I am currently using an eMachines laptop with an Intel Celeron Processor and 2 GB of RAM. I know about the popular Intel processors like Core i3, i5 and i7 but I have never heard of the Celeron processor. Can you please tell me the difference between a Celeron processor and the ‘I’ line of processors by Intel?

—Anil Sharma

Dear Anil,

There are different lines for Intel’s processor lines. The ‘i’ line of processors work with parallel processing and they usually have two or more physical cores that help the processor work with different kinds of data at the same time. While Celeron processors may also have two processors if they are the dual core model, they usually are under-powered, compared to the Core ‘i’ line of processors. There are many variables that dictate a processor’s performance like hyperthreading, cache size and turbo boost. While there are single core Celeron processors, a dual-core Celeron processor would be more akin to the Pentium Dual Core processor, since both of these processers have two physical cores. The Intel Core i3 line of processors also have dual cores but they come with hyperthreading which means that the two physical cores of the Core i3 are further divided into two logical cores. This will enable the Core i3 to process logical instructions twice as fast as the Celeron processors; the Core i3 line will also feature larger cache sizes. The Intel Celeron processor is one of the cheapest and under-powered processors that Intel produces. These processors are only used for lighter workloads like browsing the internet and word processing. If that is all you want to do with your computer then the Celeron is okay but throw anything heavier at it, like image processing or gaming, and you’ll immediately notice the processor struggling to keep up. I would not recommend using any heavy programmes with the laptop that you currently own.

I have a Lenovo G40-70 laptop with 4GB RAM, which is not enough for games like Watch Dogs and GTA 5. I have been thinking about upgrading my RAM to 6 GB or 8GB but I’m afraid that my laptop will start misbehaving if I upgrade. Can you please suggest how I should go about the upgrade process so that I can play these games?

- Kritagya Shrestha

Dear Kritagya,

You haven’t given me information about the other specifications of your laptop for me to tell if your system can handle these resource heavy games. I researched your device a little bit and, from what I found out, I don’t think your system can handle the games you specified. I could not find a Lenovo G40-70 with a dedicated GPU and while the processors, Intel Core i3 and Core i5 options, could handle those games, the integrated GPU of your system will not. Even if they did, you’ll suffer massive FPS drops and performance issues. But since there are different configurations for the laptop and your laptop does have a dedicated CPU, the laptop would still suffer performance issues because since the Lenovo G40-70 is a budget laptop, I would assume that even the dedicated GPU on the system would be an entry-level AMD GPU not ideal for gaming. Entry-level budget laptops tend to come equipped with low-performing AMD GPU focused more towards productivity, which would mean that a graphic-intensive game such as GTA V would struggle to keep up. But, if you still want to give it a shot and add additional sticks of RAM to your laptop, I would suggest keeping an eye on two things.

See if your laptop is running on dual-channel or single channel, you can do this without opening your laptop on Windows 8 and above. All you need to do is open ‘Task Manager’ and navigate to the performance tab. Here, click on the ‘Memory’ graph and on the bottom right-hand corner, you should see information about the slots used. If it says 1 out of 2 slots used then all you need to do is buy an additional 4GB of RAM and snap it in; but if it says 2 out of 2 slots used, this means that your computer already is using the two ports available on the device. Which would mean that the 4GB of RAM that you have is running off of two 2 GB RAM sticks. This would mean that upgrading would be more expensive than you think because you have to get rid of both of those sticks and invest in two 4GB RAM sticks. While you can use one of the 2GB RAM sticks with an upgraded 4GB RAM stick for a 6GB of total RAM, I would recommend against it because they will not run in dual-channel mode but will run on ‘Flex mode’. If you have identical sized RAM sticks, they will usually complement each other by working as a single unit; but if the sizes vary, the higher-capacity 4GB RAM stick will be divided into two halves. Your initial 2GB of RAM will work in dual-channel mode with 2GB from your 4GB stick while the rest of the 4GB RAM will run on single-channel mode. While this will still work, your RAM sticks will work 10 to 15 percent slower than complete dual-channel mode. Go this route if you’re on a strict budget. If not, upgrade two sticks to 4GB for a dual-channel setup and 8GB of RAM capacity. But apart from capacity, you also need to keep an eye on the speed of the RAM sticks. Information about the speed of the RAM sticks should also be mentioned on the Task Manager so figure out what speed your RAM is working on and match that speed. Your system matches RAM speeds so if one of your modules are working at a lower speed than the other, both of the RAM sticks will work at the lower speed. Once you understand these aspects of upgrading your RAM, you should be fine and I don’t think you would run into any problems with a RAM upgrade unless your motherboard supports only 4GB of RAM. This is highly unlikely, however, because most modern computer support at least 8GB of RAM.