Wondering to upgrade 4 GB RAM or not

[thundernie]

i just bought new notebook ASUS A455L which run i5 4210u with 4GB. Some of my friends told me to upgrade the RAM to achieve high speed performance while others stated that upgrading the RAM would not bring nothing good as i've already use i5. Need some expert opinion here.
Thank you.


Regards
Ninie

 

[jaguarskx]

Upgrading your RAM to 8GB can be helpful. As stated with two sticks of RAM the RAM will be running in dual channel mode rather than single channel mode. That basically means that with only one stick of RAM data transfer between the CPU / graphics core is at half speed. Going from single channel to dual channel doubles the transfer rate, but that does not mean your laptop will be twice as fast; 10% - 15% performance increase would be reasonable though.

If you are relying on the integrated Intel graphics core to play games with then it is highly recommended you install another 4GB stick of RAM partially to get a bit more performance, but also because both the iGPU and programs and OS will be sharing the 4GB of RAM.

In general games should be able to run with 4GB of RAM especially if there is a dedicated graphics chip with it's own RAM. For example, I can play Skyrim on my laptop with only 4GB of RAM while using the integrated Intel HD 4400 graphics core.

However, for some games 4GB of RAM is not enough even when you have a dedicated graphics chip with it's own RAM. I played Star Trek Online with only 4GB of RAM and a Radeon HD 8850m w/ 2GB of dedicated RAM. I get quite a few warnings about low RAM even though the Radeon HD 8850m uses dedicated RAM. In most cases I would simply dismiss the message and continue playing. However, in a few instances the laptop would lockup and I would need to disconnect the power then reconnect it so that I can boot up the laptop again.

After installing a second 4GB stick of RAM (8GB total) I no longer get those low memory error messages.

 

[Sanjay Srivastava]

well ram is not gonna boost system or game performance ..........................its the cpu and gpu
you should only upgrade RAM if you are an insane multitasker....chrome+firefox+2 downloads+copying data+converting mp4 to avi+watching a 2k movie everything at once


better than upgrading is ...............
http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=fM2EMCuq7cU

 

[boosted1g]

As far as more RAM helping you, that depends on what you use the PC for. If you are a massive multitasker with 30 tabs open in your browser plus several other programs running then 4gb might not be enough. If gaming then 4gb is not enough.

Now, the other thing though is that the factory probably only put 1 stick of ram in the computer. Ram is ment to run in pairs so 1x4gb is actually 10-15% slower then 2x2gb or 2x4gb or 1x2gb + 1x4gb. Thus having 1 ram slot empty reduces performance.

With all that said, the absolute best upgrade you can do for your laptop is to replace the hard drive with an SSD drive. You will have a much faster system, faster boot times, and even gain a little extra battery life.

 

[burdenbound]

You probably won't see a big change going from 4GB to 8GB unless like others have said you run multiple applications at the same time.

I personally prefer 8GB of RAM because I have noticed usage around 5.5GB-6GB when just running a single game, but there are some reviews out there which show game performance not being affected by it. You would probably notice the lag when switching programs.

RAM is a fairly inexpensive upgrade so you can go to 8GB with out much regret. I do highly recommend at least a 256GB SSD like boosted1g stated. You can even turn your optical drive into a slot to hold your old HDD for mass storage.

 

[jaguarskx]

Upgrading your RAM to 8GB can be helpful. As stated with two sticks of RAM the RAM will be running in dual channel mode rather than single channel mode. That basically means that with only one stick of RAM data transfer between the CPU / graphics core is at half speed. Going from single channel to dual channel doubles the transfer rate, but that does not mean your laptop will be twice as fast; 10% - 15% performance increase would be reasonable though.

If you are relying on the integrated Intel graphics core to play games with then it is highly recommended you install another 4GB stick of RAM partially to get a bit more performance, but also because both the iGPU and programs and OS will be sharing the 4GB of RAM.

In general games should be able to run with 4GB of RAM especially if there is a dedicated graphics chip with it's own RAM. For example, I can play Skyrim on my laptop with only 4GB of RAM while using the integrated Intel HD 4400 graphics core.

However, for some games 4GB of RAM is not enough even when you have a dedicated graphics chip with it's own RAM. I played Star Trek Online with only 4GB of RAM and a Radeon HD 8850m w/ 2GB of dedicated RAM. I get quite a few warnings about low RAM even though the Radeon HD 8850m uses dedicated RAM. In most cases I would simply dismiss the message and continue playing. However, in a few instances the laptop would lockup and I would need to disconnect the power then reconnect it so that I can boot up the laptop again.

After installing a second 4GB stick of RAM (8GB total) I no longer get those low memory error messages.