# White iMac - 2.16g - 4gb ram



## cchaynes (Oct 25, 2007)

Hello

i was just wondering, when i bought my imac (white core 2 duo 2.16) it was capped at 3gb of ram even if you put in 4, so at the price per stick i went for 2.

now that ram is so cheap i ordered 2 x 2gb sticks and slapped them in.

the machine appears to be running with the full 4gb....

is this a firmware upgrade that has enables this, i just dont recall reading about it....

i have checked in 3 places; about this mac, system profiler and istatadn , they all recognize the full 4gb.

am i missing something?

thanks in advance...

c


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## monokitty (Jan 26, 2002)

It sees and shows 4GB, but will only utilize 3GB. The Mac mini is the same way.


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## cchaynes (Oct 25, 2007)

is there a way to test it?


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

It may show 4 in the memory slot config but the chipset has a limit of about 3.25 gigs as useable.
No harm tho.


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## Andrew Pratt (Feb 16, 2007)

Right the software can see 4 gigs but the intel chipset is limited to 3.3 gigs...doesn't matter if its MacOS, XP or Linux its a hardware issue. Still given that its so cheap I have 4 gigs in my 2.16 GHz MBP as well. There's some minor gains having matching ram and given that I'll likely upgrade sooner or later to a machine that will utilize all four gigs it wasn't a difficult choice to drop in dual 2 gig sticks the other week.


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## monokitty (Jan 26, 2002)

Andrew Pratt said:


> There's some minor gains having matching ram...


iMacs do not benefit from matched sticks of RAM.


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## CanadaRAM (Jul 24, 2005)

Lars said:


> iMacs do not benefit from matched sticks of RAM.


Actually they do - all intel Core Macs do, but the net benefit is small, maybe 6%.
The benefit on a machine with integrated video (Mini, MacBook) is a bit larger but still not big.


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## monokitty (Jan 26, 2002)

CanadaRAM said:


> The benefit on a machine with integrated video (Mini, MacBook) is a bit larger but still not big.


Yes, that's what I was mostly referring to. Thanks for clarifying.


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## Andrew Pratt (Feb 16, 2007)

That's why I said _minor_ 

MacBook Pro: For maximum performance, upgrade memory in matched pairs


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## Vegas Underground (Mar 30, 2008)

I also own a white iMac running a 2.16Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, and ive always wanted to know what its maximum ram capacity was, it was built for me in October 2006, so does that mean I can add atleast another gig of ram? Im currently running 2Gbs.


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## CanadaRAM (Jul 24, 2005)

Vegas Underground said:


> I also own a white iMac running a 2.16Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, and ive always wanted to know what its maximum ram capacity was, it was built for me in October 2006, so does that mean I can add atleast another gig of ram? Im currently running 2Gbs.


Yes, all Core2Duo Macs can take 3 GB or 4 GB of RAM.
The pre-SantaRosa models (like yours and the OP's) can only let the OS and applications address 3.0 to 3.3 GB of that RAM because of hardware limitations of the motherboard. The SantaRosa and Penryn models can address the full 4 GB


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## BlueMax (Aug 8, 2005)

Matching pairs enables _dual-channel_ memory, which is a ~5% speed boost.

For the tiny price of RAM these days, you might as well!


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## Vegas Underground (Mar 30, 2008)

I may upgrade to a 3rd GB of ram then, ive always wondered, but always forgot to check with apple, hahaha. Thanks guys.


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