Is this RAM spec correct? Ice Lake supports DDR4-3200 & LPDDR4X-3733. Why would a battery-life focused laptop not use LPDDR4X, but also use a slower speed DDR4?
"Many hours" battery life 😂
And let this be a damn testament: bigger batteries don't mean a lot of weight (it's around 3-4 g / WHr), and it's not just LG, but even the Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1.
//
The RAM spec is *probably* wrong; HP put out their Spectre x360 Ice Lake RAM as LPDDR4-3200 when in fact it is actually LPDDR4X-3733.
Gram has 8 or 4G soldered on ram and an empty slot. There’s no lpddr4 sodimm anytime soon. And they had to use ddr4 in this case. As for 2666mhz speed, it could be better but very few sodimms are capable of.
It's as correct as LG lists it. Their official specs say DDR4, not LPDDR4X. Though I agree the latter is more likely, until they say otherwise, DDR4 it is.
It has to be since they are providing a SO-DIMM slot. WIll be interesting to see how the changes the performance of the platform, there are a lot of indications that a lot of the performance in the GPU dept comes from the extra bandwidth. Given they dropped the eDRAM this time the DDR4X it so important!
There is no eDRAM that makes GPU performance in Grams worse than any other icelake laptop. for a dual-channel memory to use its bandwidth well it needs to be of the same size. having 8 GB soldered on and adding 16GB SODIMM will likely reduce it to single-channel speeds. IGPU is all about RAM bandwidth. I also think the RAM spec is wrong, I have known people using 32GB SODIMM modules in these so that should make these support a maximum of 36GB-40GB ram.
I havent seen a laptop in years not at least report dual channel with mix RAM sizes, havent done extensive benchmarking though. I cant see why the small amount of virtual GPU RAM couldnt be etched out of equal sizes on each channel and ive assumed it was in recent years. Not entirely sure how Windows deals with it, but for the most part thee average desktop tasks are hugley bandwidth restricted and we would be talking about 1-2% in most tasks, compression aside. As i said, ive been mixed machines report dual channel for years and i assumed things were mapped in a dual channel way up until a certain point. The video RAM would surely be simple to do though.
Do note for productivity this is not an issue the performance hit is not that significant. There are hardly any think and light out there that can support an upgrade to 40GB ram. Not to mention dual M2 slots. The only noticeable impact will be on iGPU. Apart from that and the price, these LG grams are the best of all worlds, weight/battery size/screen. I especially love the 17-inch model, it is the perfect screen size and resolution combination out there. If not for my thinkpad P52 that is the laptop to have for productivity.
Interesting how they managed to fit a 2-in-1 and a 72Wh battery in a 1.15kg package. Probably sacrificed chassis rigidity for weight, which isn't a bad thing imo.
I have the 2019 LG Gram 17. It does feel flimsy, unlike a ThinkPad X1 or a MacBook Pro, and the hinges don't have enough tension to keep the humongous screen rock-solid. On the other hand, it has that amazing screen in the footprint of a 15-inch laptop, and is featherweight.
Yeah its always going to be a tradeoff somewhere. Ive been eyeing it off as a secondary machine for when im working without external monitors on the road etc. Icelake certainly makes this more appealing as ive been finding the old UHD620 to struggling so much in desktop rendering whenever its pushing multiple monitors of even just more than 1080p. A GPU SHOUDLNT drop frames opening the start menu Intel!
The Grams are all about being light, so almost all the complaints about it can only be solved by adding weight. The one exception has been their use of SATA SSD drives instead of NVMe. A year ago I set up my friend's 14" Gram and replaced the SATA drive with an NVMe one in the x4 slot. Much much faster storage. Actually it had two m.2 slots so I left the SATA one in there. Yeah that adds a tiny bit of weight and uses a tiny bit more power but the extra capacity and local backup capability was worth it. Hopefully these new ones are strictly NVMe now.
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ikjadoon - Friday, December 13, 2019 - link
Is this RAM spec correct? Ice Lake supports DDR4-3200 & LPDDR4X-3733. Why would a battery-life focused laptop not use LPDDR4X, but also use a slower speed DDR4?"Many hours" battery life 😂
And let this be a damn testament: bigger batteries don't mean a lot of weight (it's around 3-4 g / WHr), and it's not just LG, but even the Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1.
//
The RAM spec is *probably* wrong; HP put out their Spectre x360 Ice Lake RAM as LPDDR4-3200 when in fact it is actually LPDDR4X-3733.
erinadreno - Friday, December 13, 2019 - link
Gram has 8 or 4G soldered on ram and an empty slot. There’s no lpddr4 sodimm anytime soon. And they had to use ddr4 in this case. As for 2666mhz speed, it could be better but very few sodimms are capable of.Ryan Smith - Saturday, December 14, 2019 - link
"Is this RAM spec correct?"It's as correct as LG lists it. Their official specs say DDR4, not LPDDR4X. Though I agree the latter is more likely, until they say otherwise, DDR4 it is.
danielfranklin - Saturday, December 14, 2019 - link
It has to be since they are providing a SO-DIMM slot.WIll be interesting to see how the changes the performance of the platform, there are a lot of indications that a lot of the performance in the GPU dept comes from the extra bandwidth.
Given they dropped the eDRAM this time the DDR4X it so important!
sharath.naik - Saturday, December 14, 2019 - link
There is no eDRAM that makes GPU performance in Grams worse than any other icelake laptop. for a dual-channel memory to use its bandwidth well it needs to be of the same size. having 8 GB soldered on and adding 16GB SODIMM will likely reduce it to single-channel speeds. IGPU is all about RAM bandwidth. I also think the RAM spec is wrong, I have known people using 32GB SODIMM modules in these so that should make these support a maximum of 36GB-40GB ram.danielfranklin - Sunday, December 15, 2019 - link
I havent seen a laptop in years not at least report dual channel with mix RAM sizes, havent done extensive benchmarking though.I cant see why the small amount of virtual GPU RAM couldnt be etched out of equal sizes on each channel and ive assumed it was in recent years.
Not entirely sure how Windows deals with it, but for the most part thee average desktop tasks are hugley bandwidth restricted and we would be talking about 1-2% in most tasks, compression aside.
As i said, ive been mixed machines report dual channel for years and i assumed things were mapped in a dual channel way up until a certain point. The video RAM would surely be simple to do though.
0x1874DE4C - Wednesday, December 18, 2019 - link
So I STILL have to choose between "only" 16gb in dual-channel mode, or more in single-channel mode.That's why I didn't buy the 2019 Gram 17, and held on for an Ice Lake refresh. Looks like I wasted my time.
There's a massive amount of space inside them, and plenty of room for two sockets. No excuse.
sharath.naik - Thursday, December 19, 2019 - link
Do note for productivity this is not an issue the performance hit is not that significant. There are hardly any think and light out there that can support an upgrade to 40GB ram. Not to mention dual M2 slots. The only noticeable impact will be on iGPU. Apart from that and the price, these LG grams are the best of all worlds, weight/battery size/screen. I especially love the 17-inch model, it is the perfect screen size and resolution combination out there. If not for my thinkpad P52 that is the laptop to have for productivity.Aviraj_21 - Saturday, January 4, 2020 - link
aaaRetycint - Saturday, December 14, 2019 - link
Interesting how they managed to fit a 2-in-1 and a 72Wh battery in a 1.15kg package. Probably sacrificed chassis rigidity for weight, which isn't a bad thing imo.fazalmajid - Saturday, December 14, 2019 - link
I have the 2019 LG Gram 17. It does feel flimsy, unlike a ThinkPad X1 or a MacBook Pro, and the hinges don't have enough tension to keep the humongous screen rock-solid. On the other hand, it has that amazing screen in the footprint of a 15-inch laptop, and is featherweight.danielfranklin - Sunday, December 15, 2019 - link
Yeah its always going to be a tradeoff somewhere.Ive been eyeing it off as a secondary machine for when im working without external monitors on the road etc. Icelake certainly makes this more appealing as ive been finding the old UHD620 to struggling so much in desktop rendering whenever its pushing multiple monitors of even just more than 1080p.
A GPU SHOUDLNT drop frames opening the start menu Intel!
olafgarten - Saturday, December 14, 2019 - link
This actually looks pretty good, unlike most ultra portables it seems like it's designed to be partially upgraded. Good port selection to.Ice Lake also has good performance so this could quite easily compete with the new Macbook Pro if you discount the GPU.
isthisavailable - Sunday, December 15, 2019 - link
It’s time for 16:10, LG!danielfranklin - Sunday, December 15, 2019 - link
Agreed. Though the 17" version is 16x10 !jmunjr - Tuesday, December 17, 2019 - link
The Grams are all about being light, so almost all the complaints about it can only be solved by adding weight. The one exception has been their use of SATA SSD drives instead of NVMe. A year ago I set up my friend's 14" Gram and replaced the SATA drive with an NVMe one in the x4 slot. Much much faster storage. Actually it had two m.2 slots so I left the SATA one in there. Yeah that adds a tiny bit of weight and uses a tiny bit more power but the extra capacity and local backup capability was worth it. Hopefully these new ones are strictly NVMe now.AdhesiveTeflon - Thursday, December 19, 2019 - link
So it's basically a HP Spectre. It's the exact same chassis.jmunjr - Sunday, December 22, 2019 - link
It's much, much lighter than the Spectre.rychastings - Saturday, December 21, 2019 - link
how much of a difference compared to the Intel® Core™ i7-8565U, 1.80GHz/4.60GHz?