MacBook Pro Supports 16GB Ram

The MacBook Pro models made in 2011 and 2012 support 16GB RAM.

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And when you but the RAM, make certain that you adhere to the specifications in the MBP manual. Not to do so opens you to potential problems.

Ciao.

I have 16GB of RAM on my late 11 MBP.

I've been using Crucial on mine and have to issues.

When buying RAM for MB, steer clear from the value line. Go mid to higher end since Macbooks are a little on the picky side when it comes to memory.

How is the 16GB RAM upgrade working out for you? Any bad behavior at all? Other World Computing and Crucial have been slowly lowering the price of a 16GB upgrade, so I'm pretty close to buying it. The only thing I worry about is additional heat, or other undesireable behavior. I've installed a 16GB upgrade for one of my customers, but he's not a good person to ask since he's always taxing his system anyway. I only need to do that once in a while when I need to run more than one virtual machine in Parallels, so I expect a lot of extra heat and high RPMs from the fans.

My RAM is working great with no issues so far.

Then again, I went with Crucial when it comes to buying RAM since I've got great experience with them.

If you're not in a rush, check Crucial's websites for special prices. I got my RAM for such a great deal.

I'm running Parallels with 16GB of RAM as well. Typically using Adobe LiveCycle Designer, MS Office 2010 and Acrobat Pro X. Not overtaxing the system at all. No heat or high fan issues at all. Bimmer did get a great deal for his Crucial RAM - he paid about $70, I think. I bought Corsair and paid about $100. Crucial is now at $160. Still, I like their products - I have the Crucial m4 512GB SSD. But I'm happy with my RAM - particularly when I'm on wired power and bumping it up to using 12-13 GB.

Go for it - Crucial, Corsair, OWC... they all have limited lifetime warranties.

Clinton

Had an Issue with Crucial 16Gb Kit RAM it was said OK in system profiler but Apple Hardware Tool showed one of the modules was faulty, Geekbench showed that performance was slower with ths module on…

I've replaced the kit with an 8 Gb 1600Mhz RAM and am fully happy with it.

And you're running 1600MHz on which model? There has been some discussion here as to whether or not the 'faster' RAM will work in the 2011 models, which spec 1333 MHz RAM.

Or do you have a 2012 MacBook Pro?

Clinton

On a late 2011 Macbook Pro 15"

The chipset automaticaly setup for the faster RAM it's not an Apple feature, rather an intel one…

Thanks! I'm a perfectionist about my computers, so if putting in a 16GB kit would have caused additional heat issues, or other bad behavior, I would have passed. I'm glad to hear that it will work well. I'm watching Crucial and OWC. I've been buying RAM from OWC since 1997 when I upgraded my Performa 6360 to 32MB of RAM 🙂

Some people on the forum (www.macbidouille.com ) i France have successfully installed 1866 MHz Modules…

Why would we need to do that? I guess I'm just trying to understand why someone would go out of their way to install memory that runs at a faster speed than what their system needs. I've installed faster RAM on some Mac Pros knowing that it would simply run at the slower bus speed of the system, but I've only done that when I didn't have the slower RAM available. So, in my case, my MacBook Pro Late-2011 needs 1333MHz memory. That's what will buy.

No judgements... Just trying to understand why someone would go out of their way to install the faster memory when it's not even necessary.

You where right regarding Mac Pros, but you are wrong regarding Macbook Pros at least for the Sandy bridge and newer families…

if you go there : http://ark.intel.com/products/53476/Intel-Core-i7-2860QM-Processor-(8M-Cache-up- to-3_60-GHz)

you'll see that intel supports 1066, 1333 and 1600 MHz memory, the system adapts to the speed of the memory

This feature is an INTEL feature and apple doesn't communicate about it, it doesn't mean that it doesn't work…

here are geekbench results with 4Gb@1333MHz

And here with 8Gb@1600MHz

If you understand french you can go see the article here : http://www.macbidouille.com/articles/425/page1

Or in english http://www.hardmac.com/news/2012/06/04/macbook-pro-2011-supports-ddr3-1867-mhz-r am-modules

Oh well. It isn't that important to me since I will just install the correct memory.

Hi Clinton,

I upgraded my Macbook Pro early 2011 17'' from 8GB to 16 GB RAM. I bought Corsair 2x8GB seperated modules. But Parallels never recognizes. My machine recognizes 16GB RAM, but VM doesn't. It still shows the max ram allocated as 8GB on general configuration panel. How are you running Parallels with 16GB of RAM? What should i do?