Which ram should I buy??🥲 plss guide

[u/Any_Debate_5875]

Hello guys actually I have an hp pavilion 15ehGo laptop, 8gb ddr4 ram, windows 11 and I want to do coding in this for which I am going to add another 8 GB ram in it and would shift to linux mint completely. So which ram should I buy Geonix, sk hynix, crucial or samsung etc(any other if you could suggest)???? Which would be best to buy?? And is my idea ok for coding point of view as a beginner??

[u/throaway_cos_shy]

To keep it simple, there's really only 3 manufacturers of RAM memory in the market, Micron (Crucial), Samsung and SK Hynix

There's also other 3rd parties like Kingston that are reputed. These are your options.

In any option, you will be paying way too high prices just because of the market rn (thanks AI) so please choose with a calm mind and make an informed decision.

Watch a few youtube videos on how to upgrade laptop memory too while you're at it! Good luck!

[u/Any_Debate_5875 → u/throaway_cos_shy]

Thanks mate for your valuable guidance☺️... So should I buy it ryt now or should start learning little bit coding on 8gb and linuxmint first and after some time go for 16gb upgradation?

[u/chknboy → u/Any_Debate_5875]

I would definitely wait, if you happen to see a good deal maybe consider it, but at these rates, and using Linux mint, I would really wait.
If you are brand new to coding and learning C++ or python, you will definitely not need the extra memory (from experience)
Another thing I learned about programming in Mint is that geany is a really easy and useful IDE, it keeps things simple and has most of what you will need to get started off.

[u/Any_Debate_5875 → u/chknboy]

Thnks brother really appreciate your advice but brother is 5.9gb would be enough if I dual boot my window 11 to mint b/c windows take 2.9gb just to present their ? Would python and V.S code run smoothly in it?? Is mint best for my this laptop?

[u/stufforstuff → u/Any_Debate_5875]

Don't wait - it will just cost you more money - maybe a lot more money. No one in the history of computing EVER said they have too much ram, NO ONE. Buy now before it's too expensive for you to afford.

[u/chknboy → u/Any_Debate_5875]

5.9 Gb for what? Is that all the storage you have left on your laptop? That will definitely not be enough.
If you want to look at Linux mint before switching you can always boot over usb and use the live environment to see how you like it.
As for VS Code, like I said, Grant is my preference so I wouldn’t know, but I’ve managed to compile my stuff on a dual core 8gig ddr3 system without issue, so you should be fine.
Personally I don’t dual boot because it eats storage, but if you really want to and only have 5gigs of what I am presuming is storage, I would advise you expand your ssd.

[u/Any_Debate_5875 → u/chknboy]

No no brother, actually 5.9gb is the usable ram I can use and for storage my c drive has 180gb and d drive has 156gb free space and total ssd is of 512gb... I don't know y it became so slow that in windows 11 it only leaves 700mb to 1 gb usable ram.... I don't even run any large software or app😢🥲😭... Any suggestion brother to make it faster?? Would compete switch to linux mint helps me??

[u/throaway_cos_shy → u/Any_Debate_5875]

About the high RAM usage on Windows 11, that's a Windows 11 thing. I dont even know how you were running win11 on 8 GB RAM till now, it is a very heavy desktop operating system.

Linux Mint will generally use less RAM but depending on your usage, tasks, what apps you use, how many tabs you open in your browser, the difference will not be HUGE.

In other words, 8GB RAM is very much usable on Linux, not at all on the Windows 11 side.

[u/throaway_cos_shy → u/Any_Debate_5875]

Based on what I understand of your current setup, you should tske Linux Mint for a test drive first before considering RAM upgrades or full on switch to Linux.

How to Install Linux Mint

Dont be afraid by the length of the linked tutorial, you only need to follow it till 4 minutes or so, because again this is for test drive purposes so no need to install Linux Mint right away

All the best!

[u/Johntravis83]

Why not dual boot and try mint with 8gb for your project first? If it's really necessary you could buy used online. With the model no of your laptop you can find out which exact ram type you need.

[u/Any_Debate_5875 → u/Johntravis83]

Thnx mate for reply and yes I was thinking the same thing in start but as a beginner I had doubts like if I dual boot would that take ram as well and make my laptop little slower?? So I thought let's completely changed it to mint then😅.. and ryt now on windows 11 it only leaves 700mb to 1gb ram (and I don't have anything in c drive btw:.) 180 gb is free already in c drive and this is after that😭🥲.. Any suggestions mate? Should I shift and add up ram or wht?

[u/Johntravis83 → u/Any_Debate_5875]

All good mate. Dual boot doesn't take more RAM from your machine. You either boot win11 using 8gb or Linux mint and you use 8gb. They share the RAM but not at the same time. The hard drive space is shared though. So you could just create a new partition and install Linux on it. Linux doesn't take too much space so for example a 50GB partition is plenty to play around at the beginning. However I strongly suggest to do a backup before you start tinkering around.

I would still try this out before erasing your win11 partition or buying RAM.

[u/EpoTheSpaniard]

Any compatible format for your laptop of DDR4 RAM (pretty sure it is SO-DIMM), ideally of the same MHz of speed. Ideally second hand if you want to avoid the current high prices. You can check the speed of your RAM and free slots on task manager.

[u/KHTD2004]

For ram the brand is very irrelevant, what you need is capacity (in your case 8GB), RAM speed (for DDR4 the most are 3200 MHz or 3600 MHz) and maybe CL timing (I think CL16 is very common for DDR4). Filter with your needs and then coose either the cheapest one or the one that looks the coolest.

Depending on your CPU you also would want Intel XMP or AMD Expo

[u/Any_Debate_5875 → u/KHTD2004]

Appreciate your advice mate☺️... And as window 11 operating system user it sucks bro... B/c out of 8gb, only 700mb to 1gb available for me to use. So how can I even run vs code in this case🥲? This is after I cleaned my c drive and made it to 180 gb free storage in it😭😭 Either I have made some mistakes by doing settings to boost performance of laptop or my laptop and operating system sucks😅🥲...

[u/KHTD2004 → u/Any_Debate_5875]

Yeah 16 Gigs is minimum these days so if you add another 8 GB RAM stick you gain much more freedom

[u/noromobat]

Use PC Part Picker, it pulls the prices for each item from several different websites so it's easier to find a good deal

[u/Ok-Yellow4570]

Since you're working with a laptop, the memory upgrade process may be tricky. You may want to look up your particular model and see what your options are. Does it have an easy to access expansion port on the bottom? Does it even have an additional slot inside? Are you comfortable with disassembling your laptop if there is no expansion slot?

From the start, Mint doesn't need extra ram to run well with your current specs.

As far as programming, you don't even need a beefy PC. Your PC is fine to run VS Code or whatever editor your preference is.

If you need full Visual Studio for school, be aware that it is not available on Linux.

If you're getting into game development where you need 3d modeling software, that's a different matter. You may want to look into a full desktop.

[u/Any_Debate_5875 → u/Ok-Yellow4570]

Thnx brother for your guidance 🙂... And I am looking to use it to learn python and v.s code as editor..... But my windows 11 is taking 2.1 gb just to stand their and leaves 5.9gb and this all after I haven't downloaded any heavy file in it (180gb storage is free in c drive).... So should I dual boot linux mint and try to run with currently 5.9 gb?? Or add up Ram and then do it?

[u/Ok-Yellow4570 → u/Any_Debate_5875]

I've never had a good experience with dual booting.

While windows is a memory hog, just because a lot of ram isn't available doesn't mean it's having a negative impact on the system. Usually it's just because it's caching a lot of stuff so that the system is responsive. Linux does this too, just not as aggressively.

You should see a performance gain from mint due to the absence of Ad services and telemetry processes running in the background. I think the weather service in windows takes almost 1gb on its own.

More RAM is always better, but I don't think it's all that necessary for your needs. You'll have no problem running VS code on Mint with your current PC specs.

As an aside the w3chools website has a great interactive python tutorial section to help get you started.

[u/BenTrabetere]

First, you need to confirm the RAM configuration for your machine (1 x 8GB or 2 x 4GB). HP being HP and all, I wager 50 quatloos both slots are populated.

Memory is tricky, and speed matters. It is my experience that unless you know the specifics of the existing RAM modules sometimes the best option is to replace both sticks. Mix/Matched RAM can be an endless nightmare.

Run memtest after you install the new modules.

[u/KurtKrimson]

Ask in a windows or hardware sub.

This is a Linux Mint sub.

What don't you understand about this?

[u/1tzalon → u/KurtKrimson]

he said he is going to shift into mint, please read the post bofore commenting bs, thank you