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I have a Hp 630 laptop. 2 DIMMs and 2GB(1066 Mhz) of ram on one slot. I want to upgrade it.
At this point I have two solutions:
Which one is better?
Emokl
Posted 2011-11-20T19:09:44.883
Reputation: 39
9
Performance advantage of dual-channel configurations is negligible in most workloads -- on the order of 1 to 5 percent. (See, for example, http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/PARALLEL-PROCESSING,1705-11.html.)
Once you hit swap, however, you will be penalized by orders of magnitude. 100 MB/s vs 8000 MB/s. I would always choose more RAM.
scott.squires
Posted 2011-11-20T19:09:44.883
Reputation: 1 001
I vote for the 6gb version. Why? I have 4gb in my laptop, with a Windows 7 Professional x64. Sometimes I get near to 3.7gb of usage. Only using browsers, and a lot of background stuff. (Skype, MSN, etc.) Mostly the browser will eat the rest.
Why I wouldn't care about the speed? Because I have never seen a difference. I've had SDRAM. I've had DDR2 533-800. DDR3 1066-1600mhz. No difference. Maybe, in numbers. Or in a benchmark. But in user experience? NONE. – Apache – 2011-11-20T21:14:02.603
Agreed, most real world benchmarks show very little impact when increasing ram speed. It's surprising, but speaks to the fact that RAM bandwidth is already so fast that it is rarely the bottleneck. – AaronLS – 2012-08-06T22:57:21.237
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2x2GB will allow your system to work in full dual-channel mode, which means that memory transfers will be faster.
Depending on your processor you may be able to use a hybrid dual channel mode (on Intel i-series processors) which gives the best of both worlds, but means that above 4GB of used RAM you will not see the speed benefit of dual channel.I do not know if AMD processors support this extra mode
If you often find yourself running out of RAM then the 6GB configuration may be better for you, if not then the dual-channel mode will give better performance.
Mokubai
Posted 2011-11-20T19:09:44.883
Reputation: 64 434
1What operating system? (Be as complete as possible.) – David Schwartz – 2011-11-20T19:40:03.703
1@David you don't really need to know if your upgrading RAM... – Simon Sheehan – 2011-11-20T20:43:46.400
1@SimonSheehan Really? So your answer would be the same if he's running Windows XP 32-bit as it would be if he was running 64-bit Linux? – David Schwartz – 2011-11-20T21:26:37.240
@David he's asking about performance: OS is a whole other story. – Simon Sheehan – 2011-11-20T21:30:30.570
3@SimonSheehan If his OS can only use 4GB, then the 4GB will perform better because it will give him dual-channel. If his OS is 64-bit, the 6GB will likely perform better because 50% more RAM will probably improve performance more than losing dual-channel will hurt it. You cannot give a good answer to this question without knowing the OS. – David Schwartz – 2011-11-20T21:32:35.493
IMO, more RAM is always better – Nate Koppenhaver – 2011-11-26T23:18:21.650
@Nate More ram is always better provided that the OS will recognize it. Otherwise it is just a waste of money and battery power. – Casey Robinson – 2011-11-27T00:42:04.477
@CaseyRobinson good point, I didn't realize the memory limits were so low for x86 (just looked them up) – Nate Koppenhaver – 2011-11-27T05:02:05.260