Over Juicing the RAM of my laptop - is it the right thing to do?

Hello Guys

I am using a Professional Video Editing Software called Sony Vegas Pro 12 on my Dell Vostro 3450 (second generation i5 + 6GB RAM + Two basic level Graphic Cards, one from Intel and second is AMD Radeon HD 6630M) for the HD Video Rendering though the computer becomes very very slow and sluggish during the process, cant upgrade now so seriously thinking about the RAM upgrade.

Dell website says the max amount of RAM for this laptop is 8GB and I stumble upon one web link from DELL Online Community Forum in which one guy said that INTEL website says Dell 3450 can take 16 GB MAX (no web link was given) and then later in same blog one more guy said that he is using 16GB with his Dell Vostro 3450, its working for him.

It sounds tempting and yes I would really like to upgrade the RAM to 16GB so I can do some HD Video Rendering smoothly for another year or so though really want your advice and opinion on this upgrade - is it safe to over juice the machine? any technical issues or conflicts that can occur?

I know that most of the times companies want to hide the max limit of their products from their customers to protect their future sales/profits though if I can upgrade to 16GB with intel 2nd Gen i5 then I think I am good for another 3 or 4 years BUT really want the advice forum's members.

Please guide me. Thanks.

 

If other people have had it work for them then I don't see why it wont for you. Just make sure that this guy who said it worked for him had the same CPU as you It will greatly improve rendering times and there are no issues I can foresee

 

Seeing as how these days the memory controller is integrated into the Intel CPU's, it's all up to whatever chip you're using. Yes, it should work.

 

If it works - it won't hurt the system.

If it doesn't - just return the SoDIMM's.

Only way to know for your specific system is to try it yourself.

Oh, and it is not a conspiracy of companies to 'hide' the max that their products will handle - it's just that at the time of release that was all that was probably available (or tested by them to be compatible) and a few years later they have no compelling reason to upgrade all the literature to include newfound capabilities with newly available parts.


You may want to see this link to see that getting 'better' quality RAM (higher MHz's and lower latencies) does make a difference even in systems that can't use the available RAM fully (or, according to the spec's, at all).

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...m-full-speed-help-screenshots-appreciate.html


Note that overall performance doesn't increase (well, at least not too much - maybe 2-5%) - but the 'responsiveness' of the system is enhanced greatly (and very important to me and it seems, to you too).

Hope this helps.

Good luck.

 

There is no reason why 16GB RAM wouldn't work with a sandy bridge i5.
The only way you can know for sure is to basically get the RAM and put it in to see if it works.
If it doesn't, worst case scenario is you will simply pop in your old ram back, or just use 8GB RAM - there is no danger in a sense you will short out the hardware.

But if you will get 16GB RAM, make sure to get low latency and high quality RAM such as 12500. I think the overall OS responsiveness could be improved, if not certain cpu heavy tasks as well (especially the IGP - if that's what you use).

 

Really thanks for the replies, I honestly appreciate it though I got two questions.

1 - What is LOW LATENCY? I really dont know what it means when it comes on selecting/getting a RAM module
2 - Can you guys please suggest a few RAM modules (make and model both) that will work smoothly with my notebook?

Thanks.

 

it means.... how fast it can send the electrical signal or rather the info/data to the chip.... (i think) and fast it is, is how fast the ram can process than information. Obviously if it's fast enough it can over come higher latency or delay from the time it gets info/data to process and the time it sends it back to the motherboard/cpu. Maybe you have seen a drag race where one car gets head start while the other one has to wait because one car is faster than the other car.

 

If by "overjuicing" your machine you just mean 16GB RAM then go for it. Lots of times when specs are published they only test to a certain amount of RAM on that specific laptop so only publish that. There are restrictions on how much RAM the controller can manage but 16GB for Sandy Bridge isn't unheard of. I'm sure more RAM would help immensely in your case.

 

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lateny = less is better
Mhz = more is better
storage = more is better

i am not sure whats the quickest ram your laptop supports, but if price difference isn't big better get the quicker one, unless you plan to keep the laptop for a good 2+ years, otherwise DDR3 should still be around, and you can just move it to the new laptop likely making use of quicker clock speeds.

also for it to take 16gb ram you might need to update bios, which was the issue with my desktop years back, then again could have been due to new CPUs coming out thus needing a bios update for it to support the ram, which probably won't be the case for a laptop, never know then.

putting 16gb in the laptop wont hurt it in any way either, even if it supports 8gb ram, and i5 should surely support the 16gb ram. Neither will putting in RAM with higher clock speeds than laptop supports as it will just make ram run at lower clock speeds, which will bring latency down (less latency isn't better than bumping clock speeds up by a step just to make it clear, wont increase responsiveness either, more of a peace of mind thing, No use, just nice to know)

 

Everybody told everything about RAM already.
But I want to add that processor upgrade to I7 may and will give more for video editing than more RAM. Nowadays ist cost is low enough. Just clean your laptop and measure how high temperature may rise while stresstesting I5.
Perhaps you will need to buy notebook cooler for better results.
And of course it may void your warranty.