it was as fast or slower at times than my 1.5GHz powerbook with 2x512MB sticks or ram. Now, with 1.25GB, the macbook is much, much faster.

Last edited by fatherfork (2006-09-04 9:24 pm)

You have to also remember that the macbook only has two dimm slots, so if you put the full amount of memory in the laptop you will need two 1 gig sticks. In my case i will have to take out two 512 memory sticks and replace with with the 2 gig sticks, this makes me sick to my stomach and i dont know when i will ever use the perfectly fine memory that im swaping out.

There are other good reasons for getting the lowest amount from Apple; the 2X256MB can (and should) be retained for testing and troubleshooting should any problems arise (they are too small for resale anyways) and it leaves you free to look for your best deal on more memory either incrementally (adding a 1 gig stick to start) or a 2 gig deal. I got the 2 gigs from OWC (Macsales.com) and though it is not the absolute cheapest, it is very fair and so far flawless on both my new macBook and little older iBook. As long as everything is not on universal binary, maxing out the MacBook's memory is not a bad idea.