2x4GB or 1x8GB Stick for Laptop

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krustie92

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Apr 13, 2013
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I have a Dell XPS15 LM502x. Currently it has 4GB ram. I'm going to upgrade the RAM, replace the optical drive with a HDD caddy and put in an SSD.

Am I better off replacing the RAM with a single 8GB stick or 2x4GB sticks? Would getting the 8GB stick facilitate getting a second one later to bring my total memory up to 16GB. Or would I see better performance with the Dual-package?

I'm looking primarily at these two products.

http://

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I'm about to go into final year college and will be doing a considerable amount of heavy MATLAB simulation.
 
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moozilbee

moozilbee

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Jul 19, 2013
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If your laptop's motherboard has 2 or more ram slots, which it probably does, then just add another 4gb stick but check that it's compatible with your current ram. If you install the ram in pairs it will run in dual channel mode, which is faster than a single stick of ram. If you need to have 16gb however, you should go with 2x8gb sticks, but if you're fine with 8gb, then go with 2x4gb.
Also, ram speed makes little to no difference, and so ram overclocking & ram heatsinks are pretty pointless, so don't pay a premium for ram as there is no reason to do so.
 
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krustie92

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Apr 13, 2013
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It's already in Dual Channel mode, 2x2gb, so I would have to get replace at least one stick anyway. I would be optimistic 2x4GB should do.

But would like to keep my options open by getting an 8 gig stick and getting one in future. Would there be a sharp compromise in performance?
 
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AMD Radeon

AMD Radeon

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Dec 23, 2011
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executing code on matlab can be really slow
i would go for this
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-CMSX8GX3M2A1600C9-Vengeance-Performance-1600MHz/dp/B006EWUOL8/

it has CL9 latency which is a bit faster

you can buy 1 stick now, and test running the matlab first. you can always buy another stick later

and put your SSD on the HDD slot, move the original HDD into the caddy
the original slot is faster
 
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krustie92

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Apr 13, 2013
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That is a dual-channel package so it would fill my all the memory slots on my laptop. So I couldn't get another stick later.

re the SSD that was the plan anyway but thanks.
 
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krustie92

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Apr 13, 2013
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Thanks for the advice :) I was drifting that way anyway unless some one had a resounding reason not to
 
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sora

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Oct 30, 2013
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True, if you are gaming RAM doesn't really matter much.
 
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krustie92

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Apr 13, 2013
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I have a custom built desktop at home to look after my gaming needs. The laptop primarily only gets used for running simulation software and writing reports on that in college.

 
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