Is it better to buy a laptop with 8GB of ram, or one with 4GB and upgrade it myself later

Ross Carthy · Aug 9, 2015

I'm in the market for a new laptop.
I was hoping for 8GB of ram, but all laptops I find with 8GB ram also come with 1/2TB Hard Drives, i7 CPU's and lot's of extras that jack up the price.

Would it be better then to buy a lesser laptop. One with only 4GB ram, 500GB HD, a lesser CPU. Then If I could updgrade the RAM myself for cheaper?

At the moment I'm still using an old Dell Vostro, with 2GB RAM 250GB HD, and a fairly low CPU.

Solandri · Aug 9, 2015

There are an increasing number of laptops (mostly ultrabooks) sold without memory upgrade slots. The RAM is soldered to the motherboard and cannot be changed or upgraded.

Generally it is cheaper to buy the laptop with 4GB and upgrade it yourself. But check the reviews and user forums to make sure the memory on that model can in fact be upgraded before you buy it. The laptop being sold in 4GB and 8GB versions is not a good enough indication. Sometimes the company produces them with 4GB or 8GB soldered in.

Another thing to watch out for is that a 4GB laptop may have 2 memory slots occupied by 2GB SO-DIMMs. To upgrade, you have to throw away one of the SO-DIMMs, so you end up with 6GB or 10GB total (2+4 or 2+8). Unfortunately it's a lot harder to figure out the memory configuration before you buy it. But if you can you'll have peace of mind that you won't be stuck trying to sell a memory module on eBay after you upgrade.

Edit: (People will tell you to make sure both modules are the same size, so the computer can access them in dual channel mode. So they'll advise you to throw away both 2GB modules and go with 4+4, and they'll discourage 8+0. The reality is that dual channel only makes about a 1%-2% difference in speed - you're not going to notice it. It makes an impressive improvement in memory benchmarks, and that's about it. If you're doing scientific simulations which need high-speed memory, then dual channel is important. Otherwise you can ignore it and just go with 2+4 or 2+8).

velo3100 · Aug 10, 2015

Generally yes, upgrading the laptop yourself is cheaper than buying a laptop with higher ram but make sure they are upgradable.

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Is it better to buy a laptop with 8GB of ram, or one with 4GB and upgrade it myself later

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