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Memory question

Hi guys,

I bought a new laptop recently, it came with 8GB of memory, and i want to upgrade it to 16GB.

The problem is, none of the shops in my country sells the same memory module that the laptop came with.

My question is: if I buy 8GB with the same specs (same timing, MHz), is it going to work just fine? Can it run in dual-channel with the other stick?

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That depends on your laptop and the memory that's currently installed within it.

 

The overwhelming majority of laptops with removable memory use SO-DIMM RAM sticks. Typically these laptops will have 2 slots for memory.

 

For some infuriating reason, manufacturers often fill up both slots with lower-capacity sticks instead of using one single high-capacity stick. If this is the case you'll need to replace your existing RAM with new sticks.

 

Frankly, the only way you'll know for sure what works or not is to disassemble your laptop and check how many available slots there are.

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18 minutes ago, Coaxialgamer said:

For some infuriating reason, manufacturers often fill up both slots with lower-capacity sticks instead of using one single high-capacity stick. If this is the case you'll need to replace your existing RAM with new sticks.

Because dual channel > single channel

Single channel ruins cpu performance

 

Also could you take a photo of the stick?

You can likely buy a used ddr4 sodimm that is either the same or atleast same ram ic + speed

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31 minutes ago, Stupry said:

if I buy 8GB with the same specs (same timing, MHz), is it going to work just fine? Can it run in dual-channel with the other stick

Usually this works just fine. Laptops, in my experience, are even less picky with desktops when it comes to two different dimms.

 

But as noted, make sure you're not already filling up both slots of ram and won't need to replace both sticks.

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I attached a picture about the current stick specs.

CPU-Z says that slot number two is empty.

Based on the picture, is this going to work with the current stick? KINGSTON 8GB Notebook DDR5 4800MHz CL40 KVR48S40BS6-8 (specs: KVR48S40BS6-8.ai (kingston.com) )

Screenshot 2022-08-16 153635.png

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Yes. Mixing same spec ram from different manufacturers won't make a difference and should work just fine. Done that to 3 laptops already and none of them have had any issues.

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38 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Because dual channel > single channel

Single channel ruins cpu performance

 

Also could you take a photo of the stick?

You can likely buy a used ddr4 sodimm that is either the same or atleast same ram ic + speed

Dual channel *sometimes* provides a non-trivial boost to performance. More often than not it doesn't because memory bandwidth isn't the limiting factor unless you're hammering the CPU. It also assumes that the two slots are wired for dual channel, which is sometimes not even the case in laptops.OP's posts don't imply a high performance machine.

 

Those are fairly murky benefits given that it essentially annihilates any cheap upgrade potential down the line.

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11 minutes ago, Stupry said:

I attached a picture about the current stick specs.

CPU-Z says that slot number two is empty.

Based on the picture, is this going to work with the current stick? KINGSTON 8GB Notebook DDR5 4800MHz CL40 KVR48S40BS6-8 (specs: KVR48S40BS6-8.ai (kingston.com) )

You want another DDR5 SODIMM stick of the 8GB, 2400Mhz variety.

 

Odds are you've been having difficulty finding compatible RAM because you've been looking for 4800Mhz laptop RAM, which is not common. Without diving into the specifics of how DDR5 works, you should know that 4800MHz is the effective clock speed of the stick (sometimes referred to as 4800 Megatransfers/second), while 2400Mhz is the actual true clock speed. You want 2400Mhz sticks, which are incidentally the cheapest and most common type out there.

 

 

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21 minutes ago, Coaxialgamer said:

Dual channel *sometimes* provides a non-trivial boost to performance. More often than not it doesn't because memory bandwidth isn't the limiting factor unless you're hammering the CPU. It also assumes that the two slots are wired for dual channel, which is sometimes not even the case in laptops.OP's posts don't imply a high performance machine.

 

Those are fairly murky benefits given that it essentially annihilates any cheap upgrade potential down the line.

you know you could just resell the existing sticks and buy a new kit right?

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Just now, Somerandomtechyboi said:

you know you could just resell the existing sticks and buy a new kit right?

which is still a hassle and is still likely to be more expensive than simply adding in an additional stick.

Look, I get having dual channel RAM in a high-performance laptop. But everything the OP has written so far strongly implies a relatively entry-level machine which won't benefit from dual channel RAM.

And while this is undoubtedly subjective, sacrificing easy upgradability in most laptops for what is in most cases a marginal performance benefit seems like poor decision making. If I was buying an entry/mid-range machine (as most people are) I would value the option of being able to throw in an extra stick far more than whatever minor performance benefit I would be getting in the types of applications I would ultimately be running.

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10 minutes ago, Coaxialgamer said:

which is still a hassle and is still likely to be more expensive than simply adding in an additional stick.

Look, I get having dual channel RAM in a high-performance laptop. But everything the OP has written so far strongly implies a relatively entry-level machine which won't benefit from dual channel RAM.

And while this is undoubtedly subjective, sacrificing easy upgradability in most laptops for what is in most cases a marginal performance benefit seems like poor decision making. If I was buying an entry/mid-range machine (as most people are) I would value the option of being able to throw in an extra stick far more than whatever minor performance benefit I would be getting in the types of applications I would ultimately be running.

I wonder if someone has made a test vid on this, gaming and stuff like that will see a massive improvement but i havent seen any data suggesting the same for more normal tasks like browsing

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