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I recently bought a new gaming laptop that comes with a single Ripjaws 16Gb stick. I've heard that having dual channel memory can actually boost your performance by about 7% or higher.

I'm thinking of adding a 4Gb stick of the same brand and specs for about $30. Would this be worth it? I've heard that mismatching RAM capacities can have negative effects.

(By the way, keep in mind that this gaming laptop has an i7-6700HQ which will only support RAM speeds of 2133MHz since that is all it will recognize. Although the 16Gb stick is 2400MHz, it's running @ 2133MHz.)

Current 16 Gb Stick: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017UC3UFC 4 Gb Stick for dual-channel upgrade: https://www.amazon.com/G-SKILL-Ripjaws

| Hypothetically, if CPU-Z where to say the 4Gb stick is running in dual-channel mode with the 16Gb, would this mean only 4Gb would be used as dual-channel? I personally owned a separate laptop that had a 4Gb/2Gb RAM setup using dual channel. I've been told Asymmetric Dual-channel isn't as good as symmetric, but for 30 bucks is it worth?

Burgi
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SapphireMedal
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  • 1) that speed quote, wherever it came from is probably bunk outside of synthetic benchmarks. 2) most games use video memory, so if your "gaming laptop" has a dedicated GPU with its own memory, your system memory is secondary. As a side note, I can tell you e.g. The Division, the new Doom etc, consume *at most* about 2.5 gigs of system memory. – Yorik Jan 31 '17 at 16:47
  • @Yorik - are those stats for COMMIT? If no, then *at most* becomes **minimum**... Which is fine if you have, like, 16GB to run your stuff. If system's RAM is less than COMMIT of **all** processes then... well, bummer. – AcePL Jan 31 '17 at 17:09
  • I was doing some troubleshooting recently with GPU, CPU, memory stats up. Full-screen FPS style games are going to load everything they can into dedicated GPU memory, to do otherwise is a performance hit. I was running the games normally and tabbing out, the free memory on my 4gig gpu was about 5%, the free system memory was about 13 of 16, with about 2-2.5 being listed for the game process. Of course this is off topic, my main thought was to point out the performance gain is going to be slight. – Yorik Jan 31 '17 at 17:13
  • I do also use video editing software for some pretty big projects. Archiving and zipping also tends to be a norm for me. As far as at what speed the RAM is running, I haven't personally done the benchmarks but the company themselves said that this particular model only allows for 2133MHz max or lower. The laptop offers 4 RAM slots. Link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MXDGDD8/ref=ask_ql_qh_dp_hza – SapphireMedal Jan 31 '17 at 17:33
  • What I am questioning is if CPU-Z where to tell me the computer is running in Dual-Channel mode, would that mean only 4GB are usable for dual? – SapphireMedal Jan 31 '17 at 17:35

2 Answers2

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You need to make sure the system supports asymmetric x-channel mode. If yes, you'll probably not gain anything performance-wise, if not you'll loose quite a bit of it.

This is because system can operate same memory amount in x-channel out of each module. So, at worst you'll end up with 20 GB of RAM in single-channel mode, at best with 8GB in x-channel (2x4GB) and remaining 12GB in single-channel.

Keep in mind that "quite a lot of it" is maybe 15% difference. It's not enough to notice, especially since your stated use is for gaming. In that case simply more memory is better.

EDIT:

Just remembered: this is a gaming laptop. Did you ever wonder why they put 1x16GB instead of 2x8GB? If not, maybe you should?

Just sayin'....

EDIT2:

Ok, since you have 8GB of VRAM in this system I'm actually thinking that last thing you want is to add another 4GB. My Advice is to scrap the idea, as it will do more harm than good performance-wise, but all things being subjective you'll see the difference in benchmarks only. If you really worry about system underperforming in video editing area add another 16GB, or - if budget is of some importance - convert it to 2x8GB. CPU is - as noted - with dual-channel memory controller, so either 2x8GB or 2x16 GB. If you want to expand RAM later, add another dual channel kit and you're golden.

As for your hypothetical question you added - it's already covered in my answer above (the "at best" part).

AcePL
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  • It's one stick of 16Gb, I asked the guys selling the Laptop and they linked me up to the exact stick. I'm not entirely sure if it does support x-channel mode, but I do know that it has 4 RAM slots. I would like to point out that I also use a lot of video editing software apart from just gaming, so any measurable improvement for $30 may be worth it. Reading the answered questions on the Laptop, they mentioned the CPU only running 2333MHz speeds on any RAM installed. Here is the link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MXDGDD8/ref=ask_ql_qh_dp_hza – SapphireMedal Jan 31 '17 at 17:24
  • @SapphireMedal - please see edited answer – AcePL Feb 01 '17 at 11:17
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Post #8 Explains it best: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/4gb-dual-channel-2-2-vs-6gb-single-channel-4-2.714532/

I'll go ahead and do a benchmark on both dual and single to see if its worth or not.

SapphireMedal
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