ttran046

Q: 1600mhz ram on the mid-2011 iMac

Hi,
I currently have the mid-2011 iMac and was wondering if upgrading the ram to a 16gb pc-12800 (1600mhz) could be possible. Would this harm my mac in any sort of way, because I know that if I did the same thing to a motherboard on a pc supporting only 1333mhz, it would simply downclock itself.

iMac (27-inch Mid 2011), OS X Mavericks (10.9.3)

Posted on May 28, 2014 6:02 AM

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Q: 1600mhz ram on the mid-2011 iMac

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  • by Gnomish8,Solvedanswer

    Gnomish8 Gnomish8 May 28, 2014 6:38 AM in response to ttran046
    Level 2 (350 points)
    May 28, 2014 6:38 AM in response to ttran046

    Mac's can be pretty fussy about RAM. It may underclock, or it may simply not boot, or you could run into other issues (ie freezing etc...). I'd reccomend using http://www.macsales.com to see what is recommended for your mac and going from there.

     

    Looking around, I don't really see any advantage to 1600mhz for you. The max supported memory on your iMac is 16GB, and you have 4 SODIMM slots. Running 4x4GB sticks in 2 dual channel arrays would give you decent performance without hoping that it will underclock and inhibit the RAM performance. 4x4GB 1333MHz DDR3 RAM is going to be your best bet.


    Number of memory slots4
    Base memory4 GB (but is configured to order)
    Maximum memory16 GB
    Note: For the iMac (Late 2009) models, you can use 2 GB or 4 GB RAM SO-DIMMs of 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM in each slot. For the iMac (Mid 2010) andiMac (Mid 2011) models, use 2 GB or 4 GB RAM SO-DIMMs of 1333 MHz DDR3 SDRAM in each slot.
  • by andyBall_uk,Helpful

    andyBall_uk andyBall_uk May 28, 2014 6:35 AM in response to ttran046
    Level 7 (20,495 points)
    May 28, 2014 6:35 AM in response to ttran046

    It might work, but most often will not. I advise against trying.

  • by d_prio,

    d_prio d_prio Jan 27, 2016 2:36 PM in response to ttran046
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 27, 2016 2:36 PM in response to ttran046

    I came across this thread while googling.

     

    It doesn't present a valid answer and only encourages skepticism and fear (with a an advertisement for macsales throw in for good measure).

    I Installed 2x8gb of 1600MHz ram in my Mid-2011, and it worked just fine. If 1333Mhz Ram is available, I'd buy that, but for me, Corsair 1600Mhz worked fine (downclocks itself to 1333Mhz)