What do you need to consider when we upgrade your laptop memory ... is it all just bigger memory or is there something else we need to know that will put our money to better use and make our laptops perform just that little faster ...

Well, as we know sizes does matters, the bigger the memory you have installed in your laptop, the better it performs. And for a simple reason, today's Operating systems and applications are memory hungry.

I probably can list a thousand things that will benefit from a memory upgrade like applications will run faster, battery life seems to be extended as there is less need to utilise the hard drive thus saving power consumption ... blar blar ..

Guess what, I have found that sometimes, it is not all about sizes.

Yes CAS does matters! 

What is CAS? or more specifically CAS latency? 

I shant bore with with too much specifics as it will take a whole boring volume. So to cut it short ...

Well, notice that small number that you often see after CL ? Well that is the CAS latency number, it is an indication of the grade of your laptop ram. Generally, the smaller the number, the better the grade. It is related to the speed of the ram or the number things it can do within a limited time cycle.

In short I can offer you the following tricks to look for :

For PC 66/ PC100/PC 133 - go for CL 2 or in some cases written as 2-2-2

 (give the cheap CL3 or 3-22 or worse 2-2-2 a miss!)

For DDRs generally CL 2.5 is better thab CL3 in most cases

For DDR2 always the CL4 over the CL5 or 6.

Often you dont have to pay more to get better rams, you just need to know where to look and what to look at.

Note : The above is just a very general guide to help you get started on your own research. If you want to know more, research CAS latency from any search engine and you will be rewarded richly with a better laptop with the best ram installed.

Enjoy!