Laptop upgrade

[elmomote]

Hey! PC gamer noob here. I just bought my first gaming laptop, which arrives this Friday, and I was thinking on upgrading my ram since it only had 8gb and maybe get another ssd (Apparently there's an extra m.2 slot).

Do the ram sticks have to be exactly the same? Brand, mhz, etc.

Will there be any trouble if I get another internal ssd? Because I want it to work as if I plugged a permanent USB or maybe both ssd's combine, idk.

Any other advice to optimize and get best performance/quality? More fps and more resolution for gaming

 

Here's the laptop 

Link: MSI GF65 15.6" 144hz Gaming Laptop Intel Core i5 NVIDIA GeForce RTX3060 512GB SSD 8GB Memory Black GF65213 - Best Buy

[elmomote]

Would also appreciate recommendations, like "buy this ram from corsair, www.amazon..." or something like that.

[Vishera]

3 minutes ago, elmomote said:

Do the ram sticks have to be exactly the same? Brand, mhz, etc.

Yes

4 minutes ago, elmomote said:

Will there be any trouble if I get another internal ssd? Because I want it to work as if I plugged a permanent USB or maybe both ssd's combine, idk.

What do you exactly mean by "get another internel ssd"?

5 minutes ago, elmomote said:

Any other advice to optimize and get best performance/quality? More fps and more resolution for gaming

Delete bloatware,

Make sure no unwanted processes and services are running in the background.

[Dedayog]

8 minutes ago, elmomote said:

Would also appreciate recommendations, like "buy this ram from corsair, www.amazon..." or something like that.

When you figure out what exact RAM you have, then buy more of that.  It's that simple. Brand matters not as much, but specs do if you want it running as fast as possible.

 

[BecauseRussia]

The Mhz of the RAM should most likely be the same as going higher may not be supported and going lower will create worse performance.

 

RAM in laptops can be kind of weird. They tend to not support nearly as many brands as desktop boards. I would recommend you buy either Crucial, Samsung, or SKHynix  modules as they almost always work because they are big 3 OEM suppliers. Ideally if you can buy from the same brand as what is currently in the laptop that is best.

 

Since you are new to PC gaming I wouldn't recommend you do this, but replacing the thermal paste in the laptop can lead to better performance.

[elmomote]

2 hours ago, Vishera said:

What do you exactly mean by "get another internel ssd"?

I meant another internal SSD because the reviews say there's an extra m.2 port and I'd like to have more storage.

[Qyygle]

The ram may actually end up being easier than the SSD. You just need to make sure you try to match the speed and timing if possible. Usually even if you get slightly different timings or clock, the board will adjust to the slower of the two. 

Best case is you get the same manufacturer and speed as the original stick. You may want to wait to check that the original RAM's not already in dual channel (2x4) for the total of 8, vs. a single stick of 8. If it's the 2x4 config, you'll end up with 12 (1x4, 1x8) if you buy a single stick of 8gb.

 

The SSD you should make sure will match the slot on the board. You can still find m.2 SATA ssd's which won't fit all NVMe type slots and vice versa.

How to distinguish the differences between M.2 cards | Dell US

 

Adding the extra SSD will just show as another drive in windows explorer. Once you format it, it'll work like a USB Drive, but permanently installed. Unless you set them up in some kind of RAID (assuming the board even supports it) it won't be 'combined' with the original drive.