4 Things to Know About Mixing Soldered and Removable RAM

Adding an 8GB stick to a soldered 8GB stick usually does not give full dual-channel performance. The system may run in flex mode, where only the matched portion operates in dual-channel.

Most laptops with one removable slot and soldered memory treat that slot as a single channel. This limits how much of the memory can run in dual-channel mode.

Flex mode means the first 8GB (the matched portion) runs in dual-channel, while the remaining 8GB runs in single-channel. This is better than pure single-channel but worse than full dual-channel.

Some laptops may run entirely in single-channel mode when mixing soldered and removable RAM. Check your laptop’s specific memory architecture before upgrading.