QUESTION: 32GB RAM UPGRADE??

So I have —

HP Pavilion Notebook 15-ec1001na
RYZEN 5 4600H
16GB RAM
GTX 1650
256GB SSD


Now I plan to upgrade the SSD to a Crucial P5 plus M.2 1TB — as having to Constantly juggle my games, deleting reinstalling, it’s annoying.

But in terms of performance, have I reached a glass ceiling?

My little budget gaming laptop has impressed me to be honest, I’ve been able to run most of the games that I wanted pretty well.

I play mostly RTS games, total War etc.

But I was wondering whether an upgrade to 32 GB of RAM would give me any performance boost when gaming? Or not?

As if upgrading to 32 GB of RAM will only net me minimal performance boosts, I likely won’t bother..


I would appreciate any feedback on this?

 

Upgrading the hdd to a ssd will for sure improve gaming overall and ram, of course you will see lower hickups in games since it can cache more stuff and load it faster
If you play with wifi make sure you upgrade to a Intel ax200 which should boost download and upload speeds and reduce latency. A good upgrade is of course a ax norm router too for that matter

 

I don’t play online. My download speed is decent.

and I already have an SSD, it’s just a small one only


But is the upgrade from 16 to 32GB RAM worth it?

Will I see any performance boost in games?

 

If you’re not sure that you need 32 GB of RAM, you don’t need 32 GB of RAM.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Based on my experience: nope

Adding a SSD will vastly reduce load times, but going beyond 16GB of Ram is not helping any games right now.
There are some games that are able to use the additional Ram for caching, which means yet faster load times - but you will not get more FPS or less drops, if that is what you are after.

As AMD Ryzen CPUs are easily limited by slow Ram, you might be wondering whether to upgrade to faster 16GB Ram.
However, I would like to discourage that idea as well.
Your device is a bit dated by now and you are unlikely to squeeze more than 20% of additional performance out of better Ram (which is a figure I have in mind based on the tests done on AMD Vantage laptops by LinusTechTips) - if the device is even exposing the BIOS settings to force higher frequencies and tighter timings (which it likely does not).

Any money you are willing to put into better Ram is going to provide more FPS per buck, when you save it and put it towards your next machine.

 

Okay – thanks guys, you’ve helped me come to a conclusion. I’m not gonna bother upgrading beyond 16 GB of RAM. It doesn’t sound like it will make much difference performance wise in games.

as I said already have an SSD, but it’s just small I’m gonna upgrade to 1TB.

 

Thanks guys for the feedback….


I won’t bother then…


I will upgrade my SSD 256GB to 1TB.


Anyone have any recommendations ?

I’m looking at the Crucial P5 Plus for my upgrade.

https://www.mrmemory.co.uk/ssd-upgr...5-ec1001na#!crucial-p5-plus-m.2-nvme-pcie-ssd

 

You could buy a 2.5 SATA SSD instead and use it as a data drive to store your games because your Pavilion has a empty SATA drive

 

Oh I forgot about that…. So could I add the 1TB SSD on top of the base 256GB SSD??

and sorry - what do you mean by 2.5 sata?

 

You've done your part. If you're gaming you most likely won't exhaust your 16GB RAM. As for SSD the improvement will be marginal. You can maybe work on improving the thermals but still it won't make too big a difference.

 

I think the first thing you should do is to check your memory usage to see if you are actually running out of RAM. 16GB is almost always enough, but I will say that I come close to running out of ram while playing New World, I frequently hit 15GB of ram usage while playing that game, most other games I play rarely break 10GB. So I have considered bumping up to 32GB. Bottom line is you need to monitor your ram usage and see if it is something you should consider.

 

@HWI





I used to think 16GB was enough for keeping things running smoothly as well. There's been updates to programs "Chrome" that bloat severely when running multiple tabs. The OS itself has a higher and higher baseline as well ~6-8GB just booting to the desktop w/o opening anything. I went to 32GB not so long ago due to these trends and getting sick of closing things to make room for other things being opened or having things crash due to lack of resources.

Windows is a HOG when it comes to RAM. My server running Linux though typically sits at 2GB in use and I went with 16GB on that box to leave room for programs that run occasionally and need the extra boost. I disabled the "swap" on it a long time ago since RAM is more efficient vs disk wear.

If I kill Chrome and run a couple of commands to clear DWM
taskkill /F /IM dwm.exe
taskkill /F /IM conhost.exe

I can clear out those caches I can knock off a good chunk of use.

 

If you want storage merely for gaming, then adding the 2.5" SATA III SSD is the way to go. The m.2 PCIe x4 SSD will enhance everything you do with your computer (yeah, ideally, you'd want both).

As for the RAM, 32GB has been the minimum (for me) for over half a decade. You're setting up the computer for 2022 and beyond. Stop believing the RAM 'articles' from a decade ago.

And no, Windows isn't a RAM hog; it is a true multi-tasking OS. That magic doesn't happen with wishes and unicorns, it takes hardware resources to get there.

Get the 2.5" SSD for your games, or the m.2 PCIe x4 SSD if you use the computer for more than just gaming.

But getting your platform to 32GB+ RAM or not isn't an option in late 2021. This should have been the first thing you upgraded when you originally bought the computer.

Together with the bigger, faster, and more reliable SSD(s), plural, your system will be ready to tackle what you throw at it in real-time. All while causing a marked decrease in nand wear, and allowing you to use the computer as it was designed (i.e. as Intel stated over a decade ago - processors need SSD's to offer top performance).

As for the pagefile, do not set it to none. While you may never run out of RAM with 32GB+ or more, the platform is still more responsive with at least a 1GB pagefile.

As for the hibernation file, if you don't use that feature, disable it. That won't help or hinder with nand wear, but it will save you many GB's of used capacity.

Buy the highest quality RAM, regardless of what the specs say for your machine. Buy the biggest capacity SSDs to get closer to the stated performance claims from their manufacturers. OP the SSD's (I recommend 33% or more) to reduce the wear to a minimum and to also provide the highest sustained performance they allow.

All the above is ideally done on a new platform (to get the maximum performance for the longest time). Doing so less than 6 to 18 months before it will be replaced doesn't make too much sense unless you'll be able to re-use the upgraded components in a new system (and in an expected timeframe of much less than a year).

 

2.5" SATA SSD drive



and yes, you can use it as a data drive while your current m.2 NVMe SSD will be used for windows and your apps. In total you'll have 1.2GB of space.

 

Well, I just recompiled my server w/ 8700K / W10 and the baseline boot to desktop RAM usage is 4GB.

25% of the total available 16GB.

Yes sacking SSD / NVME is a good idea for fast(er) storage. It gets less economical though when you exceed 1TB. Going with a repository setup 8-10TB spinner makes more sense for stuff not actively used. Reason for 8TB is that's where you can be assured you're not running into slower SMR issues that cropped up recently.

I run dual NVME 1TB drives on my laptop & server for redundancy / fast storage and then have a Raid 10 setup on the server for storage using WD Red 8TB drives. I can clock 400MB/s across the network w/ a 5gbps usb-c adapter and over wifi I recently pulled 1.5gbps.

Ultimately it depends on how you're planning on using all of the storage and whether it's local / network based.

 

Desktop RAM usage isn't a gauge of anything except how lean an install may be.

The amount of RAM Windows uses depends on the RAM installed. So, checking what is in use with 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB+ isn't comparable.

RAM is a cheap resource. Even in COVID days. If you're using a computer for more than one thing at a time, for more than a few times a week, just buy as much as you can afford. And note that having 30 tabs open in your favorite browser counts as multitasking.

32GB of RAM or more has many benefits to the OS, the user experience, your SSD's and also how long you'll be able to make your computer usable to you. All for a low, one-time cost.

 

We know better than to count that as a one timer. Most people end up upgrading a couple of times before venturing to a new system properly spec'd.
Since I tend to buy low spec machines and then gut them of their consumables and add my own I tend to hit the spec I want. I tend to over provision things a bit as in tech you want to hit about 50% or less utilization for best performance. The notion that a system only needs X means it should be Y. As for the baseline RAM vs Windows it does seem to like 25% of whatever is installed for a base on boot to desktop. I think my laptop clocks in @ 6GB though booting to desktop w/ 32GB available. The notion we should be using this much RAM comes from the crappy coding int he OS / Apps that needs to be cleaned up to make them run better w/o increasing HW resources.

If Linux can boot to desktop and only need 2GB of RAM there's no reason Windows / MacOS shouldn't be able to do the same. Running 32GB though makes a smoother experience running several apps and not having the system close them down if it needs more resources to run the active app. Prices have come down though which is a nice opportunity to go for more. I picked up this laptop and added 16GB to it from what it shipped with for ~$135 and a year or so later bumped to 32GB for $90. It just made sense for $90 and sold the old stuff off to make the upgrade even cheaper. Similarly I upgrade my thermostat for 5ghz wifi for $75 and sold the prior for about the same making it a net zero upgrade.

Baseline configuration though should be 16GB / if you're power using 32GB is better / if you never want to think about it then go 64GB. In the extreme go 128GB if you're running dual CPU's and multiple VM's .

 

It's a one-time cost if you max it out when you purchase the system (or, as early as possible, after purchase).

Linux isn't an option, nor is MacOS for many/most programs and workflows for people needing to be productive and collaborative. Many Windows notebooks now boot up faster than any phone/handheld device can. Waking from sleep isn't booting up...

Doing multiple upgrades is hard on the wallet. Pay it once and early. Enjoy till you sell/donate it away. The benefits over the lifecycle of the device will far outweigh any slight premium at that early stage.

128GB doesn't need dual CPU's or VM's (let alone multiples). Editing 4K+ video greater than a few minutes' worth daily, is all that is needed to 'require' it.

Prices have come down because they are worth, less. There is no free lunch. The new platforms coming out in a few weeks will make the prices drop even faster.

 

I assume you're talking about some new release of AMD or possibly M1 chips?

I'm already running ADL on my server rebuild and it's content with 16GB Laptops with ADL-P coming the near future should also be a mix of DDR4 / DDR5 options as DDR5 is non-existent right now. When debating DDR4 vs DDR5 5 looked like a possibility @ $135 for 16GB but the MOBO was $100 more on top of the RAM for the same experience with initial clocking release @ 4800 vs DDR4 3600 ($60).

It's always going to be a debate based on perspective / use. As well dumping $ into older systems sometimes doesn't make as much sense if it can't be ported to a new system down the road.

 

No, not AMD. They've never even caught up to Intel, let alone surpass them, especially on the notebook front. And it's not that they haven't had 5+ long years trying.

 

I don't use Chrome anymore, went back to Firefox, due to memory management. Honestly, these days I would use Edge over Chrome.

 

@HWI

Yeah, I'm kind of in the googleverse at this point and it's easier to manage everything across devices for me. I usually only use Edge to download Chrome on new installs if I don't have the app to download available already. Firefox just doesn't do it for me though it was a nice option before Chrome came along as I despise MSFT in general. If I could get the same features across platforms with a different option I would consider it but, syncing my phone / computers with a single browser makes life easier.

 

I understand that completely, hell I use a Pixel phone. I'm also all about syncing my browser data across all of my devices, Firefox and Edge can both do this and I believe Opera as well (though I haven't used that browser in years).

 

Yup, using an OP 8 Pro and syncing is valuable when switching between phone / laptop.

 

Wow… thanks guys. Great advice.

I’m just reminding folks I have an HP Pavillion LAPTOP.

RYZEN 5 4600
GTX 1650
16GB RAM Crucial - 8GB DDR4 PC4-25600 3200MHz 260-pin SODIMM

so I have another slot — so should I get another SSD that goes inside my laptop or is it better to get an external SSD?

 

If you want grab / go then go internal

If you carry a bag w/ the external in it then that's an option as well

The biggest difference will be speeds over USB / TB depending on the external enclosure / PC port speed.

 

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/question-32gb-ram-upgrade.837230/page-2#post-11130866

What are you using your computer for? Ideally, you want to upgrade and max out both slots for the fastest experience possible.

 

So you would recommend upgrading my RAM?? Really? For the lil budget laptop I have?

 

No such thing as a budget laptop if you can max out the components on it.

I'll ask one last time. What are you using the computer for (besides gaming)? How long do you intend to keep it? Will you gut the insides when you're done or will you sell/donate it, as-is? The more the platform is maxed out, the longer it will be useful to someone in the future.

 

For your case internal is best. Before buying the Internal SSD open up your laptop to see its components so you'll know what to do when you decide to do the upgrade. Your Pavilion should already have the caddy and the SATA cable to install a 2.5" drive in it.

I think his max is 64GB of RAM because Ryzen 4000 and Intel 10th Gen CPUs allows up to 64GB of RAM but his Pavilion's Max RAM is most likely 32GB of RAM. Unless he doing content creation and doing heavy multitasking 16GB of RAM is more than enough but its up to him. a 32GB kit will cost $100-$200

 

Guys I’m gonna upgrade my SSD


Which do you think would be best.

I have HP Pavillion - 15-ec1001na


I’m looking at either,

Crucial P5 plus OR Samsung 980 PRO M.2

im assuming those would be my best picks, but am pretty clueless about SSD's


Im looking here..

HP Pavilion Notebook 15-ec1001na SSD / Hard Drive Upgrades - FREE Delivery | Mr Memory®

 

Looking at the specs gen 3 is what you're aiming for. No need to pay for gen 4 premium.

With that said it's going to depend on what size you're looking for as to what price you're going to pay. The link yuu posted shows UK so assuming that's where you are changes options as well for import or VAT.

I went with a CS3030 1TB for $90 on Amazon. Works great and costs at least $50 less than Gen 4.

When moving files in real world use it gets up to 1.5GB/s between 2 M2 drives. Speed is only necessary / maxed when moving files or launching a program / boot. Otherwise these drives are mostly idle.

 

Yeah I’m wanting to go 1TB…


So Crucial OR the Samsung?

 

If it were me I would go Crucial as it's cheaper. I have a bit of disdain for Samsung over charging for the same physical components. I bought into the hype long ago and never again since.

I'm still trying to figure out why you want a gen 4 drive if your laptop can't go at max speed with it. Sure the drive comes with a 5 year warranty but, are you planning on upgrading the whole machine any time soon to take advantage of the speeds?

 

Oh only because I have no clue what I’m doing.
I didn’t know there was a difference? Gen 3 or 4? Didn’t see that on the spec.

I just want a SSD as fast as the one I have now (Samsung SSD 256Gb) that came with (inside) the laptop when I bought it.


I’ve been very pleased with my budget gaming laptop. But likely in the next couple of years I probably will get an upgrade.

 

Well, the difference is price / speed between gen 3 & 4.



So, NVME drives are typically x4 slot speed. This table shows ypu that a 3 x4 could be ~4GB/s and 4 x4 goes up to ~8GB/s.

I rebuilt my server using 4 x4 and the write speeds hit about 5GB/s which is where the SN850's are rated that I put into it.

My laptop uses 3 x4 as do most others unless you're running a 11th gen Intel or some AMD chips as well.

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/compare/rwcRsY,DDWBD3,7nXJ7P/



Comparing drives though can be a bit time consuming. If it's your primary drive though you will see higher speeds vs my copying from drive to drive test. Either way though a quality drive will out perform during copies / boot of the system than it's capable of at max speeds. Though another test I did is Windows install from a USB drive rated for 400+ MB/s and the copy process took mere seconds before rebooting to finish the install.

If you want some other options

# Name Max. sequential read/write (MB/s) 4K random read/write performance (IOPS) Endurance rating (terabytes written) Check Price
1 Samsung 970 PRO (1TB) 3500/2700 500K/500K 1200 TBW Amazon
Newegg
Amazon UK
2 Samsung 970 EVO PLUS (1TB) 3500/3300 600K/550K 600 TBW Amazon
Newegg
Amazon UK
3 Adata XPG SX8200 Pro (1TB) 3500/3000 390K/380K 640 TBW Amazon
Newegg
Amazon UK
4 PNY XLR8 CS3030 (1TB) 3500/3000 N/A 360 TBW Amazon
Newegg
Amazon UK
6 Corsair Force MP510 (960 GB) 3480/3000 280K/700K 720 TBW Amazon
Newegg
Amazon UK
7 WD Black SN750 (1TB) 3430/3000 515K/560K 600 TBW Amazon
Newegg
Amazon UK

 

Thanks very much for your reply Tech Junky, thanks for taking the time.

I’m a noob though. Not sure which figures to look at here.

also this guy suggests the installation of the NVMe SSD is more complicated you have to clone the original NVMe drive ? Forget that! I mean I had no idea any of that was required. I assumed the laptop just had two of these NVMe SSD slots. I didn’t realise!
And I assume my 256GB SSD is the NVMe. So I want to keep that.

I’m now thinking upgrading the SATA SSD is click, screw and go. So will upgrade that.

So which one is fast? I’m willing to pay extra to get a decent one……

 

i mean this guy…

 

As noted, your laptop supports PCIe Gen 3, not Gen 4, and though you could use a Gen 4 drive, it will only operate at Gen 3 speeds - so, not worth the premium.

Most SSDs are going to "feel" the same for general use. I would stick to one from a familiar brand with a good warranty. Crucial P5, Samsung SSD 980, Western Digital SN750, Intel 670p, sk Hynix Gold P31 are solid options.

Charles

 

Adding a 2.5-inch drive is the most set it and forget it option. The serial ATA bus tops out at around 500-600 MB/s, which basically any drive will hit and is more than fast enough for game loading and data transfer. Stick to name brands like the WD Blue, Crucial MX500, SanDisk SSD Plus, SKHynix Gold S31, or Samsung 860 Evo - whatever is cheapest in your region.

 

Ok — thanks!

so is a SATA SSD as fast as the NMVe SSD?

I’m clueless…

As I said I assumed my laptop had two NMVe SSD slots. I had no idea it clear has a SATA slot….

also, how can I tell if the SSD is Gen 3 or 4 ?

 

No, the SATA drives cap out at 600MB/s and NVME Gen 3 somewhere around 3500MB/s.

Cloning a drive is relatively simple with an enclosure ~$15 and free software to do it.

 

Will it be noticeably slower than my base 256GB SSD NMVe already installed. ..? For loading games?

Also — is it worth then upgrading my NMVe instead? Forget the SATA….

obviously I’m trying to optimise my budget laptop as far as I can.

 

For the sake of speed the NVME is 5 times faster. For the speed of loading things it depends on more than drive speed.

RAM + Drive speed = smoother operation

If your 256GB drive is already mostly full then expanding to 1TB should yield more performance from it until it starts getting full as well. The most intensive drive use is usually during your boot to desktop. The games loading should improve a bit. Most of the time though your drives are idle under 5%.

It all depends on a variety of factors as to what kind of results you get.

For RAM it will be effective in keeping multiple apps open and not crashing due to lack of resources.
NVME drive will allow for faster access to files and/or moving files to/from the drive.

I'm running dual 1TB drives on a i7-9750H / 32GB RAM and can move data between the drives @ 1.5GB/s vs the synthetic benchmarks showing considerably higher speeds. Synthetic benchmarks are just hype vs actual use because no two systems are 100% identical to reproduce the speed tests you see posted everywhere. For a large footprint game it takes a min or two to load but, it's hitting ~650MB/s sporadically while loading / mostly though sitting idle. RAM though is bumping 2-4GB while activating the game.

Depending on your baseline RAM / Drive stats increasing one over the other might make a difference more so than the other. If you game w/ everything closed and only the game running then RAM won't be much of an issue and 16GB is fine. When I boot into W11 and don't open anything I'm sitting at ~6GB of RAM in use. Open Chrome w/ several tabs and easily double that. If I don't reboot for 2 weeks things bloat over time and get closer to 20GB of RAM in use.

Systems tend to keep bloating if they see available RAM to be consumed.

 

Ok… thanks, useful information.


I think I’m gonna hit the button on this then…

Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2 TB PCIe NVMe M.2 (2280) Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (MZ-V7S2T0)

What enclosure do I get?

And when you say reboot — do you mean defrag your system?

 

Reboot / restart - turn off / on the laptop -- the loading of Windows

For the enclosure you can get the job done with a cheap enclosure...
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MNFH1PX/ - $19

or if you want to use the 256GB as a portable drive with better heat dissipation
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07N48N5GR/ -- $39

I tested a few of these and the Pluggable is the one I ultimately went with for long term use due to more consistent speeds and lower heat build up with extended use.

 

I went with -


UGREEN M.2 NVMe Enclosure, USB C External PCIe Caddy with 10Gbps, 2TB, 3.1 Gen2, UASP, Thunderbolt 3, Aluminum Case for M-Key/M+B Key NVME SSD in 2230/2242/2260/2280, Compatible with Crucial, WD, EVO

 

OK, tested that one as well. It will work.

 

^
Like i said before since you have an empty SATA drive you can use it as a data drive to store your games and stuff. Its best to have at least 2 storage drives on a PC so you dont have to reinstall/redownload everything when you want to reinstall windows and when something happens with the windows drive.

Since you're set on upgrading your current NVMe SSD you can still do it in the future. Personally i would forgo cloning your current drive because its only a 250GB drive and most likely you dont have much stuff on it and you're spending more money than you need to in order to clone it, The positives about cloning is that you dont have to reinstall windows and all of your data will be carried over to the new drive.

 

I do multiple partitions to guard against rogue windows corruptions. I have dual drives for more storage at a cheaper price than a 2TB single drive.

With Windows though I start with a blank drive and give it 100GB to use for its install (4 partitions) and then use the rest for storage. 100GB is enough for Windows / updates / apps and it's more secure than allowing Windows to consume space beyond that and create shadow copies of itself. There are some other security issues with using beyond 100GB that come up in some instances as well.

At this point with these speeds it only takes a couple of minutes to reinstall Windows and add programs back to the mix. Even faster if you make an image of a clean install w/ all apps installed to another external drive and then just restore from the image as needed. ((256GB / enclosure)) Or if you have a NAS make an image and send it there for safe keeping. USB drives like the SanDisk Pro run @ 400MB/s+ and act like an SSD make quick work of imaging as well. They can also be use as W on the Go running Windows on the USB.

If I had a laptop with a single SATA / NVME port each then I would probably use both as noted for Main / Storage as well. The NAS idea mitigates some of the need to load up the chassis with drives though unless you want a copy with you on the go. I tend not to store much locally anymore and have targets set to my server running Raid 10 with 4 x 8TB WD Red's with throughput of ~400MB/s across the network.

There are a ton of different ways for keeping / hoarding data it all depends on what you have or want to do to keep it simple.