Do managers and money always win against EE good common sense? It's a sad world.
So you are telling my that Lenovo is stuffing a single gskill F4-2400C16S-16GRS in their P51 kick ass workstations? Interesting. Regarding the configuration the Lenovo community tells to populate both channel (10-15% speed increase) I will test and find out when the 16GB stick comes.
in order to optimize memory performance so that it operates in "dual channel" mode, you need to have matched pairs of memory sticks installed. If you have just one stick of the required pair your memory will operate in the less-than-optimal "single channel" mode
https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-P-and-W-Series-Mobile/Memory-configuration-for-P51/td-p/3773472
https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-P-and-W-Series-Mobile/ThinkPad-P51-RAM-question-regarding-RAM-slots/m-p/3768001
https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-P-and-W-Series-Mobile/Do-I-need-to-install-RAM-in-pairs/m-p/3417561#M62410
I could've toldja the same. It came that way from the factory; not some idiot user. Lenovo is made in the same factories as the RAM they put in it. Of course it's cheapest for them to buy one SODIMM vs 2 EVERY TIME. EDIT: I've bought like a dozen off-lease Lenovo laptops recently, (3 for myself) and they ALL have a single SODIMM and an empty slot.
Things change. Do your research before you buy.
In other words, RTFM.
DDR3 & up are all async by default per SPD anyways for DOS boxes (because at this level, they're STILL DOS boxes with MicroSuck's abysmal memory management), even if you populate both slots. Even if you set the RAM to sync mode manually you don't get any real improvement, as the RAM will self-config per the SPD tables so it runs slower to ensure stability.
The only way to get any real benefit from "Dual Channel" mode now in consumer hardware is to do the gamers' OCD memory tweaking schizz; then you have to beat on it for hours...sometimes days... to get the timing and voltage just right. Then, 6 months or a year later, it all blows up and you have to do it again because your timing is so tight and the actual latency or refresh needs drifts as the RAM ages.
[EDITED to reduce unwarranted aggro tone]
That's not exactly a good example; The G51 is NOT "consumer hardware"; it is "High-Performance" hardware with a premium pricetag. At that price point, they WILL contract with a third party memory supplier (like ASUS used to do with MUSHKIN) to select recommended RAM configurations where they CAN get the full benefit of dual channel architecture in synchronous mode, and the firmware will come "pre-tweaked" with timing profiles custom-geared to that RAM.
All the Lenovos I bought recently have SK Hynix RAM in them, so clearly Lenovo favors them. GSkill is a Hynix channel partner, so it's not a big shock that they went back up their supply chain to buy from them for their "Commercial" class machines.
All the crap you heard repeated in the chatrooms is either old knowledge that gets passed on ad nauseum or is a simple case of
"The 11th commandment: Thou shalt cover thine own arse."Imagine if you will, one of these forum techs trying to explain what I just explained above to the average yoobToober. They're going to either argue "this is what I heard from
Bran McMuffin on MuffBerger's Mystery Gamerz Network" type bullshit until they get kickbanned, and/or they're going to go on yoobToob with screenshots and shitpost your brand til doomsday.
And even though the fact is that defaulting to async mode is entirely due to Channel Partner interdependence between MicroSpank and Intel, there is not a damned thing the manufacturer can undo unless they want to open a whole can of "Helldesk agents pulling their hair out" worms with every prepubescent yo-yo who wants to max out their RAM and calling to bitch when their computer goes psycho because they know jack-shit about RAM timing.
They DAMN SURE aren't going to do any of that crap with any of their $700-1400/copy Edu-Services and Corporate-monkey machines; they're going to make them as cheap as they can and as low-hassle as they can, so that means sticking with the "Safe Defaults" given them by... you guessed it... Intel and M$. Because as far as they're concerned, it's still MicroSuck's world and WE just LIVE in it.
Since M$ STILL can't figure out out to make anything that isn't just a teetering inverted pyramid of layer of decades-old-shit upon layer of decades-old-shit, their OS STILL doesn't know how to actually USE more than 4GB of RAM, unless it's a hemorrhaging memory leak. THAT they've perfected to an art form.
I've had 16GB of RAM in my daily driver for a effing DECADE. The OS needs 2GB MAX... WHY THE FLUPP do I even NEED a swapfile when I NEVER have less than 8GB free?* Of course... that's where they keep all the "Windoze-as-a-Service" goodness...
(*This is a rhetorical question, BTW; I understand the reasons for their continued dependence on the swapfile, but I still think it's all lazy-ass excuses for not building proper memory management that doesn't spray explosive diarrhea every time anything unexpected happens. Like, say, user input) So Lenovo ships these laptops with one empty slot, and unless you just have a need to complain about something, you should realize they did you a favor: You don't need to buy your RAM in pairs when you upgrade, you can just buy another of what's in there. And because when we buy these machines they are usually off-lease, there are OODLES of the same part # RAM dirt cheap on fleaBay so you CAN have a matched pair for best results, and it costs you even LESS.
It really IS a win-win. You know, as long as you bother to take a look and see what's in there before you buy.
mnem