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tech: Upgrading Mac Pro Memory

October 15 2008 | WilHarris

Want to spec up your Mac Pro, but worried about getting the wrong sort of RAM? Balking at the £900 that Apple charges to order your Mac Pro with 8GB rather than 2GB?

Wil spends 30 seconds pulling the side off a Mac Pro and installing 8GB of super-fast Corsair RAM for a shade over £100. Then spends another 120 seconds explaining the type of RAM that you need and where you can get it with the minimum of hassle.

Stop abusing your Mac Pro with 2GB of RAM - free the beast within!

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comments

Mike Taylor
October 16th, 2008 - 3:48am

I enjoyed your video about upgrading the Mac Pro’s memory but I wanted to make you aware of a small detail that may cause someone’s upgrade to act like it’s not working.

The Mac Pro has different DIMM insertion patterns depending on how many and what type of DIMMS your using but fortunately the Mac Pro’s user guide has a section describing it in a clear manner.

This is the search I used on Apple’s support site to see the various PDF’s available depending on how old your Mac Pro is and if it’s a 4 or 8 core configuration.

http://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=search&src=support_site.kbase.search&q=memory%20upgrade%20mac%20pro

thanks again for a great video site!

jpdeleon
October 16th, 2008 - 5:21am

Nice review !!
Simple and really useful…

Cheers…

Jay
October 19th, 2008 - 8:20pm

Also… You MUST buy two identical sticks at a time for them to work properly in the MacPro. And put one in the top riser and one in the bottom.

And as Mike Taylor stated, the older MacPro versions (like I have) use different speed RAM than the current MacPros.

H
October 23rd, 2008 - 12:59am

Count of the number of times Wil says “Now”: 4

David
January 14th, 2009 - 8:11pm

Great video and was very excited when I saw it! However, I have searched and searched for the cheapest (but not infringing on quality) RAM sticks I could find. Ive been to the Corsair website and can’t find any sticks from any of their authorised retailers that will give me 8GB for the acclaimed £250.

Whats also confusing is that Will only adds in 2×2GB sticks and then the animation is comparing 8GB? Even more confusing, is the text blurb attached to this video says that Will will show you how to upgrade your Mac Pro to 8GB for “a shade over £100″ - ???

If anyone can provide a suitable like to a retailer where I can get the correct RAM for £250 or the £100 :-P then I will be very grateful.

WilHarris
January 18th, 2009 - 7:02pm

Erk, seems that the pricing of Mac memory is pretty volatile. The best I’ve found is

http://crucial.com/uk/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=F27D0DCDA5CA7304

which is £210 for 8GB of 800MHz stuff or

http://crucial.com/uk/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=C67D5D6AA5CA7304

which is £180 for 8GB of 667MHz stuff, depending on which Mac Pro model you have. Hope this helps… the Corsair RAM appears to have rocketed in price.

David
January 22nd, 2009 - 11:26pm

Thanks Will for the links :-) Very big help!

Jerry
February 13th, 2009 - 10:21pm

Thanks for the nice VDO although it sure sounds like an ad for Corsair. We really prefer the Mac Pro FBDIMMs from Mac RAM Direct http://MacRamDirect.com . They’re 8GB kit is $189 and those are the exact same parts they sell to NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Apple gouges and there’s nothing wrong with Corsair but for my money I’ll stick with the lifetime warranted Mac RAM Direct partz.

Jerry
February 13th, 2009 - 10:22pm

Sorry, here’s the link to the MacPro page: http://macramdirect.com/macpro.html

Cheers…

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