Advice on matched ram

[ironlung]

I have a pre unibody macbook pro with 3GB ram in it. I am looking to upgrade the ram and had a question regarding matched rams. If I end up buying a 2GB ram stick from the same company, with the same specs, would that be matched?

Secondly, I hear that this macbook pro can take up to 6GB ram. Is that true? I thought that the limit was 4?

Thanks in advance

[psmith2.0]

I don't know exactly which pre-Unibody MacBook Pro you have (the one directly before the transition, or a little ways back), but according to MacTracker (http://www.mactracker.ca/), all MacBook Pro models from the mid-late 2007 update support 6GB RAM (that constitutes two non-Unibody models of the MacBook Pro that support 6GB RAM...the aforementioned model and a second "early 2008" update as well).

Which MacBook Pro do you have, specifically? What's the screen size and clockspeed? I can be more certain if I know which model you have.

[Dorian Gray]

I am looking to upgrade the ram and had a question regarding matched rams. If I end up buying a 2GB ram stick from the same company, with the same specs, would that be matched?
Yes - the computer will see no difference between different brands unless they're defective. There may be an ever-so-slight difference in power consumption between chips from different brands, but that won't make any difference to speed and reliability. And it's nearly impossible to find information on the power consumption of RAM chips anyway.

One thing to note is that more RAM is usually better for overall performance than matched modules of a lower capacity, i.e. 6 GB of unmatched RAM (4 GB + 2 GB modules) is better than 4 GB of matched RAM (2 GB + 2 GB). So you're on the right track with the 6 GB idea, provided your computer can take 6 GB (see pscates2.0's post).

[ironlung]

Thanks for the quick replies. Sorry about not providing enough information. My macbook pro is the one right before the unibodies came out, a 2.4 ghz (Macbook pro 4,1). Apparently, according to owc's website, it can support 6GB. Thanks for the help.

By the way I was interested in getting matched RAM to see the performance boost people talk about. Apparently on computers with a dedicated GPU it is not supposed to make that big of a difference.