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Question

Upgrading RAM worth it?

Sep 16, 2015 7:50PM PDT

Hi,

I have an HP Elitebook with 8GB of DDR3 1333MHz RAM. I ran a scan, and the computer tells me I can upgrade to 16GB 1600MHz RAM. I can afford this, but I'm wondering if/how it's worth it. What are the specific benefits of upgrading RAM in my laptop?

Thanks -Luke

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Iffy. Yes, my workhorse laptop has 16GB
Sep 17, 2015 6:43AM PDT
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Answer
It all depends what you use it for.
Sep 19, 2015 3:17AM PDT

If you are using memory intensive systems, in memory data bases, video editing, high end graphics or many active tasks, then yes, it may help. If the bulk of your work involves heavy I/O, then a SSD may be more cost effective.

It's very much a law of diminishing returns on memory, if you don't have enough for the work you are doing, then it's the best investment you can make. But once you have enough, the return on the excess isn't great.

It's all about balance, try to establish which part of your system is most stressed and address that first. Memory is one of the more difficult components to measure (unless you don't have enough) but more than enough will just result in no longer needed data cluttering up the system "just in case you need it again".

I.m not sure the speed increase you mention will be too significant, it's still way slower than your processor - that's what your caches are for but if you are replacing the existing memory, you might as well go for the best your machine supports.

A bit of analysis with your resource monitor may help.

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Thanks for your feedback!
Sep 19, 2015 1:01PM PDT

I use the laptop mainly for gaming and schoolwork (word documents, CAD). I was wondering if an SDD would be more effective than the extra ram. I don't have quite enough money for both. I'll post my specs below:

Intel Core i7 2620m (Dual Core)
8GB DDR3 1333MHz
500 GB 7200rpm HDD
HP Elitebook 8460p

Thanks!

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Answer
What do you do with the laptop?
Sep 19, 2015 6:00AM PDT

I presume that your goal is to make your laptop run faster. Going to more, faster RAM will provide a small improvement in performance, an improvement that will be significantly greater if you are performing RAM-intensive tasks like graphics or database manipulation.

However, if you REALLY want to improve your laptop's performance, replace the HDD with an SSD. Nothing you could possibly do to it would give you such a great leap in performance.