Laptop upgrade recommendations

[Riesling]

Hey guys, I'm getting a new laptop now to last me through the rest of college and university.

I'm currently studying A-Levels with computer science as an elective , moving to advanced programming in the coming sem, and will be taking something like mass communication or law in uni.

I'll be getting the Acer Aspire 5 with i5-8250u and MX150, and I'm planning to add in some other components.

It already has 4GB of soldered on DDR4 memory(That's the norm here), so I'll be buying another stick of RAM to populate the one slot it has.

I will be playing some games on this laptop, something like PUBG(hopefully) at medium to low settings, maybe at 1280 by 720 or FHD.

So, I was thinking of getting an 8GB stick of RAM, but I don't know if it's overkill.

TL;DR : Is it ok to get an 8GB stick for 12GB of RAM total or is it enough to just get another 4GB stick for 8GB RAM total? Taking into account that there is only one slot for RAM, and this laptop is gonna have to last me for about 5 years.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Radium_Angel]

If you have the dough now, max it out, and consider an SSD if it doesn't already have one.

Less power requirements, *much* faster boot times.

 

[Riesling]

Just now, Radium_Angel said:

If you have the dough now, max it out, and consider an SSD if it doesn't already have one.

Less power requirements, *much* faster boot times.

 

I'm actually planning on getting a 256GB SATA based SSD(it seems like this laptop doesn't support NVMe) for the os and some programs, and saving my games in the hdd.

[Radium_Angel]

1 minute ago, Riesling said:

I'm actually planning on getting a 256GB SATA based SSD(it seems like this laptop doesn't support NVMe) for the os and some programs, and saving my games in the hdd.

A wise move. Always have backups of your data, and max the ram and you should be good to go.

EDIT:

 

Before going with that 8 GB stick, ensure the laptop supports that much ram on a single stick...

[Riesling]

2 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

A wise move. Always have backups of your data, and max the ram and you should be good to go.

 

Thanks!

Yep, it supports up to 16GB.

[Theguywhobea]

21 minutes ago, Riesling said:

Hey guys, I'm getting a new laptop now to last me through the rest of college and university.

I'm currently studying A-Levels with computer science as an elective , moving to advanced programming in the coming sem, and will be taking something like mass communication or law in uni.

I'll be getting the Acer Aspire 5 with i5-8250u and MX150, and I'm planning to add in some other components.

It already has 4GB of soldered on DDR4 memory(That's the norm here), so I'll be buying another stick of RAM to populate the one slot it has.

I will be playing some games on this laptop, something like PUBG(hopefully) at medium to low settings, maybe at 1280 by 720 or FHD.

So, I was thinking of getting an 8GB stick of RAM, but I don't know if it's overkill.

TL;DR : Is it ok to get an 8GB stick for 12GB of RAM total or is it enough to just get another 4GB stick for 8GB RAM total? Taking into account that there is only one slot for RAM, and this laptop is gonna have to last me for about 5 years.

Thanks in advance!

 

Are you absolutely sure it can support more RAM? It seems a lot of times that laptops come with RAM soldered on, they don't have any additional DIMM slots.

[Riesling]

12 hours ago, Theguywhobea said:

Are you absolutely sure it can support more RAM? It seems a lot of times that laptops come with RAM soldered on, they don't have any additional DIMM slots.

I did check online teardowns and reviews of the laptop as well as ask the sales rep of my local computer store. It does have at least one additional, unpopulated DIMM slot. The sales rep isn't too sure about the 4GB it comes with being soldered on tho.

[D13H4RD]

6 hours ago, Riesling said:

I did check online teardowns and reviews of the laptop as well as ask the sales rep of my local computer store. It does have at least one additional, unpopulated DIMM slot. The sales rep isn't too sure about the 4GB it comes with being soldered on tho.

Is it 2133MHz?

[genexis_x]

22 hours ago, Riesling said:

Snip

First, nice choice mate, the Aspire 5 is a solid budget laptop

 

Second, I don't think that the laptop has soldered RAM. I recommend 12GB+ for PUBG as some players said that they are having shuttering with 8GB RAM. So buy an 8GB RAM and add into the laptop to become 12GB. It's OK to mix different capacity of RAM as long as the frequency and timings are the same (however there's no 100% guarantee that it will be compatible). Also, the MX150 is very weak for PUBG so make sure you play with 720p low settings.

[D13H4RD]

Also, a bit of advice.

 

Dont go for faster RAM than the one your system already has. It will downclock to match the frequency and timings of the slower one, so you’ll waste the extra cash.

 

Also, don’t make the same mistake I did and accidentally buy memory that’s slower than the one installed on the laptop (the OEM website at the time misled me when the laptop actually had memory which had a higher frequency of 2400MHz compared to 2133Mhz on the one I got, although 2133 is apparently the official standard frequency of DDR4 with higher ones technically being overclocked). It won’t affect your system much (if at all) but you’re not going to buy RAM that’s slower than the one you already have unless you’re like me.

[Riesling]

On 09/11/2017 at 11:19 PM, ZM Fong said:

First, nice choice mate, the Aspire 5 is a solid budget laptop

 

Second, I don't think that the laptop has soldered RAM. I recommend 12GB+ for PUBG as some players said that they are having shuttering with 8GB RAM. So buy an 8GB RAM and add into the laptop to become 12GB. It's OK to mix different capacity of RAM as long as the frequency and timings are the same (however there's no 100% guarantee that it will be compatible). Also, the MX150 is very weak for PUBG so make sure you play with 720p low settings.

 

On 10/11/2017 at 12:15 AM, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

Also, a bit of advice.

 

Dont go for faster RAM than the one your system already has. It will downclock to match the frequency and timings of the slower one, so you’ll waste the extra cash.

 

Also, don’t make the same mistake I did and accidentally buy memory that’s slower than the one installed on the laptop (the OEM website at the time misled me when the laptop actually had memory which had a higher frequency of 2400MHz compared to 2133Mhz on the one I got, although 2133 is apparently the official standard frequency of DDR4 with higher ones technically being overclocked). It won’t affect your system much (if at all) but you’re not going to buy RAM that’s slower than the one you already have unless you’re like me.

Sure, thanks for your recommendations! I'll be getting the laptop in the next few weeks; I'd gladly update this thread with anything about the laptop when I actually get it.