MacBook – DRAM compatibility between two early 2011 MacBook Pro

macbook pro

I have two early 2011 MacBook Pros as follows:

  1. 2011 MBP 17” – A1297 | MC725LL/A | (but I’m not sure if it’s a 2.2 GHz or 2.3 GHz).

  2. 2011 MBP 15” – A1286 | MC723LL/A | (2.2 GHz)

I have a few queries:

  1. Can I take my two 8 DRAM chips (16 GB total) from my 17” and put it into my 15” one with no problems? Are they 100% compatible?

    (2 – 204-pin PC-10600 (1333 MHz) DDR3 SO-DIMM)

  2. Because of my doubt on the exact Sandy Bridge, would this cause any compatibility problems?

  3. I’m not sure if the 15” has the AMD Radeon HD 6490M or the matching 6750M and Intel HD Graphics 3000 that the 17” has, would the DRAM swap cause any graphic problems if the AMD chips weren’t the same?

  4. I don’t have the 13” version but I’m just curious if the same DRAM would be compatible with this model too?

Best Answer

Yes, the two are compatible. It doesn't matter if you have the 2720QM or 2820QM CPU. You can swap the RAM modules without any problems.

The GPU (graphics) has no influence on which memory module is compatible. You can swap the RAM modules no matter which of the two models you have.

The 13" version will also be able to use the same RAM module.

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