The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Question about installing memory...

    Discussion in 'Dell XPS and Studio XPS' started by FPetersonIII, Mar 25, 2011.

  1. FPetersonIII

    FPetersonIII Notebook Geek

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    86
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    This is kind of unrealated to my XPS but I figured you guys wouldn't mind helping. I am going to order a new 8gb kit of memory for my XPS and I wanted to take the 4g stick that is in my XPS now and put it in my girlfriend's MBP. It has two 1gb sticks in there now. My question is....is there any big performance difference in putting a single 4gb stick in her macbook or putting 2x2gb sticks in there? Will it be ok with just the one 4gb stick and the other slot empty??

    I was just looking up some stuff and I think I answered my own question. Since the laptop does support dual channel memory it will get better performance with matching pairs instead of just one stick. Correct?
     
    FPetersonIII, Mar 25, 2011
    #1
  2. kozzney

    kozzney Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    41
    Messages:
    565
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Yes it will get slightly better performance with a matched pair. Not enough that you would notice a difference though. Better you to save the money and just stick the 4gb stick in there instead of buying a new 2x2gb kit.
     
    kozzney, Mar 25, 2011
    #2
  3. FPetersonIII

    FPetersonIII Notebook Geek

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    86
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    Awesome. Thanks for the help. All she uses it for is surfing the internet so that should be fine.
     
    FPetersonIII, Mar 25, 2011
    #3
  4. Tsunade_Hime

    Tsunade_Hime such bacon. wow

    Reputations:
    5,413
    Messages:
    10,711
    Likes Received:
    1,204
    Trophy Points:
    581
    Any memory will work. If it POSTs then you are good.
     
    Tsunade_Hime, Mar 25, 2011
    #4
  5. seeker_moc

    seeker_moc Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    354
    Messages:
    2,141
    Likes Received:
    21
    Trophy Points:
    56
    It's more than just a slight difference. 1 stick will only run in single channel mode. It'd only be running at half speed (667 instead of 1333).

    Are you sure that the MBP is DDR3? How old is it? I don't know of many DDR3 laptops that only come with 1gb RAM sticks. It might only be DDR2, make sure you double check before you buy anything.
     
    seeker_moc, Mar 25, 2011
    #5