Single channel RAM in a gaming laptop.... WHY?!?!

Soldato
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Hey all.

A couple of months ago i picked up a Asus SCAR 17" GL703GS laptop and for the most part i'm pretty happy with it.

In a few games i thought i was being CPU limited as i'd set my refresh rate to 144hz but some games would hover around 70-80FPS with only about 75% GPU usage.

It was only until i stumbled across Bob of all trades review of the Aero 15x which he mentioned and showed the before and after improvements from going single to dual channel. This seemed to pretty much removes any memory bottleneck and his 1070 max-q was performing about 15fps on average better than my full mobile 1070.

What a silly decision on ASUS's part to do this. Seeing as its a "gaming laptop" i'd expect it to be configured to primarily game and game pretty well. It's not even really a cost thing of 1 stick vs 2 as it works out nearly the same. I suppose theres only one stick in there as a upgrade path to add more ram but seeing how important dual channel memory appears to be it would be nigh on impossible to get another stick to work in dual channel properly as they wont be matched pairs.

So, that means ill either have to replace the single 16GB stick with a pair of 8's or go all in on 2 x16gb sticks which is pretty pricey and not really needed.

Ideally i'd like to just chuck in another 16gb stick but im reading mixed things online about getting a new stick to run in dual channel.

@Loki any advice would be appreciated on if its possible to just add another 16gb stick or will i have to replace both to get them running in dual channel.

Cheers!
 
Soldato
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Of course you can just add another 16GB stick, but you need to ensure that it’s the same speed, timings, etc as the existing.

Yeah I'm aware of that but it also matters what memory chips are on the stick aswell and how many ranks there are. Laptops aren't as flexible with memory as desktops appear to be due to locked down bios.
 
Caporegime
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Yeah I'm aware of that but it also matters what memory chips are on the stick aswell and how many ranks there are. Laptops aren't as flexible with memory as desktops appear to be due to locked down bios.

install cpu-z find serial number / part number of the stick that is in there.

type part number into ebay and buy a single stick.

i just got a second set for my laptop for £35. ebay had a £5 off voucher on the go and someone else had just done what you are suggesting upgraded all the ram in 4-8 brand new laptops and was selling the old ram. it was technically "new" but obviously can't be sold as such. so got it for pennies. i went from 1 x 8GB to 2 x 8GB for £35. having to buy a new 16GB set would have cost me £130 and i could only sell the old one for £45 so £85. so I saved £50 by buying the same one I already have off ebay.

oh and there is a guy on the MM selling laptop RAM 16GB set for £100. if you don't want to do the above I offered him £95 but he didn't accept. was a good move as i managed to snag a single stick off ebay for £35.
 
Soldato
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I realised a lot of gaming laptops come with single channel, only it was too late when I bought mine, luckily mine is dual channel, 2 sticks of 8, but does it really make much of a noticeable difference? I'm not sure. I wouldn't have thought it'd make 15fps difference.
 
Soldato
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install cpu-z find serial number / part number of the stick that is in there.

type part number into ebay and buy a single stick.

i just got a second set for my laptop for £35. ebay had a £5 off voucher on the go and someone else had just done what you are suggesting upgraded all the ram in 4-8 brand new laptops and was selling the old ram. it was technically "new" but obviously can't be sold as such. so got it for pennies. i went from 1 x 8GB to 2 x 8GB for £35. having to buy a new 16GB set would have cost me £130 and i could only sell the old one for £45 so £85. so I saved £50 by buying the same one I already have off ebay.

oh and there is a guy on the MM selling laptop RAM 16GB set for £100. if you don't want to do the above I offered him £95 but he didn't accept. was a good move as i managed to snag a single stick off ebay for £35.

I did do some rough looking last night using hwinfo but the part number was bringing up 8gb sticks not the single 16gb I have. I've got a £25 rainforest voucher and I can get a pair of 8gb crucial sticks the same speed for £120 so I might just do that and sell the 16gb on eBay or MM.

I realised a lot of gaming laptops come with single channel, only it was too late when I bought mine, luckily mine is dual channel, 2 sticks of 8, but does it really make much of a noticeable difference? I'm not sure. I wouldn't have thought it'd make 15fps difference.

After looking into this more it affects your minimum FPS by quite a bit, maximum not so much. It's just annoying because now I have a 144hz monitor on the laptop it's nice having that kind of refresh rate in games but even if I drop all settings to low I get a memory bottleneck and the FPS barely improves. Hence why I said I thought I was CPU bound in the OP.

There's quite a few benchmarks online and youtube. Games that utilizes vulkan or dx12 well don't seem that affected by single/dual channel though. It's pretty telling though that the guy in this video is getting the same or better FPS than me with a 1060. I've done the whole afterburner/throttle stop tweaking to stop any thermal throttling so it isn't that.

 
Soldato
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The reasoning behind a 144 or even 120Hz puzzles me, games need to run at 144 or 120FPS for the benefit?, thing is, means dropping settings down, a 1070 is never going to run any game at 120 let alone 144 without really dropping settings.
 
Soldato
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The only game that really showed this as an issue was BF1. With that game on ultra or low it's usually stuck at 55-75fps regardless of settings.

I've been playing a lot of black ops 4 recently, max settings and I'm usually hovering around 85-105fps.

Aslong as I can get to around 80 FPS I'm happy regardless of settings. It's just nice to know when a game starts to make my laptop struggle I can drop settings a bit to bring FPS back up. Right now it doesn't do that.

It's not an issue with desktops as I could always just upgrade the GPU. Bit stuck with a laptops GPU...
 
Soldato
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I can make it boost to 1911mhz on the core but tbh I don't really see any gains. So I stay at 1810mhz and flatten the curve from 0.850 (I think) onwards to keep temps down.
 
Soldato
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Not much point in wringing its neck as it'll just heat up the CPU aswell if they share heat pipes. Think I'll just go for a new set of matching dual channel.
 
Soldato
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Well, just found a guy on ebay selling an identical 16gb stick so i picked it up for £99. Fingers crossed, if it works in dual channel, ill have a stupid amount of ram and much better FPS. I'll update my findings when i install it.
 
Soldato
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99 quid, blimey, I contemplate upgrading to 32GB but it'd cost me 200 quid.

TBH 32gb is total overkill for what i'll use it for but the main aim here is to get dual channel sorted out. It was £120 to replace the single stick with new dual channel ram but still 16gb. Worth a try,...
 
Soldato
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Just an update, RAM arrived today and it does indeed work in dual channel!!

Performance is as expected. Minimums have increased across the board by 10-20 FPS and maximums have gone up by around 5fps. The best bit though is that if a game is struggling i can now drop some graphics settings to bring the FPS back up, it didnt do this before.

BF5 was running a mix of mostly Ultra settings and a couple of high which got me around 55fps to 85fps depending on map and what was going on. Now i'm running all ultra except lighting and never drop below 75fps and is usually hovering around 95fps in 64 player conquest.

Well happy :)
 
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