The most common laptop memory speeds today are DDR4/2133 and DDR4/2400. You might be tempted to go with an even higher speed, say DDR4/2666, which can yield some performance benefits.

In this example, this laptop supports a maximum of 16 GB of RAM across a maximum of 2 RAM slots. How Much Extra RAM Do You Need? There are numerous ways to determine how much extra RAM you need.

For example, you might see it listed as DDR4-2133 PC4-17000. Timings are another aspect of memory that can impact RAM performance, although they are no longer as important.

There's no single inflection point at which cost skyrockets. $105 for 16GB of DDR4-3200 isn't a bad deal if you can spare the cash -- and if you can't, 16GB of DDR4-2133 isn't going to leave you ...

But this explains why in our lead example, DDR4-3600 CAS 20 (11ns) can underperform DDR4-3200 CAS 14 (8.75ns) in certain operations: It takes 2.25ns longer for DDR4-3600 CAS 20 to respond.

This DDR4 RAM has a 3200 MT/s transfer speed, which is great for a gaming laptop. Its Column address strobe (CAS) latency of CL22 is not that low but should do, as you already have a fast transfer ...

The standard for DDR4 chips technically maxed out at 3,200 MHz, which is the new starting point for DDR5. We’ve only seen a few examples of the top end, but DDR5 supports speeds all the way up ...

For example, you might see it listed as DDR4-2133 PC4-17000. Timings are another aspect of memory that can impact RAM performance, although they are no longer as important.

But this explains why in our lead example, DDR4-3600 CAS 20 (11ns) can underperform DDR4-3200 CAS 14 (8.75ns) in certain operations: It takes 2.25ns longer for DDR4-3600 CAS 20 to respond.