X220: max RAM is 8Gb or 16Gb???

Hi,

I've always seen that the max RAM possible on a X220 is 8Gb (2x4Gb). However I came across this post and the person confirmed he installed 16Gb RAM in a X220 tablet...but mentions 12 Gb are recognized in Windows.

Faint Ghosting on X220 IPS screen - Page 37 - Lenovo Community

What's up? Technical sheet of the X220 really mentions max 8Gb but it seems 16Gb are supported "unofficially". Why then would only 12Gb pop up in Windows?? Is this a BIOS limitation? Other sandybridge laptops support 16Gb too so it should work in the X220...
Any info about that? Thanks.

 

I'm also interested in this, because today I found my 8GB crippled by merely two virtual machines while I was also doing some data analysis in R.

 

Theoretically all Sandy Bridge laptops support 8 GB per DIMM. 8 GB modules are still crazy expensive. You need Windows 7 Professional or higher to utilize more than 16 GB RAM.

 

you can do 16. I have pulled a pair of 8 GB SODIMMS from my elitebook to try. now that they are less expensive I may do it permanantly.

8 GB dimms are now under 400 as where they were $1200 when I got mine a year ago.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-ELPIDA-...=170681085020&ps=63&clkid=2618931390061928659

 

Why then would Lenovo only claim 8Gb max in their tech sheets? And why only 12Gb would be recognized in Windows in the example above? Is this because it might be Windows 7 and not Pro?? weird

 

not sure, my i7 with 7 pro showed 16

 

Great! Thanks.

 

At the time the X220 started shipping 8GB SoDIMMS were $2000 each. Why bother.

They don't go back and re-certify after the fact and change docs. It's a point in time publication of specs.

 

The same held true for the T61 generation. They were only claimed to support up to 4 GB of RAM, although they can easily support 2x4=8 GB RAM, as can be confirmed not only by me. When the T61's were put on the market, no 4 GB sized RAM modules were available, so there was no point to claim a feature which could by no means be fulfilled back then.

 

Ok, apparently my last post was surgically removed. I was only expressing my surprise that it in fact does recognize 16GB RAM, which is a really cool thing IMHO. It helps to future proof your system, which is only a win-win for consumers I think.

 

I must have missed that post. I was rather suprised as well but since I already had spent a small fortune on the 4 sticks for the 8740W I figured I may as well try them in other units I have, most couldnt see them unfortunatly.

may be time to shell out the $800 for another pair

 

I have ordered a pair from Micron, and I'll see if it's compatible.

 

Ive found that a large bottleneck for VMs can be disk access even with ssd's - are you running them all from the same physical disk? You could try an expresscard ssd or maybe an msata drive...

 

The 12Gb in Windows is strange, since Windows should either recognize 8Gb as max (for Home basic) or 16Gb max (for Home Premium).

Windows 7 editions memory limits

On the hardware side, if you look at Intels specifications, they list 8Gb as a limit for most core i processors, the exception being the quad cores, where they list 16Gb as the limit.

For example:
Intel-Core-i7-2720QM-Processor-(6M-Cache-2_20-GHz) / Quad: 16Gb limit
Intel-Core-i7-2640M-Processor-(4M-Cache-2_80-GHz) / Dual: 8Gb limit

 

Are we placing bets?

 

the i7 Quad Core W520 can be optioned with the 4 x 8 gigs of ram, for a max of 32 gigs. You can buy it through Lenovo directly as a special CTO purchase.

 

What does Lenovo sell 32GB of RAM for? The going rate for the 8GB sticks is approaching $300.

 

not sure, but won't be cheap.

In the X1, Lenovo offers the 8 gigs at a discount for 180 dollars extra (when upgrading from 4 gigs) on EPP in Oz, and around 350 dollars when doing it on the normal site. I would imagine Lenovo would offer them at maybe 600 dollars each on the W520 (they are not available for order in Australia till end of October)? But i am guessing here.

 

I've found the bottleneck to be the disk performance years ago, ever since Vmware Workstation 5.5 or even older versions.

I always run VMs on SSDs and never had any disk performance problem - it's already drastically faster than running VMs on HDDs.

I used to run several VMs on the same X25-E 64G, on the same X25-M 160G G2, on the same Intel 320 Series 300G and on the same Crucial M4 512G. Never had any slowdown. On dual-core machines I can boot 2 VMs concurrently without getting anything slowed down.

 

Well, I'm sure it will be lower than the 15" Dell Precision M4600 configured with 32GB of RAM and the IPS screen. That baby rolls for $10,700 USD. Someone in Austin must be smoking weed

 

Well some organisations are willing to pay that amount if they feel that they can derive some benefits from it (but not many). Someone is Oz was interested in getting the machine from Lenovo ANZ, but this option wasn't available to the individual end customer they were only available to the corporate customer through special order. I would think the W520 when optioned with the 32 gigs would cost more than 5000 dollars in Oz, which is a lot of money.

 

I'm unsure the max ram limitation depends on the cpu. For example the hp8460p with i7 2620m (as x220) officially supports 16gb. It would be nice if the x220 really support 16gb as well, just for piece of mind

 

KCETech1 confirmed it in his own system in an earlier post: http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo-ibm/613094-x220-max-ram-8gb-16gb.html#post7936766

 

I can confirm that 16GB works perfectly on the following X220 setup:

i7 2620M
Windows 7 Ultimate x64



================================================================

Just tried to run 6 virtual machines concurrently, while running 4 x R sessions. Now 16GB is plenty! And I no longer need to worry about saving memory!



I'll run memtest86+ for some time and see if it's perfect.

 

Damn, I wish I had a real reason to put 16gb into this thing...

On a side note, have you noticed a reduction in battery life?

 

lol dang 13.1 GB used for your VM's.

Why would you have a reduction on battery? With that much RAM, you wouldn't be hitting page file as much, (had you had a mechanical HDD) you would be saving more battery than using more.

 

Sniper,

Where did you order the Micron SoDIMMs from and how much did they cost?

Thanks

 

Power is still required to keep ram powered up. Prob around 1.5-1.6 volts? I figure, since the density of the circuitry is greater on those 8gb sodimms, they might also require greater current flow.

People running with 1stick of ram already get better battery life than those two have 2... I was wondering of the added density of the ram added to the battery reduction.

 

I'm still running memtest86+ on it now so I'll see the wattage in Power Manager, and the voltage in sensor readings in AIDA64 later.

I ordered these from Crucial's website directly (Crucial is Micron's consumer brand). That's $740 USD on their website now.

http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs.aspx?IMODULE=CT2KIT102464BF1339

 

Thanks! I didn't realize they have 16GB kits siting up there already.

 

FYI:

Idle power consumption of the whole machine is 2W lower than 8GB (2 x 4GB)!

Load power consumption is the same: ~45W

So I expect no changes to the battery life.

I can't see any sensor readings of the voltage in Everest (AIDA64). The SPD info says 1.5V but that might be wrong.

 

Yeah don't get me wrong - im not trying to tell you how to suck eggs here

I've noticed though that if I run a couple of my VM's on the same spindle as my OS then my ssd can stutter sometimes - it's a vertex 2 for all that it matters....it's good that you don't see these issues I spose.

Glad for the visual confirmation of the 16Gb though - im tempted to try it in my t420

 

Well stuttering of SSD is a common problem, and usually can be fixed by firmware update if it's not a problem of the hardware design.

Intel SSD is very good at handling deep queue of 4k random. So is Micron M4 and C300. I don't have very good impression on other brands though.

 

I can verify that 16GBytes of memory does indeed work on a Thinkpad T420 with an I7 2640M CPU. Win7 home premium 64bit recognizes the full 16GBytes. Yay!

 

I was looking at NewEgg.ca and RAM prices for a 16GB kit is about $150 - $200ish. There is a 16GB kit from Crucial on NewEgg that is $780.00. Why is this so much more than the other kits with what seems like similar specs? Interestingly, the exact same kit is available directly from crucial.com for $250. What am I missing?

 

Found this deal for 16gb memory from dealnews. Will it work? $88

Deal Mac

 

I have KomputerBay 16GB 1600MHz. Right now max 1866MHz is 8GB. If anyone finds 16GB 1866MHz let me know.

 

When they stocked it, the price was 780. They haven't unloaded it all since the price drop and it may be a long time before they drop the price. My vendor Insight does the same thing as I'm sure many others do.

 

The Crucial kit on the USA site is at Newegg.com - Crucial 16GB (2 x 8G) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Laptop Memory Model CT2KIT102464BF1339 and goes for $185 USD.

The Canadian site needs to be fixed.

 

^^ Thanks for the link thors.hammer! I'm going to seriously consider that upgrade if it will be compatible with my ideapad.

 

I bought my Corsair 16GB kit for $107 a few weeks ago. Keep an eye out for a deal.

 

I plan on getting a couple of blu-ray burners for my notebooks first, then I'll consider the RAM upgrade. But wow, the prices have really come down on RAM since last I checked.

 

Out of curiosity, what are people running that requires 16GB of RAM? For me, Win 7 leaves a relatively small footprint (especially compared to OS X), and I have found 8GB more than sufficient all my needs. Admittedly, however, the most I have open at one time will be Paintshop Pro, Foobar, Office, Chrome (with maybe 5 tabs open).

 

I agree - 8GB is more than enough for almost anything, even 4GB. My desktop at work has 4GB and windows 7 and I regularly have MANY things open including statistical software, many PDFs, word, publisher docs open, chrome and firefox, GIMP, etc open and it's all good.

16GB would really only be fully utilized if you are running virtual machines. Also, if you have money to burn, you can get 16GB of RAM and shut off your page file to optimize performance - however, if you get an SSD, this barely makes any difference.

 

Mine has 4gb, and even with pagefile disabled I rarely use more 50% of that. Windows 7 is really good.

 

Virtualization and a bunch of server VMs.

 

.NET development with large xml feeds - the iis processes can take around 6-7gb on their own if you let them. visual studio takes half a gig - plus any other dev tools you might have running - surprising how quickly it gets chewed up

 

Exactly, throw in a couple custom cache-type services, and debugging two applications at the same time and I could easily see the need for 16gb, in fact i may spring for that when my t420 arrives.

 

Picked this up from Newegg last week and popped it into my X220 Win 7 Pro with no problems.

 

Wow, the price of the 16GB 204 pin DDR3 pairs (2x8) have really dropped this weekend at newegg.com. There are 8 different packages at $109. The PC3 12800 pairs have dropped, too.