1 x 8GB vs 2 x 4GB RAM 1600 DDR3

I am wondering which one would be the best, considering both are basically the same price nowadays.

1 x 8gb:
Pros:
Less power consumption

Cons:
Not dual channel
Crapper timings

2 x 4gb:
Pros:
Dual channel
Low voltage versions available

Cons:
Higher power consumption

I am wondering how big of an impact the power usage will be, comparing a 2x4gb low voltage 1.35v to a 1x8gb 1.5v.

Also, I can get the 2x4gb in CAS9, while the 8gb one I don't know what the timings will be.

Thanks

 

On my W110ER, going from 1 stick to 2 sticks lowered my battery life by 30 minutes or more. Enough that I returned the 2-stick kit, bought a single 8gb stick, and kept it that way. Of course, this was with an older, much less power-optimized BIOS version.

 

Syberia, I would have returned the computer, not the RAM.

 

Why would you have done that? For someone who wants portability with the ability to play the occasional game, it's pretty much perfect.

 

I find it hard to believe that it was a memory stick that reduced your battery life by a half hour. Something doesn't quite sound right there.

To the OP, your performance difference will be negligible. Most of the times, your HDD is the bottleneck, not your RAM.

 

I have read about people going to the new low voltage RAM and getting about 30 min extra battery life. I don't know how genuine this is or if it is a mere placebo effect. However, I think there might be a lot of battery savings, since voltage has a big impact on watt usage.

So the performance increase with dual channel and better timings, will be negligible. Will this also be the case with a SSD.

 

Low voltage RAM won't equate to extra 30 minutes battery life. I have them and was using them since day 1 I got my W110ER, and know as a fact my battery life was on par or less than what others were reporting. Granted, I haven't tested it with definite results. Also, at idle I can't see 30 extra minutes of battery life. At idle or near idle your RAM is consuming less than 1W of power. Remove a stick of RAM and it won't even register a Watt difference on your "kill-a-watt".

On the other hand, if it really improves battery life, it won't affect gaming performance using the dedicated card, although your general Windows performance may seem noticeably less "snappy".

See here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/gam...amd-radeon-hd-6750m-benchmarking-results.html

Tested with various RAM configurations on my HP DV6z including 1x4GB but it has a huge impact if you use the integrated GPU (HD 4000).

 

Low voltage RAM does not give you a lot of battery savings. How low is low? a few hundred mV? Voltage has an impact on power delivered to the system, sure. However, how big an impact will be decided by how low you go on voltage. You'd need to decrease several hundred mV to have significant savings. Considering most ICs use a 2V or lower rail, you can't go too low. Current is a more significant factor in deciding how much power is required by the system. SB and IVB use similar voltages. Why do newer components have lower power consumption though? It is because the amount of current drawn is lower. As such, RAM is not where you should be looking if you want to improve battery life.

Get whichever 1600MHz RAM you want. It won't make a difference. A SSD will show you better performance but not because of RAM. Because you have a better storage device.