Can I upgrade the RAM on the xps16 by myself?

I know it is extremely superfluous but I want 8gb ram! However, it cost $765 more to go from 4GB to 8GB on the Dell website. I heard it is cheaper to just buy RAM yourself and to do it yourself. If possible to do, I am planning on buying 4GB RAM installed on the XPS16 when I customize, and separately buy 4GB RAM separately install myself. This is doable correct?

I am a noob and I never unscrewed anything on a computer before so here are my noob questions:

1) Is it easy to do?
2) If I finally end up adding the extra 4 GB, will it work just the same as if I originally bought 8GB from dell.
3) Can you link me to some cheap 4GB RAM that is 100% compatible with the XPS16.



Thanks as always!

 

If you buy 4 gigs with your computer it will come 2 slots of 2 gigs each and it want help you out at all. Why do you need 8gigs ?

 

And if I buy 6 gigs, it will come with one slot with 4GB and one slot with 2GB. So it isn't upgradeable then right?

 

Yes it is but again, why do you need 8 GB?

 

I JUST WANT IT ! ! !

So how is it upgradeable and may you answer my original questions.

 

Go to Dell's website and look it up in the user manual, it's not that hard.

 

-If I finally end up adding the extra 4 GB, will it work just the same as if I originally bought 8GB from dell.
- Can you link me to some cheap 4GB RAM that is 100% compatible with the XPS16?
-Also, what about what HCW said?

 

I highly doubt you are even using all of 4 GB. Making anything more just flat out a waste of your money.

Yes, buying it on your own is usually cheaper, but you will still pay a way more than its worth if you do this, and heres why.

Your laptop came with 4GB, meaning 2 sticks of 2GB in each slot.

You want 8GB, meaning you will need to buy 2 sticks of 4GB to put in each slot.

1 stick of 4GB DDR3 RAM is about 325-350 dollars. Meaning you will spend about $700 to upgrade to 8GB.

Its a fairly simple process. You just unscrew the back and you will see the RAM in two slots. You pull the chips out, and put the new ones in. Thats it.

I will end by reminding you that its not at all worth the money, not even close. Should the day ever arrive in the next few years when you need more than 4GB's then you can upgrade it then for a fraction of the cost today.

 

Alright guys, thanks everyone!

 

It will not be significantly cheaper to install the DIMMs by yourself, I believe, since the SXPS16 uses DDR3. DDR3 4GB modules are currently up for ~$350, so it will cost ~$700 regardless.

If you're looking for a performance gain, you won't get it, unless you are facing a RAM crunch from running 4 virtual machines at the same time or something. This will purely be for "bragging rights," which I think are far more significant if you spend the money on a high-performance SSD (it's more impressive having a 20 second boot time than having 8GB of RAM show up in Task Manager).

 

Very true Mdsun, FINE then,,,, ILL GO WITH 6GB!

 

Thank you all for your answer although one of you answer my question..

 

Ryu... if you are just looking to splurge your money, get a spiffy new high capacity, M-class SSD.

People will ohhh and ahhh, and it will actually make a difference in your computer, unlike adding RAM.

If you had 1GB right now, and wanted to go to 4GB, we would all cheer you on and applaud your decision. 4GB to higher is only needed if you are running VM's. Since you don't even know how to upgrade RAM, I highly doubt you're that tech savvy.

 

HAHA!!! Kudos!

I feel you man. I am going to go with 6GB and I am going to go with the 256GB SSD that Dell Offers.

Listen, its not that I just want to superfluously splurge cash but I am going to be honest.. I havent spent major money on myself in YEARS! This will actually be my first laptop ever and I have worked a lot in the recent years. I
want to actually spend some cash on a purchase that will satisfy me. Even though that ram is overdoing it, I just want to be overconfident with my machine. I am scarred from my current desktop which is very slow and has so many problems but I have been using it for almost a decade now. It is not like I am hard to make happy, but I want this purchase to hopefully be special.

 

What if he's like a gamer? Wouldn't he want 8GB of RAM to improve his game play?

 

An increase in RAM when you already have multiple gigabytes of it, won't really have much effect on performance, unless you plan on running Over 9000 things in the background whilst your gaming.

Remember kids, more RAM doesn't make your computer faster, it keeps it from slowing down.

 

With that kind of money, if you want to game get an M17x with GTX 260m's in SLI. That will boost your performance far more than getting 8GB RAM.

On the other hand, if you just want 8GB for your new toy, I would buy 4GB from Dell, and then get the 2x4GB kit from Newegg so that both slots have the same brand/type of memory to ensure good performance in dual-channel mode. Sell the original memory on Ebay to get a few bucks back.

 

well, i can't find the article, but i remember seeing something that windows 7 will actually make use of that extra ram. According to the article it said that windows 7 will cache you're most often used programs on your ram if you have a bunch of extra space, so lets say with 8 gb he has around 6 gb free, windows 7 will then use up another 4 gb loading up his programs and leave 2 gb free. So it may actually speed up his computer.

 

You would be better off waiting for the price of DDR3 to go down and then get some lower latency and timing chips when 4gig sticks are more mainstream, that way you will actually have a faster computer

 

You will NOT feel that effect you are expecting !!

you have to sell the current 2*2 dimms and buy a new 2*4

you would better go with SSD, bluray burner ,,, ( something useful )


but the question now is why dell ships SXPS with 2*2 rather than 1*4 ???

 

Because the price of 2*2 is (a lot?) cheaper than 1*4 . . .

 

Hardly any laptops have 4 RAM slots, 2 is the standard, it takes less space too

 

I think you're reading that backwards...its 1@4GB memory which, as has been noted, is both more expensive than 2@2GB and does not work in dual-channel mode.

 

Oh, woops. My bad