Question about additional RAM

tidelwavtidelwav
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
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.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 2
    lundylundy Posts: 4,466member
    Quote:

    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.
  • Reply 2 of 2
    tidelwavtidelwav Posts: 118member
    Cool thanks, Lundy. that's what i'm gonna do then.
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