Lenovo flex 14 API (81SS0000US Ryzen) Ram upgrade

[Akita]

This is a potentially dum question bc I'm kind of a noob, but it never hurts to ask especially if it means more performance. Before the pandemic hit I bought a flex 14 ( the one shown in this ltt vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nfz46HXvPLc&ab_channel=LinusTechTips) to use for school. I mainly use the laptop for things like digital art (photoshop, etc), light gaming, and occasional light video editing for school projects. While it's served it's purpose very well lately I've been thinking of upgrading the ram and ssd. The problem is I'm genuinely wondering how much ram I can actually upgrade this to. Right now it has 8GB and most guides online are saying it can support up to a single stick of 16gb at most, however when I check for max capacity in the cmd it tells me it can support around 64GB of ram. I'm thinking the 16GB is a cap set by Lenovo but I'm not sure and If I actually can upgrade to something higher (and have it actually work) I would like to mainly because one of the games I play is a big ram hog. If anyone can shed some light on this I would really appreciate it.

 

(And yes, I do at least know that single channel ram is never the best but I can't do much about that XD)

 

[Qyygle]

You might want to properly check the specs of your machine. Use HWInfo or something to make sure you have your full specs. That machine typically has a 4gb swappable stick and 4gb soldered down. Is ram a performance issue at the moment? Do you find yourself pushing the memory limits before the CPU hits limits in normal usage?

 

For DDR4 sodimm you'll typically find 16gb at higher capacities for reasonable price/accessibility. You can find larger 32gb sticks if you're willing to spend a lot more, but it's honestly not worth it for this level of CPU. Stick in a 16gb stick and you'll have 20gb total (8gb in dual channel: 4 onboard + 4 of the 16, and the other 8gb on the stick will operate single channel). Or just stick in an 8gb stick and you'll have 12gb: 4+4 dual channel, and 4gb single.

Lenovo may set a white-list or something for compatible RAM in the BIOS, but that's not too common nowadays.

 

A larger SSD is probably more useful. Increasing to 12 or 20gb RAM will help in some use cases, but a larger or faster SSD will be more noticeable overall.