Why does Apple limit their hardware?

[AltecXP]

Their 1067MHz(oddly their site says 1066, but my mac says 1067, and CPU-Z reports it as 1061) memory runs at only 1061MHz, the Memory I have is actually even able to run faster then that but the 1067MHz MAY be an ACTUAL hardware limit, I'm not sure.

They also artificially limit the max RAM in many of their machines. there is no reason ALL aluminum 13in Macbooks cant make use of 8GB of memory aside from there being a false limit some place. That seems to only be lifted in the new 13in "pro".

I'm getting annoyed with their false limits, then lifting them to make more money. If I paid for the hardware why cant I make full use of what I payed for?

[jonhapimp]

battery life and/or to **** people over

[pdmcmahon]

You are spending this much time worrying about a 1-6 MHz in difference on your memory speed?

Also, it's not just Apple, if you really want to look into it, you will find all sorts of falsehoods out there.

Don't even get me started on how the 1024 rule makes all of my 1.0 TB hard drives give me only 931 GB in usable storage.

In summary, move on dude, life is short.

[AltecXP]

did you only read 1/2 my post?

[cabron]

Who says that you can't put 8GB? That can't be right, I think you can add more memory but you have to pay premium.

[Phantom Helix]

Their 1067MHz(oddly their site says 1066, but my mac says 1067, and CPU-Z reports it as 1061) memory runs at only 1061MHz, the Memory I have is actually even able to run faster then that but the 1067MHz MAY be an ACTUAL hardware limit, I'm not sure.

They also artificially limit the max RAM in many of their machines. there is no reason ALL aluminum 13in Macbooks cant make use of 8GB of memory aside from there being a false limit some place. That seems to only be lifted in the new 13in "pro".

I'm getting annoyed with their false limits, then lifting them to make more money. If I paid for the hardware why cant I make full use of what I payed for?

#1, you find variants in any hardware, especially those of that small of an amount

#2, do you have any direct first hand reason to say they "artificially" limit the ram, are you a hardware designer? how do you know the other components of main board or processor dont have "ACTUAL" limits, and wether older hardware is "actually" capable of using more ram or not is looking at only one issue, the battery life if it could use it might have drasticly dropped, would you buy a brand new laptop that only last 6 minutes on a full charge? if you would ive got some land in florida for sale you might be interested in.

#3, again do you have any actual knowledge of that specific hardware even being capable? in any usable manner? you getting annoyed does not do you or anyone anygood, Apple listened to what the customer said and figured out a way to make it better for what they wanted, just because the older hardware is not capable of what current is means NOTHING.

in closing, i dont know what "universe" you are from but it has ALWAYS been this way with Computer components, i did not cry because i had a Pentium II when the Core 2 Duo Quad was released and my Pentium was not capable of doing what the Core 2 could, i dont get your complaining

[Simon Veteran]

I know that the original MacBook was cited as being limited to 4GB, but I think more could be installed. I'll try and find the article for you...

Regardless, all companies do it. That's why you have overclocking, etc. There may be other reasons behind it, but it's common, and there are usually ways around it if they are, in fact, artificially limiting their hardware.

[AltecXP]

The originals can support up to 5 or 6 then have booting issues.

The chipset and other hardware in the MacBook, alone with the OS fully support 8GB and is the same hardware as in the new 13in Pro, the only way the 13 macbook is limited and 13 pro is not would be a limitation placed on the hardware via software/firmware.

#1, you find variants in any hardware, especially those of that small of an amount

#2, do you have any direct first hand reason to say they "artificially" limit the ram, are you a hardware designer? how do you know the other components of main board or processor dont have "ACTUAL" limits, and wether older hardware is "actually" capable of using more ram or not is looking at only one issue, the battery life if it could use it might have drasticly dropped, would you buy a brand new laptop that only last 6 minutes on a full charge? if you would ive got some land in florida for sale you might be interested in.

#3, again do you have any actual knowledge of that specific hardware even being capable? in any usable manner? you getting annoyed does not do you or anyone anygood, Apple listened to what the customer said and figured out a way to make it better for what they wanted, just because the older hardware is not capable of what current is means NOTHING.

in closing, i dont know what "universe" you are from but it has ALWAYS been this way with Computer components, i did not cry because i had a Pentium II when the Core 2 Duo Quad was released and my Pentium was not capable of doing what the Core 2 could, i dont get your complaining

You made a long post for not saying anything, or even knowing what you are talking about. You seem to elude that you know what you are talking about, but fall on your face. Even your comparisons are bad.

[tsupersonic]

1) A few MHz isn't going to make a difference, and as people have stated above, you find this is true even on PC's.

2) There may be motherboard limitations. If you look at Windows laptops, they also limit many things, it's not just Apple.

And to the post above, do you think you know it all? Srsly, it sounds like you need to do more research before you post...

[ThehAWKs]

Wow this is just to funny I think everyone who has a choice to build a computer should you will learn alot as far as apple having limits this is why I use a hackintosh

[majortom1981]

You cant blame just apple for this. Dell does it too. They do it so even at full tilt the machine wont burn itself out. IT works pretty good actually.

[AltecXP]

1) A few MHz isn't going to make a difference, and as people have stated above, you find this is true even on PC's.

2) There may be motherboard limitations. If you look at Windows laptops, they also limit many things, it's not just Apple.

And to the post above, do you think you know it all? Srsly, it sounds like you need to do more research before you post...

I have never seen a PC manufacture release a laptop with a false limit then release the IDENTICAL laptop without a limit for a lower price. Also I have not owned any other laptop that had that much of a discrepancy in claimed speed vs actual speed. I do realize that 6MHz is really nothing, but for a company that is claimed to have "such tight tolerances" it's the largest I've seen in memory speeds.

I have 5 other laptops in my house, none of them have more then 3-4MHz difference in their performance vs spec. 2 of them are actually running 1 speed up from spec as HP seems to underrate the speed of the laptops memory vs its capability (calls for 333, but runs at 400(398) just fine).

[Phantom Helix]

The originals can support up to 5 or 6 then have booting issues.

The chipset and other hardware in the MacBook, alone with the OS fully support 8GB and is the same hardware as in the new 13in Pro, the only way the 13 macbook is limited and 13 pro is not would be a limitation placed on the hardware via software/firmware.

You made a long post for not saying anything, or even knowing what you are talking about. You seem to elude that you know what you are talking about, but fall on your face. Even your comparisons are bad.

LMFAO I am sorry that was plain funny :)

[Southern Patriot]

Wow this is just to funny I think everyone who has a choice to build a computer should you will learn alot as far as apple having limits this is why I use a hackintosh

Your lack of punctuation makes my eyes bleed!

[Elv13]

AltecXP: Learn how hardware work. You can't magically have unlimited ammount/speed of anything. EVERY motherboard have ram limit. Same for chippset. My nvidia 680i can handle more than 8gb at 1066mhz. The bus are not capable of going over than, they would fry (that's physics, the electron flow is not unlimited).

The same pinciple also apply to multicore. CPU can not have unlimited amount of core. Not because they can't build them, but the flow of data is just too big to any current and incoming set of motherboard. Data don't have "magic tube" between your ram and your screen, even with high end DMA mechanism. All those that go through those little green wire you see on your motherboard. Put tho much pressure on them and they will turn in eating elements, just like your oven. It is the exact same thing. Hardware have to be designed to handle a certain ammount of data. You can increase the flow just by soldering 3 or 4 new memory slots on it, you have to do some math and hardware changes. Even the angle of the little green wire need to be calculated once again.

I am not saying that they cant improve the current design, I am just saying that it is right to limit it to what it have been designed for.

[ThehAWKs]

Your lack of punctuation makes my eyes bleed!

I guess that's one feature the iPhone is lacking how could your eyes bleed it's not a long post hahaha

[AltecXP]

AltecXP: Learn how hardware work. You can't magically have unlimited ammount/speed of anything. EVERY motherboard have ram limit. Same for chippset. My nvidia 680i can handle more than 8gb at 1066mhz. The bus are not capable of going over than, they would fry (that's physics, the electron flow is not unlimited).

The same pinciple also apply to multicore. CPU can not have unlimited amount of core. Not because they can't build them, but the flow of data is just too big to any current and incoming set of motherboard. Data don't have "magic tube" between your ram and your screen, even with high end DMA mechanism. All those that go through those little green wire you see on your motherboard. Put tho much pressure on them and they will turn in eating elements, just like your oven. It is the exact same thing. Hardware have to be designed to handle a certain ammount of data. You can increase the flow just by soldering 3 or 4 new memory slots on it, you have to do some math and hardware changes. Even the angle of the little green wire need to be calculated once again.

I am not saying that they cant improve the current design, I am just saying that it is right to limit it to what it have been designed for.

There is no BUS limitation on the 13in MacBook if there was the MacBook would freak out at 6GB, this has been gone over on other Apple sites even by sites that specialize in just apple testing believe it is due to Firmware limitations.

[dyn]

Regarding the RAM, there was this guy who tested it and had to draw the conclusion more than 6 GB will not work in a SR or early 2008 MacBook Pro. The chipset supports it, the machine will be able to see the 8GB of RAM but it won't be able to run stable if it can run at all. This could be due to some bug that may be fixed when going 64 bit (which would require something like Snow Leopard). The guy explained what was happening and what could be the cause of the problems. I did a search on that and found the following links: Testing My Apple MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM & Pity OS X doesn’t like 8GB of memory in my MacBook Pro & 6GB in MacBook (Pro); Yes it works. - 8GB... well... (macrumors forum).

In case of the first Core 2 Duo MacBooks there was a problem with the chipset addressing memory incorrectly (beyond 3,25 GB's this chipset would address already addressed memory again) leading to a lot of problems. This caused a lot of companies to limit the maximum amount of RAM to 3 GB. Limiting the amount of RAM is not necessarily a wrong thing to do, in this case it is the most sensible thing to do when waiting on a new chipset without this bug. OCZ also did some limiting on their Vertex SSD's after Anandtech told them what they needed to change. Eventually it actually made the SSD usable without any hickups. So yes, putting a limit on something is not always a bad thing, it is mostly done to make the device a lot more stable and usable.

Also if you see small differences as 1067, 1066 or 1061 this will most likely be caused by some sort of error in measuring the amount of MHz (the accuracy of measuring it, wrong way of measuring it, etc.) or a different way of calculating things. As long as you don't know how it is measured you shouldn't be drawing any conclusions, especially not one in which you place the blame on someone.

Edited June 23, 2009 by dyn

[Scratch 'n Sniff]

Their 1067MHz(oddly their site says 1066, but my mac says 1067, and CPU-Z reports it as 1061) memory runs at only 1061MHz, the Memory I have is actually even able to run faster then that but the 1067MHz MAY be an ACTUAL hardware limit, I'm not sure.

They also artificially limit the max RAM in many of their machines. there is no reason ALL aluminum 13in Macbooks cant make use of 8GB of memory aside from there being a false limit some place. That seems to only be lifted in the new 13in "pro".

I'm getting annoyed with their false limits, then lifting them to make more money. If I paid for the hardware why cant I make full use of what I payed for?

Hi,

Personally I don't see the limitations as much of an annoyance. I have an iMac and MacBook; my MacBook will soon be upgraded to 4GB soon. I guess it depends on what you're doing with your machine.

I'm sure there are reason for why they do limit it - it might have to do with compatibility, iffy reliability on third party memory, their boards and certain sizes. I know for example that my MacBook is particularly fussy as I expected the DDR2 800Mhz ram I purchased to slow down to the 667Mhz (like in the old days when one could get 133Mhz SDRAM, and it would slow down if the max speed your computer had was 100Mhz).

For me, the reduced memory consumption of 10.6, coupled with the optimisation and the current limits, I don't think things are as bad as you claim.

[Dysphoria]

Limiting the amount of RAM is not necessarily a wrong thing to do, in this case it is the most sensible thing to do when waiting on a new chipset without this bug. OCZ also did some limiting on their Vertex SSD's after Anandtech told them what they needed to change. Eventually it actually made the SSD usable without any hickups. So yes, putting a limit on something is not always a bad thing, it is mostly done to make the device a lot more stable and usable.

Also if you see small differences as 1067, 1066 or 1061 this will most likely be caused by some sort of error in measuring the amount of MHz (the accuracy of measuring it, wrong way of measuring it, etc.) or a different way of calculating things. As long as you don't know how it is measured you shouldn't be drawing any conclusions, especially not one in which you place the blame on someone.

+1

Great post dyn

[NienorGT]

I bet you would not even wine if this would be a Windows PC...

Now you wine just because it's Apple.

All brands are doing the same as you say, no one have yet yelled it...

[Ricardo Gil]

I'm getting annoyed with their false limits, then lifting them to make more money. If I paid for the hardware why cant I make full use of what I payed for?

When you bought it it said 4GB Max, it does 4GB Max. You got what you bought, what's your problem?

[zeta_immersion]

i might be missing the point but the limits are and will always be in place due to either design/engineering or manufacturing/marketing of the product ...

same thing can be said about windows ... all windows is the same but then you have pro being "better" than home, or osx server getting additional things than home .... so ... all in all is just a tweak (so to speak)...

hardware will always oscillate (given some .1% (or less i am not familiar with tolerances) discrepancy in all its components ..... but as to being able to put more ram in the same board is not really an argument because you can theoretically put as much ram as your brain can handle in a mobo but it will only use the amount it is designed/programmed for ... sure there will be updates and tweaks but that is just how things go ...

[Miuku.]

I'm getting annoyed with their false limits, then lifting them to make more money. If I paid for the hardware why cant I make full use of what I payed for?

ATI does it, Intel does it, AMD does and nVidia does it - almost every hardware company artificially cripples their hardware - not even mentioning software companies like Microsoft who artificially cripple their software.

What's the difference?