Deciding on my XPS 15 and changing RAM

I'm slightly between a rock and a hard place at the moment with my XPS buying. I've been backwards and forwards between deciding on speccs and then backwards and forwards trying to decide on 15 or 17 versions before the bad screen reviews scared me away from the 17 completely.

My dilema is that I'd originally planned to buy my XPS from ebay, as there is an ebay seller in the UK that has much cheaper systems than buying direct from dell. Unfortunately he only stocks systems with the 720p display.

To put it into perspective price wise, I was originally set on an XPS 17 with i7, 8gb ram and the 3gb GPU before I got scared away by the screen quality. For the same price as that I can only get 4gb of RAM on the 15" straight from DELL (Both the above specced 17 and a 4gb, i7, 500gb, 2gb 435M, 1080p coming out at around £850), which isn't such a bit deal now but I'd like to know how difficult it is to upgrade it in the 15 later. The RAM in the 17 seems easily accessable but I haven't seen pictures of inside the 15. As I think I'd rather get the screen now and possibly upgrade ram later... instead of getting ram now and upgrading the screen myself as that seems like it could turn out more complicted.

 

L501X ram: remove 3 screws from the bottom panel. It's right there.

It should come with 1 4gb module, so you can pick up a 2nd for really cheap

 

I was hoping it was as simple as on the 17. The system I wanted was i7, 500gb, 8gb, 435M 2gb. But since all the 720p screens seem to be of.. lesser quality, well atleast compared to the 1080p version I had to compromise on ram. Dell want to charge me £285 for them to add another 4gb of ram. Now I won't even begin to pretend to be anything like as knowlegeable as people on here but I'm pretty sure forum members here can direct me to 4gb of RAM and how to install it for less than the £285 that Dell want and I'm assuming it's easier than getting a xps 15 from ebay with 720p which already has the ram and swapping the screen

 

I'm not sure about UK, but Canada/US has newegg.com
As you can see, the prices are significantly lower

 

You should check with the resellers how many DIMMs the ram is. If it's 2, you'll need two 4gb sticks, or just 1 for 6gb total.

Prices don't look bad here. UK site.

 

ha, just a little lower than Dell, I looked up the ram cost of the last gen of XPS to get an idea of cost. I'm sure someone will be able to help me out with a UK equivalent and I'll be set. Thanks for your help.

 

Will changing the RAM void my Dell warranty and therefore should I wait until my warranty runs out before I upgrade?

Will any DD3 1333mhz 4gb Ram suffice? the xps 15 comes with 2x2gb in the config I'm buying so I'll need to replace both with 2x4gb so there won't be compatability issues between the two, but should I buy a particular brand as there seems to be large price gaps between different brands,

for example: Kingston - Value RAM KHX1333C7AD3/2G 2GB 1333MHz DDR3 240PIN DIMM

and:
G.Skill Ripjaw 4GB (1x4GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Single Memory Modu

 

No, changing your RAM does not void your warranty at all.

And you are right now looking at the wrong RAM. The links are for desktop memory modules. You are looking for SODIM modules.

 

My complete lack of know-how shines though. I'll try again.
Crucial 2 x 4GB DDR3 PC3-10600 1333HMz 204-PIN SODIMM on eBay (end time 10-Jan-11 14:10:11 GMT)
Is this what I'm looking for? and then it's just pop the screws out, swap them over and then go on with my day?
thanks.

 

although it would seem simpler to wait until I have it and run:
Memory upgrades from Crucial.com - About Crucial:Media Toolbox
to find out exactly what fits. Unless someone with a 15 has run that already

 

There you go: Computer memory upgrades for Dell XPS L501X Laptop/Notebook from Crucial.com

 

Thankyou very much for your help.

 

You are welcome. I know those RAM modules can get confusing at times.