MBP17: Max RAM is 8GB or 16GB??

If you read the official specs on the 17" MBPs, they always start with 4GB RAM for its base model and state that they can be upgraded to 8GB max. However, if you look on Ebay, you'll find "customized" ones with up to 16GB RAM. How can that be?

Do these customized ones require doing some kind hacking or tricking of the OS to allow it to support more RAM than they are meant to support? If so, wouldn't this kind of "tampering" void the Apple warranty?

And yet, those 16GB ones on EBAY are all claimed to come with Apple Care warranty too...

I'm trying to decide if I should keep a 4GB MBP17 that I just bought at Best Buy for a good deal, or return it and buy one from EBAY with exactly the same specs but with 16GB for a few hundred bucks less!

 

the 2011 models would accept a pair of 8GB SODIMMS for 16GB prior to that 8 was tops

 

It's possible Apple may simply not offer that configuration, but it is still compatible. The memory limits are publicly available information.

 

RAM is a user-serviceable part (Apple even provides instructions on how to replace it), so doing that upgrade, as well as a hard drive change, does not void any warranty on the machine. As such, a seller's claim of having AppleCare is still perfectly valid. Now if something goes wrong as a result of a change you made, for instance snapping off one of the RAM retention tabs, that would not be covered. This is SOP for most any notebook, however.

Back to the original point, Apple never offered a 16 GB configuration for 2011 machines at the factory, but the machines are 100% capable of running this way. You can even use 1600 MHz modules if you want. Again, not something Apple offered or advertised but a nice bonus nonetheless.

 

Have anyone tried running 1866 MHz DIMMs on the SB/IB MBP's?

 

It's been tried but with little to no success.