Question Ryzen Vega 8 RAM effects on gaming 8GB vs 16GB

[LrsLex]

Hi!

I've been thinking about a RAM upgrade from 8 to 16 GB for a Ryzen 5 2500U HP laptop. My decision purely depends on gaming gains, but in every video I've been able to find it has pretty much zero effect on fps on Vega 8. On the other hand people are saying it can/does give a ~20 % bump on fps, I just haven't seen that anywhere other than RDR2 which would be a pain to play with this either way. It's about $90 which I wouldn't want to waste if it indeed is a waste.

Thanks!

 

[Lutfij]

Can you parse the model for your HP laptop? I'd be worried about gaming on it since the APU's of that range and later tend to run pretty hot. If you must upgrade your ram, you should be looking at a dual channel DDR4-3200Mhz ram kit(provided the 8GB isn't soldered onto the motherboard) but the heat in itself might be off-putting towards long gaming sessions.

 

[DRagor]

My decision purely depends on gaming gains, but in every video I've been able to find it has pretty much zero effect on fps on Vega 8. On the other hand people are saying it can/does give a ~20 % bump on fps

It's just a common misunderstanding of a problem. Adding more RAM is not going to add a single FPS, unless you had not enough RAM for a given game in first place. On the other hand, many laptops come with only one stick of RAM. Adding second stick in such case allows the RAM to be used in dual channel which DOES have huge effect on Vega graphics effectiveness.

 

[LrsLex]

Can you parse the model for your HP laptop? I'd be worried about gaming on it since the APU's of that range and later tend to run pretty hot. If you must upgrade your ram, you should be looking at a dual channel DDR4-3200Mhz ram kit(provided the 8GB isn't soldered onto the motherboard) but the heat in itself might be off-putting towards long gaming sessions.

HP Notebook - 14-cm0822no

I think the 2500U on laptops, RAM is capped at 2400 MHz and at least in BIOS there's no option to change that.

It's got 2x4GB so I'd have to buy 2x8 and change both, it is upgradeable, not soldered if I recall correctly.

 

[LrsLex]

It's just a common misunderstanding of a problem. Adding more RAM is not going to add a single FPS, unless you had not enough RAM for a given game in first place. On the other hand, many laptops come with only one stick of RAM. Adding second stick in such case allows the RAM to be used in dual channel which DOES have huge effect on Vega graphics effectiveness.

Alrighty!

It's got 2x4 GB config, so I guess an upgrade won't make a difference in games the machine's able to run in the first place. That'd explain the huge bump in RDR2 from single digits to 30-40 fps: 8 GB (or 6 since 2 is for Vega) just isn't enough to run the game to begin with.

 

[DRagor]

Alrighty!

It's got 2x4 GB config, so I guess an upgrade won't make a difference in games the machine's able to run in the first place. That'd explain the huge bump in RDR2 from single digits to 30-40 fps: 8 GB (or 6 since 2 is for Vega) just isn't enough to run the game to begin with.

If you want to use that laptop for next two years or more I would still recommend upgrading RAM. Long story short, when I was building my PC 5 years ago I went for 16 GB mainly for longevity reasons. Back then that amount of RAM was overkill. These days I sometimes run into out of memory with this machine, and I rarely go below 8 Gb used if I'm really doing anything more then just simple net browsing. And I really doubt in coming years programs would start using less memory then now.