xConVirus

summarizing @don_svetlio 's reponses... 
Mac uses a full flegged quad-core Intel i7-2720QM Processor The Radeon HD 6750M is a full discrete graphics "card" with its own dedicated 1GB of GDDR5 VRAM The Radeon 7660G is higher in " model number", but is the...iGPU...in the A10-4600M The Radeon 7660G uses system memory (RAM) as VRAM. Higher frequency VRAM will yield significantly higher GPU performance In most cases, the RAM in laptops will be either DDR3 1333 MHz or 1600 MHz

Wow you three hit each part really well. @mikat Thanks for the utility, I think I've heard of that before. I'll definitely try it out later tonight.
 
@BaileyFY Great links, makes a lot more sense now. I didn't think it was as simple as just looking at higher Read/Write speeds.
 
@juretrn Your short summary helped me make sense of the links ^ provided, thank you. Would you mind linking me an article about the caching you're talking about?

I always love trying out linux distros. But it ALWAYS goes like this:
 
1. Start my install.
2. Be really excited
3. Install takes hours to get working correctly with hardware. 
4. All set, but now my excitement level is about 10/100
5. Need to get something done for work, want to play a game, want to do something other than look at the new OS im running. 
6. Revert back to windows. 

I deal with it by never going outside.

afaik the 2011 Macbook Pro doesn't support DDR3L (i.e. running RAM at 1.35V)
BUT all those DDR3L HAVE TO (by specification) work with 1.5V as well.
that is why there won't be a problem with DDR3L sticks in your Macbook.
Both DDR3L (1.35V) and DDR3 (1.5V) will work.
The standard dimms for the 2011 Macbook Pros are of the 1.5V kind
 
The 2012 Macbook Pros are the first to support DDR3L, but they also run perfectly with DDR3 dimms