New MacBooks Can Do More than Apple Says

On its website, Apple touts the just-introduced aluminum Macbook as being able to go up to 4 gigs of memory. However, history has shown that Apple sometimes stays on the safe side (if you will), when it comes to listing technical stuff. This time it's no different.

When talking about “Processor and memory,” Apple says its 13-inch MacBook has a 2.0GHz or 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor (depending on what you want), with 3MB on-chip shared L2 cache running 1:1 with processor speed, and 1066MHz frontside bus. As for the supported memory, Apple says the new MacBook ships with “2GB (two 1GB SO-DIMMs)” modules of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM, while the notebook itself boasts two SO-DIMM slots. According to the company, the maximum amount of RAM supported is 4GB. “Not true,” sources reveal.

Being the 32-bit chipset that it is, it would be easy to assume that Nvidia's 9400M is limited to 4 gigabytes of RAM. According to 9to5mac, this is not the case. Why? “The desktop equivalent 9300 32-bit chipset maxes out at 8Gb of RAM. They would be unlikely to limit the max RAM on a higher model chipset,” the source notes. They went forth with calling up Nvidia on this, and what do you know – it's true. Apple's 13-incher does 8 gigs, or at least so it should, according to an Nvidia insider. An email from Nvidia's Ken (Ken who?), goes a bit like this:

“Yes! 8Gb MacBooks should be no problem ... an 8GB system can be built using two such SODIMMs after the memory is qualified with GF 9400M. I’m curious why you were thinking of loading up on memory? In terms of gaming perf, going from 4GB to 8GB of system memory would have little to no effect.”

Why anyone would want to beef up on the MacBook's memory is of little importance right now. What matters is that it's physically, and technically, possible to have a 13-inch aluminum MacBook packing 8 gigs of functional random access memory.

Adding this to the “hidden” compatibility with the iPhone headset, we now have two super-powers that Apple hasn't mentioned in regards to its best selling Mac. What else are we going to find in those things... living parts?