Question about additional RAM

[Tidelwav]

The guy at the apple store for my university told me that adding a 1 gig stick of RAM to my 20" iMac will be ok even though the original stick is only 512. Is this true? Is it ok to have a 1 gig stick in one DIMM slot with a 512 stick in the other for a total of 1.5 gigs?

thanks.

[lundy]

Originally posted by Tidelwav
The guy at the apple store for my university told me that adding a 1 gig stick of RAM to my 20" iMac will be ok even though the original stick is only 512. Is this true? Is it ok to have a 1 gig stick in one DIMM slot with a 512 stick in the other for a total of 1.5 gigs?

thanks.

It will work fine, but with two different DIMMs, the iMac will operate on a 64-bit data path rather than a 128-bit path. To get the maximum speed of the data bus, you need two identical DIMMs, same size and same speed (e.g. PC3200 - 30330 speed).

I doubt you could really tell the speed difference though. You could go with the 1.5 GB and swap out the 512 at a later date for another 1 GB. Prices on the 1GB would be less as time goes on.

[Tidelwav]

Cool thanks, Lundy. that's what i'm gonna do then.