Soldered RAM locks you into one speed.

Yes. Soldered RAM runs only at the speed the manufacturer designed it for. You can’t change it, overclock it, or swap it out for faster sticks later.

The whole point of soldered RAM is that it’s permanent. That means no upgrades, no tweaking. The speed is whatever the chip is rated for — typically the JEDEC standard for that generation (like DDR5-4800 or DDR5-5600). You’re stuck with it for the life of the device.

With socketed RAM, you can buy faster sticks, enable XMP/EXPO, or even overclock manually. Soldered RAM gives you exactly one option: whatever came in the box.

If you are buying a laptop or mini PC with soldered memory and you care about RAM speed, check the specs before you buy. Otherwise, you might end up with a machine that feels slower than it should, and there’s no fixing it.

This is one of those “know what you’re getting into” situations.