The 4GB RAM limit of the new MacBooks is semi-accurate

Nvidia already claimed that the new MacBooks can handle more than 4GB of RAM, but until now it’s just been Nvidia’s word against Apple’s. Well, thanks to Luke from iFixIt Labs, we now know that Nvidia’s claim that the MacBook can accept 8GB of RAM is accurate. There are only two problems remaining: 8GB of RAM is still really expensive, and Apple wasn’t necessarily lying either.

It turns out the MacBook can see all 8GB of RAM, it just doesn’t know what to do with it.

Preliminary results show that while the new MacBook Pro did recognize the entire 8GB of RAM, during actual usage, the computer appeared to be limited to 4GB

While standard GUI applications were limited to 4GB in total, Luke did find a way to “use” all 8GB. The MacBook Pro that Luke tested appeared to be quite flustered and confused while attempting to use all 8GB.

OS X is not happy running at or above the 4 GB limit. Performance is very erratic, and we crashed OS X and Parallels multiple times.

He went on to remove one of the 4GB chips, and interestingly enough, it worked fine. He even added another 1GB chip to bring the total up to 5GB and things seemed to be pretty stable.

So your guess is as good as mine, though I think it’s safe to assume there is some sort of software limitation here. If you’re dying to have 8GB of RAM, I’d suggest that you only buy one 4GB chip. There is a possibility that Apple will release a patch to fix that 4GB cap, in which case you could get that second 4GB chip. I just wouldn’t hold your breath or anything silly like that; I doubt upgrading the advertised RAM limitation of the new MacBooks is on the top of Apple’s list of things to do.

Read [MacRumors]