Simple question about G55 memory upgrade...

[UnAimed]

www.newegg.com

Flat out timings dont mean crap. the most important spec is voltage. If you get some high voltage ram chances are it wont run stable at the stock voltage and there is no way to fix this on the G55 since it has not control for that.

Now you dont need to buy a dual channel kit. Hell you dont even need the same brand or speed or ram sticks. I shown that not only can you mix ram speeds and brands it also will run in dual channel. Example i ran 16 gigs of ram 8 of it was stock hynx one stick was a samsung ddr3 1600 and the other was a pny DDR3 1333 and useing intel XTU i was able to run the 1333 at 1600 and it all ran in dual channel. I did a big post on this put up screen shots and benchmarks.

Now your ram will always default to the slowest stick installed. You can get it to full speed with the intel XTU but you can mix the timing and its fine. Heck you can even run dual channel using a 2gig and a 4 gig stick. This has been around for years with intel.


Dont overthink it. People on here put more thought into that then they do about anything else here. And you dont need to just keep in mind this.

You wont get any gaming preformacne gain over DDR1333 vs DDR3 1600. Just how it is. Wont speed up your system nothing just make your benchmarks pretty. Anyone who tells you they got a 5fps gain from it is a liar and don't know how to benchmark You only gain preformance in games when using a igp that uses the system ram. Improve overall system preformance you will want sticks with lower timings and you wont be able to tell the diff. outside of a synthetic benchmark.

Going form 8-16gigs of memory will have no impact on your games what so ever. Most games wont even use more then 2-3 gigs of ram. However if you do 3D work with stuff like Mya or Cad or even heavy photoshop work 16gigs should be your min as those programs can eat up way more then 8gigs. I built a system for a guy who does cad and we went with a sandy bridge e for the 64gigs of ram because the work he did was using more then 32gig's but he was doing very heavy CAD for the auto industry and needed a pc at home that he could work on.

As you mentioned you can mix and match ram but it does not benefit with performance. Since he is not going to replace all four modules the ram will indeed be limited to the least performing module so what would be the point of doing that when you can get much better performance by making sure they are of the same spec. I would have made this clear in my post but I didn't want to go into the deep and get confusing end since after all this will is his first look at upgrading/changing RAM. Thanks for clearing that up though.

Never mind my earlier concern regarding how the new memory would fit inside my case. After a tiny bit of research I figured out how the memory sticks are configured inside the case of the G55. So they appear to be layered and slightly offset of each other and parallel to the base of the notebook case. Memory sticks get warm inside a computer; so how did the Asus engineers figure out how to deal with heat dispersion when the memory sticks are so close to each other? Seems like a difficult design problem to solve. There's not enough room to install a heat sink anywhere inside the case and computer memory normally doesn't have heat sinks attached and so I'm mainly just curious how they managed to redirect the heat inside the cramped case of the G55.

--Eric

Don't worry about the Sizes, there are standards and Asus laptops adhere to the SO-DIMM standard. So as long as it's DDR3 SO-DIMM it will fit. Regarding heat, you won't need to worry about it, they require no active cooling and will only become slightly warm to the touch. They may only get very hot if you were to overclock them and up the voltage but as far as I know that is not even possible on these laptops since the bios is locked.

[rewben]

Regarding heat, you won't need to worry about it, they require no active cooling and will only become slightly warm to the touch. They may only get very hot if you were to overclock them and up the voltage but as far as I know that is not even possible on these laptops since the bios is locked.

no, some versions of stock bios for g55 do have such options unlocked (mine is, 209). i don't mess with it though (my ram-fu no good :/)

[Pitcher@asus]

i think you follow the spec to add, it would be correcting, if you don;t know how to do, i think store will explan or install memory.

[Eric_G55V]

Don't worry about the Sizes, there are standards and Asus laptops adhere to the SO-DIMM standard. So as long as it's DDR3 SO-DIMM it will fit. Regarding heat, you won't need to worry about it, they require no active cooling and will only become slightly warm to the touch. They may only get very hot if you were to overclock them and up the voltage but as far as I know that is not even possible on these laptops since the bios is locked.

Thanks for clearing up those details regarding system RAM, UnAimed.

-Eric

[Vicodin]

Eric,
Good choice on your RAM purchase. Now all 4 sticks of RAM in your G55 will be literally IDENTICAL! This is the best way to go in my opinion. Sure, it is not the "BEST" RAM on earth, but it beats ripping apart the laptop to get under the keyboard, and buying 4 sticks to make it all match. That is why I wen't this route. I looked at the listing before I pasted it. It is exactly like what I got. Brand new sticks pulled out of a new laptop. Places like XOTIC and HIDEVOLUTION for example offer upgrades to more/higher performance RAM on brand new laptops. What do you think they do with the stock when they pull it out? Sure as heck not throw it away!

[fostert]

Regarding heat, you won't need to worry about it, they require no active cooling and will only become slightly warm to the touch. They may only get very hot if you were to overclock them and up the voltage but as far as I know that is not even possible on these laptops since the bios is locked.

DDR3 Memory nowadays simply *does not get hot*, even under a good overclock. The reason is simple: DDR3 in desktops and especially laptops is very low voltage. Ohms law then says you won't be pushing much current through them. Flashy racing-car red, tall and spiky-finned heatsinks and heatspreaders are pure gimmick. I used to brutally overclock my core i7 860 and the memory to almost 2400GHz (which was something just a few years back) and the RAM was cool to the touch.

[Eric_G55V]

DDR3 Memory nowadays simply *does not get hot*, even under a good overclock. The reason is simple: DDR3 in desktops and especially laptops is very low voltage. Ohms law then says you won't be pushing much current through them. Flashy racing-car red, tall and spiky-finned heatsinks and heatspreaders are pure gimmick. I used to brutally overclock my core i7 860 and the memory to almost 2400GHz (which was something just a few years back) and the RAM was cool to the touch.

Cool. Then I can leave that little adhesive sticker on the RAM then, right?

-Eric

[Eric_G55V]

Hey! My status just changed to ASUS VIP. That's so awesome. I wonder what I did to deserve that? Maybe it's because I haven't started any *#^@^ on these forums yet. Or was it because I registered my new ASUS notebook through this forum? In any case, it's nice to have that little VIP distinction next to my name! Hehehehe.

-Eric

[Eric_G55V]

................and then one post later, I lose that distinction. How bizarre. Where did my VIP status go? That totally blows, dude! Is this some sort of cruel joke from ASUS?

-Eric

[Vicodin]

lol! It appears after a post, but does not stick.