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    Worth the extra 8GB?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by Aeyix, Nov 25, 2012.

  1. Aeyix

    Aeyix Notebook Evangelist

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    I have a Clevo P150EM. Amazing laptop. I had originally bought some Corsair Vengeance 2x4GB (8GB) 1600MHz sticks to replace the downgrade RAM option which was 2x4GB 1333MHz.

    I still have 2 more dimms remaining and the Corsair RAM I had purchased is only $40 for another 2x4GB 1600MHz pack. With the RAM being that inexpensive, is it worth it for me to just fill up the last 2 dimm slots for a full 16GB? Would it hurt my battery life at all? I usually get about 3 hours of life. Hardware Monitor reports a voltage of 14.80V when running on battery. Other than games, I've used my laptop for MATLAB coding and that's about it for now.


    Setup:
    Clevo P150EM
    1920x1080 Matte Screen
    Corsair Vengeance 2x4GB 1600MHz CL9 RAM
    Intel i7-3610QM @ 2.3GHz
    Nvidia GTX 675M
    Intel 520 240GB SSD
    6X Blu-Ray Reader
    Intel Centrino 6300 Ultimate-N
     
    Aeyix, Nov 25, 2012
    #1
  2. LooieENG

    LooieENG Notebook Consultant

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    Do you use more than 8GB RAM?

    I know DDR RAM works faster in pairs, but not sure if x4 is any faster than x2

    On my laptop I rarely use moe than 4GB (only when playing games) but I put another 4GB in so I can disable the paging file (to stop it writing to the SSD)
     
    LooieENG, Nov 25, 2012
    #2
  3. homank76

    homank76 Alienware/Dell Enthusiast

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    All depends if you top out the RAM as is now. I know there is a few times that I've hit 10GB being used, but that is while I'm doing heavy edits with photos with numerous programs.
     
    homank76, Nov 25, 2012
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  4. Aeyix

    Aeyix Notebook Evangelist

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    I don't think I've gone over 5GBs yet but I don't periodically pay attention to it. I haven't had any noticeable system slow down.
     
    Aeyix, Nov 25, 2012
    #4
  5. davidricardo86

    davidricardo86 Notebook Deity

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    Go 16GB+ and use XMP profiles (1866, 2133+) AND lower latency RAM if at all possible (if mobo, chipset, cpu and BIOS allow), if you know you're going to need it right now! I would imagine this would consume more energy due to the memory operating in quad-channel mode plus the overclocking of the RAM itself.
     
    davidricardo86, Nov 25, 2012
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  6. homank76

    homank76 Alienware/Dell Enthusiast

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    At the moment I would save your money and start saving for a video card upgrade down the road.
     
    homank76, Nov 25, 2012
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  7. HTWingNut

    HTWingNut Potato

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    Don't bother unless you really need it. RAM is cheap and will always be available. You will notice zero increase in performance. Lower CAS doesn't matter either. The system is really only sensitive to faster RAM and then you have to run up to 2133MHz to even start to notice a slight improvement.
     
    HTWingNut, Nov 26, 2012
    #7
  8. Marecki_clf

    Marecki_clf Homo laptopicus

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    In laptops RAM operates in dual channel mode. There are no laptops supporting quad channel, this technology is currently only supported in desktop PCs (namely Intel LGA2011) and some server architectures. Sure, there are laptops with 4 RAM slots, but when all 4 of them are occupied, it's still dual channel, just all read/write operations are interleaved. It is true though that 4 RAM modules will consume more energy than 2 :).
     
    Marecki_clf, Nov 26, 2012
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  9. Aeyix

    Aeyix Notebook Evangelist

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    Thanks for the help everyone. I'm just going to stick to 8GB for now.
     
    Aeyix, Nov 26, 2012
    #9