3gb ram on 1st gen 17" mbpro

So it seems that the new speed bump has introduced memory support > 2gb, which is about time.
Does anyone know if this is a firmware upgrade or can the 1st gen 17" mbpro handle it as well?
17" mac book pro   Mac OS X (10.4.8)  

MBP on Core Duo can support up to 4gb (limited by 32bit CPU, however other components on logic board are ready for 64bit operations). That's theoretically. Physically supported amount of RAM might be (and it is) limited by BIOS (logic board firmware). Core 2 Duo MBP theoretically can support 1.099 terabytes of RAM (if it'd be a real 64bit, not 40bit as it is now it would support 18.5 million terabytes of RAM :)))). Physically it's again limited by firmware.
The only question that bothers me now is why 3GB??? Why not 4? Is it because one memory slot now soldered on the board with 1GB and you can chose 1 or 2GB on the other one?
The thing is, if you chose 3GB configuration, it won't be dual band memory because memory sticks have to be same size...as far as I know. Any ideas?

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