Upgrading gaming notebook with new SSD and RAM

[kiddingguy]

I'm thinking of getting my gaming notebook - ASUS GL731GV - and upgrade with memory and a new, faster, SSD.

 

Are the:

- WD Black NVMe SSD SN850 1TB (w/ heatsink)

and

- Kingston 32GB DDR4 2666MHz Kit (HX426S15IB2K2/32)

 

(or else the Samsung 980 Pro 1TB SSD?)

 

...compatible with this notebook?

(especially the SSD, and can it fit - because of the heatsit - on the mobo/casing?)

 

And can I easily clone the data of my current NVMe SSD to this new one? There is only one slot for this NVMe.

(or do I need to clone this data to another, regular, HDD and clone/copy it back to the new one) 

[Tantawi]

For the NVME SSD, it already got one of the same size, any upgrade apart from a bigger NVME is a waste of money IMHO and you will not notice it, at all.

For the memory, open the laptop and check the current memory configuration first, it probably got 1 stick of 16GB DDR4 memory and an empty slot, so you can just get another 16GB stick of the same speed and there you got your 32GB  otherwise if it got like 2x8GB sticks then the kit you mentioned is fine.

[kiddingguy]

3 minutes ago, Tantawi said:

For the NVME SSD, it already got one of the same size, any upgrade apart from a bigger NVME is a waste of money IMHO and you will not notice it, at all.

For the memory, open the laptop and check the current memory configuration first, it probably got 1 stick of 16GB DDR4 memory and an empty slot, so you can just get another 16GB stick of the same speed and there you got your 32GB  otherwise if it got like 2x8GB sticks then the kit you mentioned is fine.

There's now a Kingston 256 GB NVMe SSD RBUSNS8154P3256GJ3 (running at 953 MB/s read & 705 MB/s write). The two listed NVMe's from WD/Samsung are having 7000MB/s read & 5300MB/s write and are both 1TB. So quite a lot faster in speeds... or in real-life scenarios is this neglectable?

As RAM is concerned... from what I have learned and experienced is that a 'pack of two' of a same brand is better, performance-wise CAS & timings (and also compatibility), than two single & different sticks.

[Tantawi]

50 minutes ago, kiddingguy said:

There's now a Kingston 256 GB NVMe SSD RBUSNS8154P3256GJ3 (running at 953 MB/s read & 705 MB/s write). The two listed NVMe's from WD/Samsung are having 7000MB/s read & 5300MB/s write and are both 1TB. So quite a lot faster in speeds... or in real-life scenarios is this neglectable?

As RAM is concerned... from what I have learned and experienced is that a 'pack of two' of a same brand is better, performance-wise CAS & timings (and also compatibility), than two single & different sticks.

Only 256GB? (I looked at the wrong spec sheet!), then that SSD upgrade totally makes sense 👍 Make sure you get one with no heatsink (or make sure that it can be removed) to be able to fit inside the laptop. And also note that you will not get the full PCIe Gen 4 speeds you quoted for either of the drives as that laptop is limited to PCIe Gen 3, so you are looking for a maximum of 3000-3500 for both reads and writes, still much faster of course than the one you have but as you said real world performance differens will be neglectable in Windows and everyday usage unless you do a lot of large files copying everyday (files larger than 1GB). Game loading will be noticable faster though so definitely go for it!

You will need an external drive to copy the data you need from the old drive as this laptop will not take an extra M2 drive.

For RAM yes I agree with you, that is ideal (but also most expensive), the alternative I mentioned worked fine for me for many laptops, but your milage might differ so go with what you are comfortable with :)

[Brandon H Supervisor]

2 minutes ago, Tantawi said:

You will need an external drive to copy the data you need from the old drive as this laptop will not take an extra M2 drive.

the rest of your post is spot on but I will mention one thing.

 

You can get an m.2 to USB3 adapter then you can just clone the current drive over to the new and swap them  

 

here's an example https://www.amazon.com/SSK-Aluminum-Enclosure-Adapter-External/dp/B07MNFH1PX/

[Astra.Xtreme]

Don't expect much of a speed difference in upgrading from one SSD to another, and going from 16GB of RAM to 32GB.  You're likely not speed bottlenecked by either of those things.  Things like local file transfers and heavy video editing might show a difference, but everything else not to much. 

Going from 256GB to 1GB will be a nice upgrade though.

[kiddingguy]

So, if real world performance is almost the same... I might just stick with the current setup, and save me some money.

I 'only' use the SSD now for Windows, my programs/apps, swap-file (fixed) and recovery-partition.

For gaming I have a 'WD_BLACK P10 Game Drive' external HDD of 5GB.

Documents, and some older games, etc are saved on the the 5400rpm HDD. Might be a thing to upgrade that ol' regular HDD to a 10K rpm (but also here... I don't think it's price-noticeable) 

[spaceelf]

23 minutes ago, kiddingguy said:

So, if real world performance is almost the same... I might just stick with the current setup, and save me some money.

I 'only' use the SSD now for Windows, my programs/apps, swap-file (fixed) and recovery-partition.

For gaming I have a 'WD_BLACK P10 Game Drive' external HDD of 5GB.

Documents, and some older games, etc are saved on the the 5400rpm HDD. Might be a thing to upgrade that ol' regular HDD to a 10K rpm (but also here... I don't think it's price-noticeable) 

Smaller SSDs (256/512) tend to have worse performance than 1TB models by design.  I would disagree that it'll be about the same, though it may or may not feel like much of a difference depending on your usage.

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

 

As @Tantawi noted, you will need to purchase an NVMe SSD without the heatsink.  Otherwise, the SSD will not fit back inside the chassis of the ASUS GL731GV laptop.  The Samsung and Western Digital SSD's you mentioned are PCIe 4.0 devices.  This 2019-era laptop with the Intel 9th generation CPUs only supports PCIe 3.0 speeds, so you will not see the full speed advantage of these newer SSDs with the laptop.  They will still be very fast, probably close to the 4 Gb/s range.

 

From looking at the manual from https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/GamingNB/G531GD/E15058_G531GW_G731GW_Upgrade_Guide_WEB.pdf, the laptop should support one M.2 2280 SSD, and one 2.5" SATA drive (HDD or SSD).  If a 2.5" HDD is being used inside the laptop, replacing that with a SSD should offer a performance improvement, even at SATA speeds.

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky