∰ Fuzzy Wuzzy's Summary:
★★★★★ Highly recommended with warm fuzzies!
I purchased two of these to increase my laptop's memory from 8-GB to 16-GB. Kingston's HyperX CL9 memory has faster specifications, but I really think that most people will not notice 2-ns of extra latency. I ordered this CL11 memory, instead of Kingston's CL9 HyperX memory, because I wanted to exactly match the specifications of my laptop's original 2x4GB memory to ensure compatibility since using mismatched memory can cause system instability. And this memory has been working flawlessly in my laptop!
My Dell 17R SE 7720 laptop was originally sold with 8GB (2x4GB) of memory, which was unfortunately the maximum amount of memory that Dell offered as a configuration for this laptop. Furthermore, Dell Support did not recommend going beyond 8-GB of memory, and their Web site offered no memory upgrades for the laptop. I think that the main reason Dell Support recommended to users not to add memory to this 17R SE 7720 laptop model was because this laptop is equipped with a 32-GB mSATA SSD card which is used for both Intel's "Rapid Start Technology" and "Smart Response Technology". Intel's "Rapid Start Technology" speeds up the resume time for a laptop coming out of hibernation state compared to the standard Windows hibernation mode because the system's memory contents are saved to the speedy SSD instead of the hard disk. And their "Smart Response Technology" caches frequently used files, data, and applications on the same SSD drive for faster access instead of going to the hard disk each time. With Dell's 17R SE 7720, the 32-GB mSATA SSD was partitioned with 8-GB allocated to the RST hibernation function, and the remainder of the SSD was allocated to the SRT caching function. The RST partition needs to be at least as large as the system's physical memory since the entire memory contents need to be output to the RST's SSD partition during hibernation. So if you add more memory to a computer that uses Intel's RST functions combined with an SSD drive, you need to account for this hibernation function by either (1) re-allocating the SSD's RST partition to match the system memory's size, or (2) completely turn off the RST-based hibernation and just use the entire 32-GB mSATA SSD space for the SRT function, which is what I did after I increased my laptop's memory from 8-GB to 16-GB using this Kingston memory. To turn off the Intel RST-based hibernation, I just deleted the 8-GB RST partition; Intel's RST will then disable itself when it sees that there is no longer an RST partition defined on the mSATA SSD. I then re-allocated the SRT space to use the entire 32-GB mSATA SSD. I do not need to speedily come out of hibernation since my 17R SE 7720 running Windows 8 already has quick resume and startup times. But I really notice the speed boost from letting the SRT function cache files and data using the full 32-GB SSD space, especially when I am editing copious amounts of large photo and video files, which I often do on this laptop. Both Dell and Intel publish documents on their Web sites that describe how to set up, configure, re-configure, and maintain the RST/SRT functions on an SSD. Dell has an excellent "Intel Responsiveness Technologies" setup guide PDF file, and Intel has two user guides for configuring RST and SRT. Asus also has a document describing how to configure Intel's RST/SRT on their motherboards that are equipped with mSATA SSD drives. Of course, none of what I just mentioned is relevant if your computer does not use Intel's SSD-based RST/SRT technologies. But if you add memory to a computer that uses Intel's RST function, you need to also adjust the computer's RST partition size.
In real-world applications benchmarks, there is barely any difference between using this affordable CL11 ValueRAM and using some Kingston (or other brand's) fancier CL9 HyperX memory, and the unnoticeable speed difference is not worth paying extra money for more-expensive models of CL9 or faster memory. With most applications, if you compare CL7, CL9, and CL11 application benchmarks, the differences mostly amount to 2% to 4% differences in benchmark timings. Along with the CL listing, another important memory performance indicator is bandwidth, and this memory's DDR3 1600MHz has a very good maximum bandwidth of 12800MB/s. But what does this mean in real-world performance terms? Relatively little. As long as you have enough memory to hold the applications that you are running without paging, RAM speed is only very rarely a performance bottleneck. Even with quad-core CPUs, the bottleneck is more likely still going to be the CPU . The reason for this is that the CPU's branch prediction algorithms are so accurate that, in the vast majority of circumstances, the data is already in the cache when the CPU needs it. So direct calls to RAM are quite rare. The branch predictor is like the CPU's personal assistant; it guesses what piece of information the boss needs next and makes sure it is already on his desk by the time he needs it. Occasionally, the assistant will get it wrong and the boss will have to forage around and find the information himself. In CPU terms, "foraging around" means retrieving the information from RAM, or (worst case scenario) disk, while if it is "on the boss' desk", that is equivalent to it being in the CPU's cache. And if your computer is equipped with an SSD using Intel's "Smart Response Technology", it may retrieve the data from the speedy SSD cache instead of reading from the slower disk.
So the days are long-gone when purchasing high-end expensive RAM actually makes a tangible difference to your computer's performance. As long as it meets the basic specifications that your chipset requires, there is not much to be gained by paying more. Some performance gains are possible from buying better RAM, but these days, most tests tend to show that such performance gains are minimal... far, far lower than you will get from adding more RAM (not necessarily faster RAM, just *more* RAM) or a faster CPU. This was not always the case. When the Pentium IV first came out twelve years ago, it used a new type of RAM that had, at the time, very high bandwidth, but also very high latency. AMD's Athlon used traditional RAM with lower bandwidth and lower latency. Some types of applications (e.g. video and audio conversion) were very sensitive to bandwidth, but less sensitive to latency. These types of applications showed significant performance gains with the Pentium IV. Others (typically games and office applications) were more sensitive to latency and favored the Athlon.
Overall, this is a great buy at a very good price! Don't overspend on memory just because a brand or model of memory touts better specifications. If you are a hardcore computer gamer with a $4000 gaming laptop, you may opt for faster high-end memory to complement your top-of-the-line CPU and graphics. But most people should focus far more on how compatible that memory's specifications are for your system because the differences between CL ratings are negligible if you are considering CL rating differences of 2 or 3, while using memory that is not correctly matched or compatible with your computer can cause a variety of problems.
| RAM | 2 GB DDR3 |
|---|---|
| Memory Speed | 1600 MHz |
