How Much RAM is Enough?

[Sir Topham Hatt]

I had a PC that had 8GB of ram in it (10+ years ago).
I added another 8GB and noticed no real difference.  The huge photoshop file I was trying to open still didn't open without faults.

 

I think I have 8GB still in my PC and it's pretty snappy (I don't particularly mention SSDs for Windows drives anymore as I would have thought by now that is standard).

Will adding more be of any real benefit?

I play a few games, surf the net and that's about it.

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

Additional RAM won't make your system any faster.

 

What it DOES do is give more leanway for other programs (mainly backend) to do things more efficent. Not necissarily faster.

 

It depends what you DO with it. With all my VM's I run, I need 32GB of RAM.

 

With this newer system, I have 64GB of RAM (board's limit) I'm only using 1/4 of it.

[NinjaGinger]

16 gigs of ram is more than enough, then again, they said that about 8 gigs of ram once upon a time.

[aioraito]

Depends on your use case... It also depends on the DDR generation you are using as well as the transfer rate... Installing Windows 7 and newer on computers with DDR1 and DDR2 RAM may take hours but will just be minutes if using DDR3 and DDR4...

 

You need to have the highest transfer rate for DDR3 and DDR4 [subject to motherboard compatibility] and also be using a SSD for boot drive...

 

16GB RAM should be the minimum since sooner or later, 32bit program compatibility will be dropped...

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

Out of curiosity, is the computer using a HDD or a SSD?

 

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky
 

[+virtorio MVC]

Depends on what you do. For some 8gb is more than ample, for others 32gb is pushing it.

[+devHead Subscriber²]

RAM need kind of follows the law of diminishing returns for the most part.  16 GB of memory is likely more than enough for most users today.  The benefit of going from 8 GB to 16 GB is pretty evident in everyday use, especially if you have multiple programs open at the same time, or multiple tabs open in a browser.  Going from 16 GB to 32 GB is a step up, but if you are doing basically the same tasks, you won't see much benefit I would say. 

 

I have 32 GB of RAM because I run VMs sometimes, and I use photo processing software, and I find that both having a fairly good GPU and plenty of memory definitely helps. If you have digital music you play on your PC, then using a media player that can load multiple songs into RAM, especially if they are lossless, is a plus as well.

[ThaCrip]

in short... 8GB or 16GB of RAM is typically where one wants to be without knowing too much about the users use cases. typically these offer the best performance to the $ spent.

 

but if you ask me to recommend a single amount of RAM not knowing the persons usage patterns, I would go with... 16GB of RAM. it's the safe choice since it will cover a large portion of people to make sure they won't have performance problems due to lack of RAM and price is still reasonable and your not going to have RAM problems for the foreseeable future.

 

but I pretty much see RAM like this as a general guideline for most people as they will likely be apart of one of the following four categories (although the two I mentioned above are safer not knowing the persons general usage patterns)...

 

-4GB = if one is a lighter user, and is using Linux, 4GB of RAM might be 'good enough' (especially if you got a SSD). note: but as a general rule, unless the person is a really light user it seems 4GB if sort of THE minimum usable standard nowadays even though technically 2GB might work (on Linux), but does not leave much room as a browser can burn that up fairly quickly. but anything under 2GB of RAM is just outright bad short of a very limited amount of uses.

 

-8GB = the sweet spot, especially for non-gamers (or light gaming and games that are not too recent). note: not much reason not to have at least this much RAM if you can get it since, the last I checked, it's cheap enough (very affordable (I suggest buying used RAM unless price difference is minimal compared to new)) and gives you room to breathe if your web browsing etc.

 

-16GB = the sweet spot, especially if your a gamer. probably the best bang-for-your-buck, although one might be able to argue this for 8GB of RAM depending on ones usage patterns. but speaking for myself... I can't say I notice any obvious performance difference in day-to-day use between 8GB and 16GB and I was using 8GB from May 2012 until sometime in 2020 when I went to 16GB, but it was priced right (pretty much $45 for 2x 8GB DDR3 chips. I got them used) and gives me a little more room to breathe. but anyone who mainly browses the web and plays some level of games, especially if the games are nothing too recent/fancy, probably won't even really notice the difference (although one may have to close their web browser if they don't have 16GB of RAM (but I kind of suggest closing ones web browser anyways for maximum performance in games so CPU load is a little lighter)), if they do it won't be really obvious (at least not for me since I am using a SSD).

 

-32GB = beyond this is overkill and is almost certainly a waste of $ short of a select amount of people as I would even argue this is mostly a waste of $ for most people. because unless one is doing a fair amount of RAM heavy tasks, there will probably be very little to no difference between 16GB of RAM and 32GB of RAM as I think it's not super easy to see a difference between 8GB and 16GB of RAM which means it's going to be that much harder to spot a difference at 32GB of RAM.

 

 

p.s. but you can tell RAM usage has climbed vs back around 10 years ago as back then (in May 2012 I had 8GB of RAM (2x 4GB)) 8GB was more than enough but you can see over the last some odd years it's not as plentiful as it once was. still, I noticed not long ago now when switching from Linux Mint v20.x-Cinnamon to Linux Mint v20.x-Xfce (I am using 'Desktop Settings > Window Manager: Xwfm4 + Compton' (default is 'Xfwm4 + Compositing') on Xfce) that RAM usage does seem noticeably lighter as you leave the PC running for many days (currently I got 10+ days of uptime and browser was running for several days etc) with the web browser (Firefox etc) open with quite a few tabs open etc that RAM usage, at least so far, tends to stay around 4-5GB, where as before when I was on Cinnamon not long ago, with similar usage pattern, that RAM usage would often climb to around 8GB and I have even seen it reach 12GB or so here and there. so with Xfce, I don't even think 4GB of RAM would be all that bad (especially paired with a SSD) even though I would say it's a little low by today's standards as I tend to see 8GB of RAM or 16GB of RAM as most common standards for anything decent as one of those two will almost surely be the best bang-for-the-buck. but if you asked me this same question back in say the earlier part of the 2010's decade, instead of saying '8GB or 16GB of RAM' like I am now, I would have probably said, '4GB or 8GB of RAM' as the sweet spot. so things have increased but, at least for roughly general usage, I don't see this trend continuing to increase like it has in the last decade or so vs from around now til about another decade from now even though I won't be surprised if it increases some, just not as much.

Edited January 26, 2022 by ThaCrip

[Sir Topham Hatt]

It's okay everyone 😛 - thanks for the responses.

 

This will be for my new HTPC (I'll stop banging on about it after this thread!), so will only run Windows and Plex for 4k streaming sometimes (most will be 720p or less).  Sometimes some other programs to grab meta data for certain files, but that's it.

8GB of 2666mhz DDR4 ram was about £20 - £30, so while not hugely expensive, if it's £20 I can save and spend on sweets, I'd rather that than waste another 8GB.

Current HTPC works fine on 8GB.

 

The PC will have a NVMe drive for Windows, HDD for storage.

 

Some good resource in this thread though!

[Sir Topham Hatt]

Scratch that, it is 2400 Mhz - I guess it won't be that much difference?

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

Don't think of speed or amount as "faster". In the real world, it does nothing.

[adrynalyne]

On 30/01/2022 at 11:02, Mindovermaster said:

Don't think of speed or amount as "faster". In the real world, it does nothing.

False.

 

I don't think it matters for something like an HTPC, but it absolutely does something.

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

On 30/01/2022 at 12:06, adrynalyne said:

False.

 

I don't think it matters for something like an HTPC, but it absolutely does something.

It depends what you do with it, yes. But more RAM won't make Windows any faster. It depends on your system.

[adrynalyne]

On 30/01/2022 at 11:13, Mindovermaster said:

It depends what you do with it, yes. But more RAM won't make Windows any faster. It depends on your system.

If you are ram starved, it will make Windows faster.

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

On 30/01/2022 at 12:32, adrynalyne said:

If you are ram starved, it will make Windows faster.

I doubt between 8 and 16 will make any difference.

[+E.Worm Jimmy Subscriber¹]

On 30/01/2022 at 13:32, adrynalyne said:

If you are ram starved, it will make Windows faster.

Yeah.

 

4-5 years ago I defaulted to 8gb

 

Now I get 16gb.... No need for more but I usually end up using around 10-12gb... So 8 would not be perfect anymore

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

On 30/01/2022 at 12:40, E.Worm Jimmy said:

Yeah.

 

4-5 years ago I defaulted to 8gb

 

Now I get 16gb.... No need for more but I usually end up using around 10-12gb... So 8 would not be perfect anymore

Like I said, it depends on what you use. Windows itself only uses a few Gigs of memory. (If that)

[Marujan]

 

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

On 30/01/2022 at 13:02, Marujan said:

 

That, too..

[adrynalyne]

On 30/01/2022 at 11:45, Mindovermaster said:

Like I said, it depends on what you use. Windows itself only uses a few Gigs of memory. (If that)

Windows will use more if you give it more for prefetch, which makes things launch faster. Nvidia can also tap into your system ram.

 

Right now with nothing running, and what I consider a normal amount of startup items, I am using 8% of my ram. I would be using 7% if it was a clean install. 

 

I have 128GB. I will let you do the math.

[hellowalkman Reporter]

More RAM = more caching on RAM => less caching on disks => generally a more smoother experience overall. But, depending on the task, it's generally diminishing returns once you go over 8GB.

[ThaCrip]

On 30/01/2022 at 13:38, Mindovermaster said:

I doubt between 8 and 16 will make any difference.

Yeah, I think that's the hard truth for many users (even if there is technically some difference it will be small enough not to really matter in real world use, or, at least not matter enough to justify the extra cost for many users). especially if they don't do really demanding tasks and are already using a SSD. because just getting a SSD makes a noticeable(potentially big) difference (which further helps off-set any lack of RAM to a degree), especially if you start to load more then one thing at a time and it's accessing the hard drive it really slows down as I notice this on my backup computer which is still on a 250GB HDD (which I had since March 2006). but it works well enough for light usage. but if my main PC ever died, and I had to switch to using that for a while as my main PC, I would definitely be putting in a SSD immediately.

 

so unless a person is doing tasks that blow well over 8GB of RAM, chances are they are fine 'as is' (at least for basic-ish usage). besides one can often squeeze more performance out of their limited 8GB of RAM setup by simply closing their web browser before doing another more heavy RAM task if 8GB starts to become a bit of a issue which will free up a lot of RAM when you only got 8GB. besides, I usually do that anyways even with 16GB of RAM because I want to get maximum CPU cycles (and I think even GPU to) dedicated to the task, like say when I play video games occasionally. but I typically have my browser running all of the time as I leave my primary PC running all of the time short of occasional reboots or power downs to clean it out etc.

 

hell, I think I could say the following for most people in terms of RAM... I would say the biggest all-around difference from a increase in RAM for general usage (or so) would probably come either from 2GB to 4GB of RAM or 4GB to 8GB of RAM (especially given one can get 8GB of RAM for cheap enough, so just about everyone should be on 8GB of RAM, if possible (although 4GB of RAM will be okay on Mint v20.x-Xfce for browsing for many)) as after that the benefits start to decline quickly as 16GB (so 8GB to 16GB) I could see but beyond this is almost certainly a total waste of $ for the typical person, if not the vast majority, especially given the cost of 32GB of RAM is not exactly pocket-change either where as 8GB is easily affordable and even 16GB is still reasonable. but to state the obvious... unless you barely use your computer, just about everyone will want a minimum of 4GB of RAM nowadays which will be passable for browsing the web etc as 2GB is sort of a BARE MINIMUM for practical usage nowadays, even for lighter OS's as 1GB of RAM or less your going to be severely crippled. but good news is, for someone's computer who has 2GB of RAM there is probably a fair chance it can be upgraded to 4GB of RAM for very cheap.

Edited January 30, 2022 by ThaCrip

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

If the computer is using a hard disk drive, you may notice more of a performance improvement by upgrading to a solid state drive than by increasing its RAM. 

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky
 

[bikeman25]

Ran Gskill compatiblity checker for my Board, Processor, and such, highest DDR4 ram it recommended is 2666mhz, despite believe Processor could support up to 2933 with this Board.      with my Current 16gb of ram with my normal programs open  left still available is 3.5gb currently lol.   

 

Laptop might get upgraded soon as can afford to, and if local PC shop can get it open,  update it's m.2 to 500gb boot drive,  and storage drive possibly as well, and the Ram to max it will allow speed wise, and capacity wise 

 

[Tomoko]

640k ought to be enough for anybody, but I'm currently running 8 GB and it still seems just fine for what (little) I do. If I were building a new system I'd probably go with 16.