Question Is it safe to dedicate more RAM to APU?

[smashmouth900]

It's my birthday at the end of the month and I am thinking about upgrading my laptop RAM. I currently have 4gb 1600mhz and I want to upgrade to 8gb 1600mhz (Rip dual channeling as my laptop only has one memory slot)!
Anyway, back to the point. If I do upgrade in the end, is if safe to dedicate more RAM towards my APU? It currently uses 512mb automatically, but I kind of what to see if games will run somewhat better by dedicating 1 or 2gb to my APU instead.

I just want to double-check to make sure I am not making some big fat bomb by doing so

My laptop specs are:
AMD A6-7310 w/ Radeon R4 2GHz
4gb 1600mhz DDR3L
(I will upgrade to This)

 

[13thmonkey]

It won't make any difference (well very very little), when the iGPU (or any GPU) has used the ram assigned to it or it's Vram, it'll have to use normal ram, on a full GPU this is a problem, because ram is further away than the vram and takes time to populate and swap in and out. For an iGPU the vram and ram are the same, and held on the same system so whilst there is a little lag it's not too great as to be a problem.

But there's no harm.

 

[smashmouth900]

It won't make any difference (well very very little), when the iGPU (or any GPU) has used the ram assigned to it or it's Vram, it'll have to use normal ram, on a full GPU this is a problem, because ram is further away than the vram and takes time to populate and swap in and out. For an iGPU the vram and ram are the same, and held on the same system so whilst there is a little lag it's not too great as to be a problem.

But there's no harm.

Mmkay, cheers for the quick reply! Do you reckon I should still upgrade?

 

[13thmonkey]

Definitely, 3.5GB of ram is simply not enough, 8GB will make a massive difference. Even if 2GB is assigned to the iGPU.

 

[smashmouth900]

Thanks! You have been a great help!

 

[13thmonkey]

No problem, if you think about it, windows probably uses 2.5, so you've only got 1GB left for any programs at the moment. If you add another 4GB that'll increase that 1GB to 5GB for programs as windows won't use any more just because you have it, so you aren't doubling your ram, you're quintupling it.

 

[smashmouth900]

That's such a cool way to think of it! Thanks!