Memory RAM upgrade NP780Z5E

I have the Samsung Series 7 Chronos NP780Z5E-S01UB (Best Buy model) purchased in March 2013. It has 8GB RAM onboard and it has a slot on the bottom to add more RAM. I would like to add more. I am a software developer and more RAM will be beneficial for the huge number of processes that are in use at the same time.

If I recall correctly, there is 4GB physically soldered to the motherboard and inaccessible. The other 4GB is installed in the user-accessible memory slot on the bottom of the laptop. There is only one expansion slot, so the current 4GB would have to be removed to add a different stick. Therefore, if I buy a new 8GB stick then the system total will be (8GB stick + 4GB onboard)=12GB. And I would have no use for the existing 4GB stick that I would remove.

So, three questions:

1. Are there sticks available in more than 8GB capacity that would work in this laptop? I am not up to speed on what is available these days.
   
2. When I am shopping, what "form factor" and speed of memory stick am I looking for?
3. I remember long ago on PCs that you had to install memory sticks in matching pairs. Am I going to have problems adding a new 8GB (or more) stick in conjunction with the soldered 4GB onboard?

Thanks for the help!

 

1.) no there are no other than 8GB sticks known that will work.
2.) Get the program CPU-z. In this was you can match the DDR-3 SODIMM to your current speed and timing.
3.) mostly no, but there are the occasional issues but it is very rare today.
4.) so you know right now you are in synchronous dual channel memory but with the new stick it will be asynchronous mode. Performance difference is minimal.

 

Thanks, TANWare. That's exactly what I needed to know.

 

NP, while the actual memory performance is minimal the fact of going to 12GB from 8GB can be huge. Even if you presently are only pushing the memory size Windows still needs to do other chores such as cache files. This is all done in the background but when you over extend the memory there can be issues.

This for the fact windows has to decide what to toss and what to keep in cache, run memory garbage collection more often and vigorously, load-rearrange and resize the page file. Just a lot in the background using up resources.