How much RAM is everyone buying?

With Dell finally getting it's horse into action and shipping out systems, I wanted to ask you guys - how much RAM are you gonna install and what are you planning to do with it?

For "future-proofing", how much RAM should someone get?

 

im currently using 3gb of DDR3 ram. havent noticed any stuttering in games or anything that would need more than that tho i will probably upgrade to 4gb soon.

 

i bought the minimum 4gb as you can buy another 4gb yourself for a quarter of what dell charges

 

I got 8GB since /i will be doing heavy video editing and 3D animation/rendering

 

Ram is cheap right now. If you're doing any ram intensive tasks now or in the future, now may be the time to upgrade. I don't see it getting any lower than $70 to $80 for an 8GB kit anytime soon.

 

I bought 8 gigs for futureproofing and because it was only a $60 upgrade. Right now, I don't actually need more than 4. Not big on multitasking.

 

Just a question about changing RAM... do you guys just add another 4GB RAM or buy a 8BG kit (2x4GB) to replace the original 4GB from Dell assuming you have 4 GB in the machine ? Heard that using both RAM of same brand run a bit better... Another comment with this...... Thanks.........

 

I got the OOTB configuration of 12GB Ram and then added 4GB more to max it out.
I am running multiple vmware images concurrently and more ram is better for me.

Imagine, HDD being the bottle neck and you have multiple machines scratching the same HDD.

From the 16GB, I spare 4GB as a Ram Drive and use it for %TEMP% and also the thumbcache files(use mklink /J).

From the 12GB, the OS itself takes around 2Gb so I have 10GB for the vmware images(and the overhead).

I tried using the Ram Drive as ReadyBoost(2GB out of the 4GB) but that didn't seem to help that much so that has been disabled.

If I had the option to reduce the amount of RAM that comes out of the box, I would have reduced it to 4GB then buy 3 more sticks to max it out.

Good thing is that the RAM is cheap now, you can max it out at any time so buy the minimum as you can from DELL but I would not suggest 2GB or 1GB as you cannot use them when you need to max out the ram so it becomes a waste.

Just my opinion.

 

$60 for 8gb upgrade from 4gb? thats cheaper than a 2x4gb aftermarket kit in australia! dell aus wants AUD200 to upgrade to 8gb from 4gb

 

My XPS 17 was a replacement for a 1640 that had 6GB of RAM. I had purchased a 4GB stick to make the 1640 8GB but since the XPS 17 holds more RAM I put the 4GB stick as well as the 6GB that it came with in there. So I have a total of 10GB. I use every bit of it with my CAD work and photoshop. I plan on going all the way and upgrade to 16GB when I have the funds.

 

Nooo, 8GB upgrade from 6, which is what the system I was configuring started at. From 4 it would have been 120 USD. Sorry. I really don't know how much aftermarket is, but $60 from 6 to 8 was considerably less than other 2 gig upgrades I'd seen in other systems... So, for good or bad, I took it.

 

I bought Corsair 4GB 1333Mhz from a computer shop at Chatswood(near the station and 7/11) for AUD75.

There were cheaper ram(not wellknown brands) but I would rather pay few bucks more for a brand and their warranty.

 

did you mean 2x4gb? thats a really good price. the cheapest corsair 8gb SO-DIMM kit i could find is AUD111

 

No, since I had 3 x 4GB pre-installed, I only had to add another 1 x 4GB.

The Corsair 4GB stick was 75AUD.

I am sure you can find cheaper price for the same.

 

so its ok to use unmatched ram in dual channel? i plan to do the same and get another 4gb (corsair is AUD51 now) to pair with the oem ram.

 

I think 1333Mhz is the best you can get for laptops.
If I had just 1 x 4GB 1333Mhz stick in my laptop, then I would just buy another 1 x 4GB 1333Mhz to make it a 8GB 1333Mhz.

If there were faster ram, then I would have to do as you mentioned, take out the 1333Mhz one and replace with the 2 x 4GB 1555(?)Mhz.

But in real life, the Mobo will look for the pair of memory sticks with same speed(but you need to place them in the right slot otherwise the faster one will be downgraded to synchronize the performance with the slower one) so that it runs in Double Data Rate following the specifications.

If you did not make it a pair, then although your RAM can run at 1333Mhz, it will only run at the 1/2 speed as it is not running in the DDR mode.

XPS L701X in my case, it only supports Double Data Rate and not Triple Data Rate, so the ram slots are in *pair* and I need to make sure I install the right sticks in the right pair.

Even if you had 3 x 4GB sticks, the 2 sticks in pair will run at the Double Data Rate and the rest that goes to 4GB will run at Single Data Rate.

So it is still better to populate the first pair of slots with your better performing ones and place the stock RAM stick on the other 2nd slots even if it is not in pair because no matter what "more ram is always better" regardless of whether it is running at Double Data Rate or not.

 

Thanks ridhuankim..... very detailed explanation....

 

i got mine with 8GB installed. 8Gb RAM is good when we do video editing and watching blu ray movies. do anyone use adobe photoshop ?

 

Since I have the i7-2720, I think I'll be going to with 2x4GB Kingston Hyper-X 1600MHz and toss the 6GB of 1333 the Dell is coming with into the other slots; 14GB total

But I've got a question - I've never had to deal with 4 DIMM slots before, so I'm not sure how to about identifying the pairs - are the paired DIMMs stacked on top of each other, or is the corresponding DIMM in the other slot? Also, how do I know which pair is primary? I don't want my 1600MHz Kingston being downclocked to the 1333 stock dell

 

8gb although I probably need no more than 3gb. I have more money than brains apparently.

 

8GB... though i am not sure i will use more than 4GB, just that i had 4GB with my old T9300 , i thought 2 extra cores deserve more RAM.....

 

RAM is probably the most overrated part of a laptop. I'd recommend going with the minimum configuration available (currently 4GB), monitoring your RAM usage, and then deciding if you need more. Since Dell RAM is expensive and isn't anything special, you can't go wrong if you do this.

Even though we're talking about multimedia laptops, I'd be shocked to hear if more than 10% of users would benefit from more than 4GB of RAM in their laptop.

 

To clarify, I'm wondering if the pairing goes like this:

| __a ___|____a __|
|___b___|____b___|

or like this:


| __a ___|____b __|
|___a___|____b___|

And if I'm installing 1600 and 1333, where to install the 1600 to ensure it's not downclocked?

 

Good question.
I have not tested this myself.

But you can download CPU-Z and check which slot your rams are occupying.

Pair the slot#1 with slot#2 and then put the rest in the slot#3 and #4.

 

I have 4GB installed on my system. However, I plan to upgrade to 8GB for virtual instruments and virtual machines.

 

Bank 0
|________b________|
|________a________|


Bank 1
|________b________|
|________a________|

Ok, so you have 2 bank(that has 2 slots)
If you have 2 sticks of RAM, install them one each at each bank.
You will be installing the ram on the lower slot of each bank and they will be in DDR pair.

 

Much appreciated


My Kingston Hyper-X 1600MHz came in today, so now I have 2x4GB of Kingson and 6GB from the stock dell (4GB + 2GB) for a total of 14GB

 

4gb from Dell which I am gonna trash and replace with 2 x 4gb from elsewhere for a fraction of what Dell charges.

 

For those of you that ordered the l702x with 8GB of ram, did you get 2x4GB or 4x2GB?

 

I'm having some issue with RAM upgrade.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...ps-15-l502-6gb-8gb-ram-upgarde-boot-fail.html

Can someone help? Or at least point me to a brand that you didn't have any issue with? A direct link would be great.

 

I got the 8GB ram, for everyone that is saying it's expensive on DELL's website, well I got a $130 discount so it was pretty much a free upgrade for me

 

4GB is only $40 if you had bought it from newegg and installed yourself; could've saved even more

 

Well yeah, but I really don't know how to install ram, I'm sure it's not that hard, but I don't like to open my machine and mess around with it because I did this with my last computer and it messed it up since then.

 

Open back of laptop, insert RAM into open slot, push down (it snaps right in), close laptop. Zero skill required.

Tons of youtube videos about it as well

 

Wow, awesome!!!
I thought 1333Mhz was the fastest.

Can you run WEI and tell us what it scores?

 

In terms of installing the ram sticks, it is fairly easy and cannot go wrong because it is designed to fit in only when you insert it correctly.

And you can't install wrong types of RAM as they designed the slots slightly differently.

However, there are two things you MUST be careful!!!!!!!(x1000)

You can go wrong if you:

1. Insert RAM sticks while power is ON
2. You have not released the static charges from yourself

#1 is obviously a common sense.
#2 is where some people go wrong and their system do not boot after installing the RAM because the chips were damaged by the static charges from you when you touched them.

You must release the static charges via:
1. Touching metal parts in the laptop that is connected to the *ground*.(not literally ground but if this term is new to you then best google to understand this. If you do not understand the *ground*, you must not perform this task, ask someone with experience to do it for you)
2. Using a special purpose anti-static glove.

Many people don't even go wrong even when they did not do this but there ARE people who do get into this problem and end up buying new RAM again.

But lucky if only the RAM is affected.

I am not trying to scare you but these are common knowledge that you must know before you insert ram sticks.

 

I bought corsair brand 1333Mhz 4GB and it works great.

 

Got 6 gb as not much price diff between this and 4gb.... extensive gaming

 

When using 1600 MHz and 1333 MHz together doesn't the higher frequency one tend to downgrade it self to the lower bus freq one?I might be wrong but isn't that the general scenario?

 

Not only:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-xps-studio-xps/566140-ddr3-12800-1600mhz-xps-15-17-a.html

 

Before, with the 4 + 2 GB of stock dell, my memory WEI was 7.5; once I installed the Kingston Hyper-X and the added in the stock Dell for a total of 14GB, it went up to 7.6. So really not much of a difference :-/

The CPU, IIRC, supports 1600MHz, but I read that Dell locked down the BIOS so that it downclocks; only some Alienware and Precision machines support 1600MHz

 

Then I would assume that the WEI increase of 0.1 was due to the ram size instead of the speed(which also ran at 1333mhz).

But mine is 7.3 with 16GB ram... (?!)

 

I am ready with my 16GB to be installed on the machine when it arrives on Monday. 7.3? Wow... I'm on 5.6 at this moment with 4GB installed.

 

Are you having 2 x 2GB(667mhz) = 1333mhz = WEI 5.6???

Or are you having 1 x 4GB(667) = 667mhz = WEI 5.6???

 

Thought I'd just install better RAM, rather than inreasing the size as I doubt I need more than 4GB.
Stock 4GB (2x2GB) scored 5.9, Kingston 1333 HyperX CL7 4GB (2x2GB) scored... 5.9.

Now, I know the WEI is nothing to go by, so I installed Passmark and ran the memory tests.
The HyperX actually scored a fraction LESS than the stock RAM in all but 1 of the tests.

 

Currently I am having a configuration of 2x2GB (667mhz)...