RAM Upgrade - 2 modules or 1?

[AngusAJM]

Hi, the laptop currently has two 4GB SODIMM modules, and we want to upgrade to 16GB total.

Is performance better if we install two matched 8GB modules compared to a single 16GB?

Of course if we do the latter, we can upgrade again if needed...

PS: This laptop has a Ryzen 5 CPU.  Thanks!

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

If you have any inclination that you are going to upgrade to 32 GB, buy a single 16 GB chip and leave one of the 4 GB chips in the other slot.

You may as well have 20 GB running in single channel mode as opposed to 16 GB running in single channel mode.

2 x 8 GB memory chips will run in the higher performing dual channel mode, but I doubt you would notice much difference.

Then if you decide to go with 32 GB you will not have wasted your money twice.

Below is the link to the service manual where you can find the memory removal and replacement procedure.

Maintenance and Service Guide HP Pavilion 15 Laptop PC

The service manual indicates the max memory is 2 x 8 GB, but I am very sure you can install 2 x 16 GB if you want.

You can confirm by running these commands:

1. In the search box, search for cmd and click Run as administrator.

This will open the command prompt.

2. Once command prompt is opened, type wmic memphysical get maxcapacityEx and hit enter.

There, it will show the maximum RAM capacity your PC's motherboard can support.

The capacity is shown as Kilobytes, so you have to convert it to Gigabytes by dividing the number provided in the report by 1,048,576.

[AngusAJM]

Very good and thoughtful answer.

I would just qualify part of the answer though, about performance, for anyonr reading this in the future.  I read up further on this to try and quantify the difference, it can be significant with some reviews noting up to or even over 50% increase in speed for some applications, like gaming.  I would agree that for normal web surfing and word processing, you probably wouldn't notice the difference - but then why would you need to go over 16GB anyway if that's all you do?

In the end I went for 2x 8GB - I probably won't want to upgrade to 32GB and I plan to sell the pair of old modules.

Thanks again.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

This YouTube video gives a good comparison of single vs dual channel memory configurations...

Single Channel vs Dual Channel Memory - Laptop Gaming and CPU Benchmarks - YouTube