m1330 ram questions

hi,

i purchased a m1330 laptop with 2gb of ram last week. i have a few questions a i am looking to upgrade the ram to 4gb

1) if i buy 2x2gb, then since only abou 3gb will be recognised, will the memory still be in dual channel mode?

2) how much benefit will i receive. I play some games, such as cod4, and this maxes out my current memory usage

3) what memory type do i need. pc5300 or 6400? i have attached a picture of my current ram, which has presented some confusion - it says 667mhz but also 6400?????

ww.freeimagehosting.net/image.php?1a95fd34a1.jpg

thank you everyone for your help

 

The memory will still run in dual channel mode even if only 3.x amount of memory will be recognized.
Upgrading from 2 Gb to say 3.5Gb will be a very nice upgrade. Vista will surely perform better since it will have more memory to play with.
If you have XP, than upgrading past 2Gb is pretty pointless.
Increasing memory will not increase gameplay much since the gameplay is pretty much directly based on the graphics card.
You may see a few fps increase like 2-4 but that may only be because of the higher amount of memory for paging/swaping.
The system chipset maxxes out at Pc5300 speeds, so buying Pc6400 is a waste of money. The Pc6400 will simply downclock to Pc5300 speeds.


Here is a link to his image:
http://www.freeimagehosting.net/image.php?1a95fd34a1.jpg

That memory is Pc6400. If you run CPU-Z you can verify this in the memory and SPD tabs.

Good luck with the upgrade

K-TRON

 

thanks so much for your quick reply! thats quite a surprise to learn that dell provides pc6400 ram even tho the website advertises it as 667mhz ram

i am running vista 32-bit, and so will definitely go ahead with the upgrade. anyone have any recommendations on where to get it from (i live in melb, australia)?

 

+1 with K-trons advice.

http://www.mwave.com.au/newAU/mwave...O43NBMDFWFNJVT9O5ZW5HR6X4KH13P37&sku=37020179

It will cost you about $83 express delivered which is quite cheap for Australian RAM prices.

 

if you don't have plans of using a 64-bit os in the future, may i suggest you just get a 1gb pc5300 stick instead to save more money. it might be pointless to have it in dual-channel mode if part of it is not recognized. might just lead to runtime errors. (emphasis on the word 'might')

 

JamalIS, Dual-channel functionality is entirely hardware based, the OS has no control over it. Going from dual- to single-channel mode would only result in a decrease in the laptops performance. I run 4 GB on XP MCE2005 with no problem, I am sure Vista 32-bit would be the same.

donny if your looking for a good high performance memory set, I'd suggest looking in to Kingston's HyperX - it's the best performing memory for laptops I have ever seen

(you can go to www (dot) kingston (dot) com to see if there are any retailers near you)

 

thanks for that info. i was under the impression that dual channel would be lost if the os will not recognize it. anyway, how much percentage is lost if you went single channel?

 

The performance difference between single and dual channel memory is not very much.
I would say that by going asymetric in the memory department will only result in like a 5% memory performance increase.
I wouldnt worry too much, because that performance dip will not be very noticeable unless you have an integrated graphics card like an intel integrated or geforce 6100. These cards are very dependent on the onboard memory, but since you have a 8400GS you will not have a huge performance decrease on the graphics end.

K-TRON

 

I have 3GB (1GB SO-DIMM + 2GB SO-DIMM), and it still runs in dual channel mode.

I didn't see the point going to 4GB since I wouldn't be able to use it fully under 32-bit Vista.

 

Memory will still function in Dual-Channel Mode (in the M1330), irrespective of the size, timings and frequency of the modules.

Only if you have a single module installed, the memory will function in Single Channel mode.

 

The m1330 supports 6gb+ of memory. Underneath your laptop there's a sticker with a Vista product key for use with 64-bit OS. All you need is the DVD. You can get it either from Dell or from somewhere else. If you're staying in 32-bit land, I still recommend 4gb RAM, as it will still boost Vista performance vis a vis 2gb RAM, even though only about 3,5 GB will be availible as RAM.

There's no need to buy memory that's faster than system specs, unless you're going to use the memory in a future system, though I doubt it, 'cause future systems will most likely be using DDR3 memory.

as long as you use two sticks of memory, the system will run in dual-channel mode.