RAM or SSD First?

[invrtdsmr]

Hi.

i have a Dell Inspiron 7460 laptop and right now i'm a little bit confused about upgrading the RAM or SSD first. my laptop currently running on 8GB of RAM that i planned to upgrade to 16GB, 1TB 7200rpm HDD and planned to add 256gb m.2 sata ssd. i'm using it for daily assignments, browsing, streaming, music, and some gaming.

 

so, should i do the RAM or the SSD first?

thanks LTT

[Princess Luna]

I'd go with the SSD first because 8GB is still sufficient for the most part and going from a HDD to a SSD should provide a more noticeable improvement.

[Bubbles_TPB]

SSD for sure. You'll see the performance increase. 

[Inzelux]

I would definitely reccomend that you buy a solid-state m.2 drive if your laptop supports it. If it doesent support m.2, then buy a 2.5" SSD instead, It won't do THAT much for gaming, but speed in terms of general use and start-up will improve a significant amount. Adding 8 GBs more of RAM to that laptop with a 940MX will not increase your performance within games anyway, as its not the RAM that is bottlenecking your system. 

 

Good luck! 

Edited April 24, 2019 by Inzelux
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[Fasauceome]

8GB isn't so bad, I wouldn't be too eager to improve that just yet if it comes down to cost saving.

[invrtdsmr]

5 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

I'd go with the SSD first because 8GB is still sufficient for the most part and going from a HDD to a SSD should provide a more noticeable improvement.

that's my first thought, but one of my friend told me about the single ram cannot reach it's optimum speed or something.. does it?

[Princess Luna]

4 minutes ago, invrtdsmr said:

that's my first thought, but one of my friend told me about the single ram cannot reach it's optimum speed or something.. does it?

You mean you're running on single channel? While there is a bit of merit that a single 8gb stick is not the best memory configuration unless you're maxing it out all the time you will still not see any performance improvement that will mind blow you adding another stick of RAM.

 

I'd still leave it for later and favor the SSD which should turn your system far more snappier and responsive, without mentioning the much faster booting and applications loading times.

 

Then again it's up to you, do what makes you more comfortable [:

[SupaKomputa]

If you already have 8gb, go for SSD.

You won't feel the performance boost from 8 to 16.

But from HDD to SSD, it's really obvious, especially in old systems.

[Djinnux]

SSD is definitely the way to go.  M.2 if it has it but if not a 2.5 isn't a bad deal either

RAM is getting fairly inexpensive though.  If you already have 8gigs you can probably flip that kit and make back a few bucks on the 16 gig kit.  

[invrtdsmr]

well, i guess ssd is the best choice

 

thank you guys!

[invrtdsmr]

well, i guess ssd is the best choice

 

thank you guys!

[DeaconFrost]

Unless you are running out of free memory and getting low memory warnings, your best bet will be the SSD, if you can handle the difference in capacity.  Search around, as you may be able to find a 500 GB drive for a little more than the 256.

 

The SSD will speed everything up, but another point to consider is that any potential paging that your system does will also improve, given that it will be paging to an SSD and not a spinner (HDD).

 

If it was me, I'd go for the SSD first.  It will likely be the cheaper of the two options, and will likely have the greatest impact.