I have an Alienware X17 R1, specifically the Best Buy model, which came with a RTX 3070 and Intel 11800H. However, the stock memory is two 8gb sticks of high density RAM. Not gonna go into detail here, but this is a well documented issue with the X17 BB model. High density RAM sucks for gaming and has a significant (around 20%) performance penalty compared to low density RAM, which is what's included in the direct order models.
This RAM kit is well known among X17 owners as a solution. There are other kits that run faster or are cheaper, but may have compatibility issues that I didn't want to mess with. This kit specifically is a no frills, no BS plug-and-play upgrade. Once it's in, it runs at its advertised speed with no XMP required. Despite it having the same 3200Mhz and CL22 as the stock Alienware RAM, I got higher FPS in Destiny 2 (which is what I play most of the time on the laptop). More noticeably, I no longer had massive FPS drops that I used to have with the old RAM.
Obviously, some people will say "bro you went from a 16gb to 32gb of RAM, of course it runs better". While I'm sure that contributes, Destiny 2 is not a RAM intensive game and does not max out a 16gb system. And frankly, I'm not here to analyze how much of my performance increase is from the density change VS the capacity increase. All I know is, I spent 70 dollars to increase my X17's gaming performance by 20%. I'll buy that any day of the week.
So yeah, I bought this RAM to solve a specific niche issue, and it did the trick amazingly well. Maybe someone out there in the same boat as me can take something from this post.
| RAM | 32 GB DDR4 SDRAM |
|---|---|
| Memory Speed | 3200 MHz |
