Ram upgrade

If you 'recently' bought your 13" MBP, you can upgrade to a total of 16GB, not just 8GB. 8GB is the 'sweet spot' - the minimum that I recommend. 16GB will allow you to have more apps open at one time without using any page outs and very little swap space.

The Corsair that you point to should work in your computer - and replacing RAM is very, very simple - but I would suggest taking a trip to the Crucial website and clicking on the System Scanner tab to find the RAM that's right for your model. Not to say that you shouldn't buy Corsair - that's what I have in my late 2011 15" MBP, but if I had it to do again, I'd buy Crucial.

Good luck - the only tool you'll need to install RAM is a Phillips #00 screwdriver. I'm sure that you'll see some performance increase if you only have 4GB of RAM now.

Clinton

You can change the amount of Ram, BUT DO NOT CHANGE the speed specification !!!!

The Macs are rather sensitive, taking another Ram specification than the prescribed ones will make the system unstable (kernel panics) or not working at all:

Also a higher speed for new ram will NOT make the system faster, it will be downclocked to the system's bus speed, in your case 1066MHz. A system will be faster when you add ram, not by replacing ram by faster ram.

If you really have 1066Mhz Ram in the MBP (as you said in your post) it will be the Mid-2010 model. The maximum Ram possible is 8GB and not more.

If you now have 4GB replace the two 2GB chips for two 4GB chips, but use the exact specification

204-pin PC3-8500 (1066 MHz) DDR3 SO-DIMM

Lex

That's what Apple says - but, believe me, you can install 16GB of RAM and your system will use all of that available memory. And it's cheap, now. Less than $100US. You've the right RAM spec'ed (1600MHz) and that Corsair RAM would take you up to 8GB - but I would just go ahead and invest just a wee bit more to get the full memory that you can use.

All 2011-2012 MBP models can handle up to 16GB, and, no, it doesn't void your warranty or anything to install 16GB. I got my late 2011 in March of this year and my first upgrade was to 16GB of RAM.

I don't know why Apple plays that "8GB max" tune - all the techs know that the 2011 and 2012 models will address up to 16GB...

Clinton

Hi Clinton, OP said that he has 1033MHz ram now, this means that it is Mid2010: max 8GB (Apple and Mactracker). You are right about 2011-2012 Macs, nut that is not the case here.

If the OP recently bought the MBP - and it's not used - then he/she would be wrong about the 1033MHz. But it may be a used computer - the Crucial site will give him/her the right specs.

Clinton

NO: always use the exact Ram spec for the Mac, as I said before the Mac is very sensitive for that.

If you use a slower Ram it will "burn" the ram by the higher bus speed, if you use faster ram it will create problems because the bus speed downclocks the ram.

The MBP 13" september 2012 has the following Ram spec:

204-pin PC3-12800 (1600MHz) DDR3 SO-DIMM

and in this MBP it will be possible to put two 8GB chips, thus making 16GB.

You're wellcome

I just upgraded RAM in my mid-2012 cMBP 13" and was wondering if it's safe for me to use the removed RAM in a 2009 MBP 13" (5,5) rather than spend extra to get the right RAM speed.

Scott523, the answer is NO: please reread my post about this above.