You can significantly improve gaming
performance in your laptop by using two sticks of memory instead of one.
Using one stick is known as single channel, while two sticks is known as dual channel,
and I’m going to show you the differences between both in games at 1080p and 1440p
resolutions so you can see what the differences are and decide if it’s
worth moving from 1 stick 2 sticks - and spoiler, it’s worth upgrading to 2 sticks.
I’m going to compare using one 32 gig stick against two 16 gig sticks,
so either configuration will have the same 32 gigs of total memory capacity.
All memory runs at the same DDR4-3200 speeds with same timings and it's all dual rank too.
The same principle applies using two 8 gig sticks versus one 16 gig stick. The reason
I’ve chosen to use 32 gig in total is to try and rule out capacity limitations as
being a bottleneck so we can focus purely on the changes between single and dual channel.
I’ll be using the AMD Ryzen 7 5800H processor for this comparison along with RTX 3070 graphics
inside the XMG Neo 15, the same Tongfang chassis as the Eluktronics Mech-15 G3, an
excellent gaming laptop that I’ve previously reviewed on the channel.
I’ve done all testing with Optimus disabled for best gaming performance, but it could
be possible that optimus enabled laptops do see a bigger boost with dual channel memory,
as the integrated graphics rely pretty heavily on the laptop’s memory. Anyway,
let’s get into those gaming comparisons!
Cyberpunk 2077 was tested in little china with the street kid life path. I’ve got the
dual channel results shown by the red bars, and single channel results shown by the purple bars,
which are slower. I’ve also tested all available setting presets, which are listed on the left
with lowest settings down the bottom and highest up top. At 1080p with ultra settings we’re only
seeing less than a 1 FPS boost to average FPS, however the dual channel config has a larger 12%
boost to 1% low, so more stable on dual channel. Stepping up to 1440p and at most setting levels
the difference in average FPS is now even smaller. Higher resolutions are generally more GPU bound,
the memory difference seems to affect CPU bound tests more,
so lower resolution and lower setting levels. That said,
again there were larger gains to the 1% lows compared to average FPS with dual channel.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested with the games benchmark. Single channel was still offering
above 60 FPS with ultra settings, however simply by running with two sticks of memory was enough
to boost average FPS by more than 21% here. The difference was similar at low settings too, with a
22% boost to dual channel now. At 1440p with max settings the dual channel config was still 21%
ahead of single channel, the difference was actually smaller at lower settings.
Fortnite was tested with the replay feature using the exact same replay for both memory
configurations. The difference at max settings is basically nothing, both for 1% low or average FPS,
then we can see the gap slowly increases as we step down to lower setting levels,
where finally with the low preset the dual channel configuration was 14%
faster in average FPS. Again like most other games tested, the differences at 1440p are
smaller for the most part. Low settings was still 7.5% ahead with dual channel,
but then at pretty much all other levels we’re not seeing much change at all.
Control was tested with and without ray tracing, let’s start with ray tracing disabled. This is
a GPU heavy game, which likely explains why there’s only a 2 FPS difference max
at medium and high settings, though dual channel at low settings was able to get an 11%
boost to average FPS. The results are quite close at 1440p too, though this time even low
settings was only around 2 FPS different for the averages, so only minor changes.
With ray tracing on at 1080p there are once again basically no real differences.
Dual channel had a slight edge, but realistically not any practical
improvement that’s worth paying for given both could still hit 60 FPS max settings
with a difference that’s within margin of error. Things are again even closer at 1440p,
though the frame rates are cut a fair bit at this higher resolution, and that’s where DLSS comes in.
With DLSS enabled at 1080p there’s now a larger difference between the two,
again more so in regards to 1% low performance,
so it seems that dual channel is able to offer a more stable experience with DLSS
enabled compared to disabled with just straight ray tracing. At 1440p the difference is smaller,
but again still a subtle win for dual channel, at least it’s not a step backwards I guess.
Microsoft Flight Simulator was tested in the Sydney landing challenge,
and this game saw the biggest differences out of all 11 games tested at 1080p. With dual channel,
we’re able to get a 32% boost to average FPS at max settings compared to single channel, while
low settings pushes this up to a 36% higher frame rate. There were still excellent gains at 1440p.
At max settings the 1% lows were very similar, but apart from that dual channel was offering great
gains, a good example of a game where running in dual channel is going to help you out.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was tested with the game's benchmark. Like many of the others tested,
the difference at higher setting levels is smaller compared to lower. Again like
many others, the difference in 1% lows seems to be larger than average FPS,
so a more stable experience on dual channel. Things are even closer together at 1440p,
though either configuration is still very close to 60 FPS at max settings, so you’re
really only going to see better performance at lower levels that don’t hit the GPU as hard.
Watch Dogs Legion was also tested using the games benchmark, and there were bigger
improvements in this one between the two. Dual channel was 19% faster at low settings,
but then only 7% ahead at max settings. At 1440p max settings were about the same now,
though low settings was still able to offer a 16% boost compared to using just one stick of memory.
Battlefield 5 was tested in campaign mode. This one had above average improvements with
dual channel memory too, 11% higher average FPS at ultra settings and then a larger 17%
boost at low settings. 1440p also had some nice gains with dual channel,
however the differences appear to be larger with the 1% lows in most cases.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the games benchmark, and was another that also saw
above average improvements with dual channel. There was a 27%
boost at low settings at 1080p, and 17% higher average frame rate at max settings
with dual channel. At 1440p max settings was now just a 2 FPS difference, however there was
still a decent 17% boost at lowest settings with two sticks of memory compared to one.
CS:GO only saw a small difference, at 1080p, just a 10 FPS gap at medium and max settings,
or less than a 3% improvement with dual channel, and then 1440p wasn’t much different either,
but I’ll discuss why I think this result was smaller shortly.
Rainbow Six Siege was tested with the games benchmark using Vulkan. This one seemed to
have a larger difference when it came to 1% lows, the averages weren’t that much different at all,
and then they’re even closer together at 1440p. The single
channel config was actually 1-2 FPS ahead for some reason here,
but things are so close both for average and 1% lows that this is margin of error stuff,
it just seems like rainbow six doesn’t really care which memory config you use at this resolution.
These are the differences in all 11 games tested at the lower 1080p resolution with
all games set to the highest setting level. On average the dual channel configuration was just
under 9% faster when compared to the exact same laptop but in a single channel configuration.
Some games saw basically no difference, while others like flight simulator or red
dead redemption 2 had pretty large gains with two sticks of memory.
The differences increase with all setting levels now set to the lowest level,
with the dual channel configuration now almost 16% faster than single channel in
the same selection of games. For the most part, lower setting levels are more CPU
bound so the memory difference is affecting the results more compared to higher setting levels.
I didn’t expect CS:GO to show almost no change here, when I’ve compared single and dual channel
in the past this same test saw a 23% boost with dual channel, but this could be because I’ve
tested with optimus disabled. Laptops that use the iGPU may see more gains with dual channel.
When we step up to 1440p max settings we only see a 4% improvement with dual
channel. Higher resolution, along with higher setting presets, are typically more GPU bound.
It of course depends on the game, as we can see here, red dead redemption 2 and flight
simulator are basically outliers compared to the rest of the other results that saw
much more modest differences, but regardless still a performance gain with dual channel.
With all settings at minimum the dual channel configuration was now 9% faster than single
channel on average at 1440p, so lower than the 16% gains we saw at 1080p with minimum
settings. Flight simulator once more dominated the results, but many of the other games were
also getting a bigger performance boost now compared to max settings.
I’ve also tested both configurations in content
creator workloads to see what the differences are outside of gaming.
Adobe Premiere was tested with the Puget Systems benchmark. The dual channel configuration was
scoring 9% higher than the single channel one in this video editing workload.
Adobe Photoshop was also tested with the Puget Systems benchmark,
and this time there was a larger 15% boost to the score with the dual channel configuration,
so non gaming workloads are still able to get a reasonable improvement.
If we look at buying a single 32 gigabyte stick of memory, it’s $145 USD on Newegg at the moment,
while two 16 gig sticks from the same company are just $25
more at $170 in total. I think this price difference is well worth it, however most people
would already have a single stick installed. Given you can’t upgrade most laptops CPU or GPU,
I think this is still one of the best simple changes you can make to boost gaming performance,
buying another stick that’s the same size, speed and timings as your existing stick is an extra
cost that I think is worthwhile relative to the larger cost of the laptop itself.
So running two sticks of memory in dual channel does boost performance - but it’s
not always quite that straightforward. I’ve done all testing here with both sticks the same size,
you can still run dual channel with two different sized sticks, say one 8 gig and one 16 gig,
however this can cause performance issues. Using different size sticks is known as asynchronous
dual channel and it’s a whole different topic that I would need another video of this length to go
through, so make sure you’re subscribed for when I look at comparing different memory configurations
in a future video. If you’re looking for more ways to easily boost gaming performance in your
laptop then check out these videos over here. You can get some fairly significant performance
improvements with some simple tweaks, so I’ll see you over in one of those videos next.