Why/How 6GB RAM?

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Barty1884

Retired Moderator
Random question but my laptop came from the manufacturer with 6GB RAM.

Based on my limited knowledge, 2x RAM should be the same where possible, and 3GB sticks don't exist?

I'm assuming my laptop is then 1x4GB and 1x2GB - would this be correct?
Why would it ship from a manufacturer like this, when all accepted standards call for 2x2GB or 1x4GB?

Anyway, probably an easy answer, but I've often wondered.
 
Usually because the base model is 4GB (almost certainly 1 4GB DIMM because it's cheaper that way).

Then you pay a little more to add an additional 2GB DIMM (for 6GB RAM), or a little more again to add a 4GB DIMM (for 8GB RAM).

Whoever specced out your laptop decide to pay the little extra for 6GB but didn't want to jump to the cost of 8GB.

You do lose dual channel RAM with that setup as configured, so it is slower which is why it's less common. However, that's not actually as big a deal as many think. There are a few workloads that scale really well with faster RAM, but they're few and far between. Intel memory controllers are really solid and for the vast majority of workloads they're plenty fast enough in single channel mode.
 
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