Can i use different speed ram cards on my macbook?

Question

I am upgrading my ram with a 2gb Crucial PC2-5300 667MHz card. i just recently saw that Centon has a 2gb PC3-6400 800MHz card. Would it be ok if i installed both cards to get the maximum 4gb? Or do the cards have to be the same speed and/or brand???

Answer 1

MACs are completely self proprietary. You can only use RAM from MAC directly, not any memory like with a PC. To get 4 gigs of memory on a mac you would have to spend 600 bucks to buy it from apple.

Answer 2

Sorry, but the person above me is wrong.

You can get any memory that's DDR2 and it will work, but the faster memory will slow down to match the speed of the slower memory.

You will still get 4 GB's though.

Answer 3

It should work fine (macs are now just PC's that lack mouse buttons).

If you have the i945 chipset you won't be able to use all 4 GiB of RAM due to memory holes (you'll end up with a bit over 3 GiB, still quite worth it) although the i965 chipset can do memory hoisting to allow you to use all 4 GiB with a 64 bit OS.

Of course if you are looking at buying 2 2 GiB RAM modules you may as well just get the same for each of them (but what does PC2 and PC3 mean?  If it's DDR2 and DDR3 then one of them won't fit in your computer).