Need help understanding ram.

[Srwilson5]

I know what ram is but my daughter just bought a new laptop for college by herself and brought it home to show me. I honestly have always thought more is better. But what I seen confuses me. Hers says 4gb ram+16gb obtane ram. Is that good? Would she be better returning it and getting regular 8gb ram?

[phillpower2]

Welcome to PCHF Srwilson5,

my daughter just bought a new laptop for college b

Any software that your daughter may need to use for college will have a system requirement that you can check, 8GB of RAM is becoming more of a norm these days as it makes allowances for any future upgrades that software providers may release.

See info on Optane here

Physical RAM such as 2 Xs 4GB sticks that will work in dual channel mode should always be a minimum + keep in mind that computers that have an integrated graphics chip rely on the RAM for support meaning that a % of the notebooks 4GB of RAM will be taken up by the graphics device.

[Srwilson5]

So does that mean the 16gb obtane does nothing to help? She bought it yesterday so we can return within 7 days. Should we take it back and go with the 8 GB ram laptop? Has a 2.3 GHz Intel 7 and 1 TB hard drive. Which I thought were great for a under $500 laptop.

[phillpower2]

So does that mean the 16gb obtane does nothing to help?

It does for transferring and storing data to a storage device, layman’s terms are, RAM is temporary storage and once you close down the computer the data that the RAM is holding will be lost. Optane is an Intel development that allows for the quicker transfer of data that is stored in the physical RAM to a storage device such as an SSD, an EMC storage device or a HDD.

It is rather technical (and I will most likely make a hash of it) but the crux of it is, having more RAM is better when opening multiple tabs, RAM is a temporary storage device, having Optane is a bonus when it comes to quickly transferring data but having more RAM allows a user to temporarily store data and then only keep what they need, once shut down the data is cleared from RAM thus freeing up resources, Optane helps with the efficiency of this but it is ultimately intended to compete with the likes of a true storage device such as an SSD or HDD.

Hope the above makes sense o_O

[COLOR=rgb(41, 105, 176)]Edit to add: Would you be so kind as to either post a link to the notebook concerned or the brand and model name or number, thank you.[/COLOR]

[veeg]

Any updates for us?

[phillpower2]

Any update for us Srwilson5? This thread will be closed if not replied to within 48hrs.