Laptop RAM in pairs?

womble12345 · 8 January 2018 at 10:52AM

The RAM in my Dell latitude E6320 is broken, I get lots of errors when using MemTest86. It originally had 2 x 2GB SODIMM chips. I bought 1 x 4GB chip as a replacement which works fine. It occured to me that maybe only one of the original chips may be at fault so can I stick the working chip in and then get an extra 2GB RAM in the laptop?
I have read that it is preferable to install them in pairs, am I likely to benefit from having a 4GB and a 2GB in there or am I best just using the 4GB chip on its own?

Thanks,
Womble

d0nkeyk0ng · 8 January 2018 at 11:58AM

Not strictly necessary - IIRC it's mainly a performance thing. Theoretically, the motherboard can access both RAM sticks at the same time. The actual improvement is more like 10% than the expected 100%.

EDIT: I would take this opportunity to install more RAM. Your max supported looks to be 8GB, so I would prefer 2x4GB for best performance. You could always install one 4GB stick now, and then another later if you choose to.

womble12345 · 8 January 2018 at 12:12PM

I dont really use it enough to consider spending any more money on more RAM, given that am I best keeping it at 4GB or adding the extra working 2GB as well? I dont want to add the extra 2GB if it makes performance worse because it isnt paired.

Thanks

emptybox · 8 January 2018 at 1:53PM

I would think you would be more likely to be better off with 6 GB of working RAM rather than 4 GB running slightly faster. But it would depend on your usage.
If you are never reaching the limits of 4 GB then there's no advantage in having more.

You could leave the 4 GB in for now and keep an eye on RAM usage, either by having Task Manager open while you are doing other things, or installing a widget utility such as Rainmeter.
Web browsers use a lot of RAM, and if you find you are ever getting up to 70 or 80% usage, then you would certainly benefit from more RAM.

DoaM · 8 January 2018 at 1:54PM

4GB on it's own is probably better than 4GB paired with 2GB, but I have no empirical data to support that thought.

But I echo the advice above ... given the general price of RAM chips I'd go for a matched 2x 4GB pair. (Quite a while back I upgraded my own laptop that had 2x 2GB matched pair with 2x 4GB matched pair and noticed the improvement that the additional RAM afforded).

womble12345 · 8 January 2018 at 2:08PM

Thanks for the suggestions, even if they do conflict a bit!! The laptop is generally used for video editing basic family videos using MS Moviemaker and web browsing. I understand that video editing will benefit from more RAM...

Anyway I think I will stick with the 4GB and monitor RAM usage and stick the extra 2GB in only if necessary.

Thanks for the help!

toshi · 8 January 2018 at 2:31PM

In your case, I will use 6GB, (4+2GB) simply because you already have a spare 2GB.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-channel_memory_architecture

Theoretically, dual-channel configurations double the memory bandwidth when compared to single-channel configurations. This should not be confused with double data rate (DDR) memory, which doubles the usage of DRAM bus by transferring data both on the rising and falling edges of the memory bus clock signals.
Tom's Hardware found little significant difference between single-channel and dual-channel configurations in synthetic and gaming benchmarks (using a "modern (2007)" system setup). In its tests, dual channel gave at best a 5% speed increase in memory-intensive tasks.[7] Another comparison by Laptop logic resulted in a similar conclusion for integrated graphics.[8] The test results published by Tom's Hardware had a discrete graphics comparison.

At the moment, my desktop have 7GB lol, originally 4GB x 1, then I have found 1GB x 4, but my desktop has only 4 slot, use the max amount of memory. (4 + 1 +1+ 1) .

I personally don't think less demanding client computing has any serious advantage with "dual-channel configurations", but additional memory help to run Virtual Machine smoothly in my case. If you don't have any performance issues with 4GB, you can leave it as it is.

In 2018, let's talk about flash memory (SSD) instead of RAM memory lol Have you got an SSD? As you have got a decent business notebook, get an SSD to use another 3-5 years very comfortably.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVtIIXJfFg8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmQLDT2y-R0

Happy computing!

womble12345 · 8 January 2018 at 5:22PM

Thanks toshi, very interesting.

jeradon · 9 January 2018 at 8:05AM

Adding the 2gb memory should be fine as long as the memory speed is the same with your 4gb.

psychic_teabag · 9 January 2018 at 12:29PM

DoaM wrote: »

4GB on it's own is probably better than 4GB paired with 2GB, but I have no empirical data to support that thought.

The benefit of matched memory is that the motherboard can access both in parallel. But why should adding a 2Gb unit cause the motherboard to *slow down* access to the existing 4Gb unit ? It could only access it on its own before, and it can still access it on its own.

I guess it could happen if the 2Gb unit has longer access time, and the motherboard decices to access all ram at that slower rate. But if both are fast enough for the fastest access the motherboard can make, should be no change.

DoaM · 9 January 2018 at 1:53PM

Like I said ... I have no empirical data to support my opinion. But usually the system will access RAM at the speed of the slowest RAM stick ... if the 2GB stick is slower than the 4GB one then inserting the 2GB stick may well impact overall performance to negate the benefit of the additional RAM.

But it's a suck it and see situation.

Laptop RAM in pairs?

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