RAM Upgrade - Mix & Match?

I have been searching here, on google, and I just can't seem to find the information I'm looking for.

I purchased a T430s. It came with 4gb ram. I want to upgrade to at least 8GB. (the laptop should arrive any day now)

Where I'm having difficulty is in determining if I must buy a 4GB x 2 kit, or will I be ok simply buying 1 dimm of 4GB and popping it in the laptop with the 4GB it comes with from the factory? Do both dimms have to match?

Related, is it generally possible to purchase the exact same memory that is in the laptop from the factory? i could then purchase the same 4GB dimm already in from the factory and upgrade cheaply to 8GB.

Or lastly, what about buying a 8GB dimm and putting it together with the 4GB from the factory?

Bottom line I suppose is whether I can mix-and-match RAM brands and sizes or if I am best served getting either a 4GB x 2 kit or a single 8GB dimm from a 3rd party company and completely removing the factory RAM from the system.

Finally, if I must buy completely new ram, 4GB x 2 has higher performance than a single 8GB correct?

 

You'll be fine with just buying an extra DIMM and popping it in with your factory DIMM; just make sure that they are both the same DIMM type and speed (something like 204-pin and DDR3-1600). You can buy any capacity DIMM you like (so you could have 4 + 8 = 12GB, but most people can't even approach 8GB in usage anyway).

I have a 4GB Samsung 1333MHz DIMM in my W520 and added two 4GB Mushkin 1333MHz DIMMs and have absolutely no issues whatsoever. However, if you have 1600MHz RAM and you buy 1333MHz RAM, both sticks will operate at 1333MHz. So just make sure they're the same speed and anything else after that is a moot point. I'd just buy whatever's on sale at Newegg, Amazon, or wherever you shop at.

 

Thank you for the quick response.

Do I have to ensure same voltages (1.5V or 1.35V)?

Must the timing be identical?

 

Same voltages do not matter, though 1.35V will save some battery life. No timing does not have to match, it will downclock to the slowest stick.

 

While all the information presented above is accurate, per se - that doesn't mean it is the 'best' advice either.

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...bell-easynote-tv-ram-upgrade.html#post8991676


To address some points on this thread directly:

Keep in mind that a low voltage SoDIMM will only be beneficial in a platform (with appropriate BIOS support) that can make use of the low voltage aspect.

Also, while a moderate user may not use 8GB+ RAM directly; doesn't mean Win7 or Win8 (x64) won't. Both those O/S's will make use of all the RAM available and make for a noticeably snappier and more responsive system.

A client (last week) was considering buying a new notebook because the almost 3 year old platform was slowing them down (this is doing office work/accounting tasks; yeah - 'mainstream' usage pattern). Instead; I offered to give them the RAM I had in my comparable (platform-wise) notebook (a U30Jc) and an hour of optimizing their Win7x64 setup (short stroked the HDD to ~60GB, created a DATA partition with the remaining capacity and downloaded a trial of PD12.5 and did a thorough online and offline defrag run for them).

With those few 'optimizations' - the computer is just as fast in their work loads as my U30Jc is with an SSD. - They'll be keeping the system for another few years...


The CPU+RAM combo is not to be overlooked - and as the link to the other thread shows - the 'minimum' specs for anything are not the best idea either.

At least, not if you want the most balanced and responsive system over the full length of ownership.

Hope this helps.

Good luck.