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I am planning to increase my RAM, but I have a doubt whether my laptop supports DDR3 or DDR3L.

The HP site shows it uses DDR3L, but the Task Manager and CPUZ show it's DDR3. But the voltage shown in CPUZ is 1.35V. This confuses me on which RAM to buy to upgrade my laptop.

Screenshot From HP website:

ScreenShot From HP website

Screenshot from CPUZ:

ScreenShot from CPUZ

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  • Type the actual part number in to Google: HMT451S6BFR8A and the first link is SK Hynix which states "SK hynix Unbuffered Small Outline DDR3L SDRAM DIMMs"
    – Mokubai
    Jun 27, 2020 at 19:05

2 Answers 2

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According to this knowledge base article from Dell:

Newer Notebook systems are utilizing Intel 4th Generation processors that require a new type of memory SoDIMM known as DDR3-Low Voltage or "DDR3L".

[...]

DDR3L is pin-compatible with DDR3. DDR3L is a dual voltage capable memory SoDIMM, which supports operation at both 1.5V and 1.35V.

[...]

DDR3 is a single voltage capable memory SoDIMM, which supports 1.5V operation only. It is NOT compatible with systems using 4th gen Intel processors, which exclusively support 1.35V operation for memory.

Since you're running on 1.35V and on a 5th Gen mobile processor I'd suggest buying a DDR3L model. Since this is an Dell articile I'm not sure if this limitation (4th Gen) is only applicable for Dell notebooks or universal, but since DDR3L is compatible with both specifications it's a safe bet.

DDR3 sticks might not work in this environment if your laptop does not support 1.5V operation (which i'd suspect) and even if it does would not be as power efficient.

I don't think CPUZ is wrong with reading out DDR3 since DDR3L seems to be a sub-specification of DDR3 and is meant to just read out the generation (DDR1, DDR2, DDR3 or DDR4).

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Go with the manufacturer specification, otherwise another utility to use is SIV system information viewer http://rh-software.com/: nothing else comes close to analysing what is in your computer.

If I lookup the model number of the ram it states ddr3l. CPUz is incorrect.

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