How much RAM do you consider to be enough?

[Skeezix the Cat 3,089]

I was under the impression that 16GB was fairly standard for the past like...3 years.  I wanted to up mine to 24, and I have the RAM to do it, I just invested in Dominator Platinum 3GHz modules and it would be a terrible waste to run it at the same speed as my cheap 2400MHz Vengeance sticks.  The current plan is if I really feel like I could use it, I'll try to find a single 8GB stick to put me in the 20s.  Sometimes I'll randomly have some program or 50 tabs in Chrome open that I swear I'm gonna use later but want to play Minecraft and set off a stack of nukes or something stupid like that.

[WaeV 5,049]

I was under the impression that 16GB was fairly standard for the past like...3 years.

I'd call it a standard maximum, whereas I was listing what I thought was standard minimums.

 

RAM is pretty cheap these days though, so you might as well go from 4GB->8GB->16GB as long as it's only an extra $80 or so.

[Kavawuvi 7,026]

I'd call it a standard maximum, whereas I was listing what I thought was standard minimums.

 

RAM is pretty cheap these days though, so you might as well go from 4GB->8GB->16GB as long as it's only an extra $80 or so.

$80 sounds like a lot.

 

Just looking at PCPartPicker:

 

The cheapest 2x2 GB DDR3 kits listed for Newegg are $20.98, or $5.25 per gigabyte.

The cheapest 4 GB DDR4 sticks listed for Newegg are $16.98, or $4.25 per gigabyte.

The cheapest 8 GB DDR4 sticks listed for Newegg are $29.98, or $3.75 per gigabyte. You can also get RAM rated for 2400 MHz (XMP) at this price.

The cheapest 2x4 GB DDR4 kits listed for Newegg are $29.98, or $3.75 per gigabyte. You can also get RAM rated for 2400 MHz (XMP) at this price.

The cheapest 16 GB DDR4 sticks listed for Newegg are $54.99 or $3.44 per gigabyte.

The cheapest 2x8 GB DDR4 kits listed for Newegg are $49.99, or $3.12 per gigabyte.

The cheapest 4x4 GB DDR4 kits listed for Newegg are $49.99, or $3.12 per gigabyte.

 

You can take a few things from this:

• 4 GB has the worst value. You may just be better off spending the extra $13 and going with 8 GB, rather than limiting yourself to 4 GB, even if all you do is type Word documents (I explained a few reasons why in an earlier post).
• Interestingly, 8 GB DDR4 kits rated for 2400 MHz may cost the same as 2133 MHz kits, often from the same brand.
• 16 GB has the best price per gigabyte. Upgrading to it if necessary shouldn't break the bank, either.

I only listed one DDR3 price, because there aren't any 2 GB sticks listed for DDR4. Otherwise, at the same size and with module densities under 16 GB, DDR3 costs around the same as DDR4. Also, this list only includes DIMMs. SODIMMs can cost a little more.

[NeX 1,756]

Sitting at 8GB currently, but that's with an old i7-2600 series and a DDR3 compatible motherboard. Once I feel the need to upgrade the board (and CPU), I'll be going with 16GB of DDR4.

 

So far the UE4 editor is the only program that's even come close to taxing the 8GB that I have, and even then it's usually fine.  16 would just give me a little more breathing room with storage capacity, but the increased speed from DDR3 -> DDR4 should be a nice stacking bonus as well.

 

I can't imagine anything over 24GB would do much other than sit there.  Even our really nice $5k workstations where I work only have 16GB in them.

[Iggy 688]

I got an Amazon gift card from my wife for Father's Day so I ordered 16 GB of new RAM and am going to boost my PC to 32 GB just because.

[Pra3tor1an 1,234]

I'm running 16gig. Can't remember if i said this already as i;m slighlty drink/

[NeX 1,756]

I'm running 16gig. Can't remember if i said this already as i;m slighlty drink/

 

Way to fucking be, mate

[Takka 13,376]

Since I never mentioned, 16gb for me as well.

[Kavawuvi 7,026]

I haven't said what I was using yet, but I'm currently using 16 GB, both on the i3 (Intel Core i3-6100 / GTX 960) build I'm using at the moment and my newer i7 build (specs on my profile).

 

For the i3 build, I got the RAM for two reasons. I mainly got the RAM because I needed to run a couple virtual machines at the same time, each with Windows Server 2012 running, so I figured I'd dedicate 4 GB of RAM to each. It was definitely worth it, as certain workloads (installations mostly) ran considerably smoother and faster with 4 GB of RAM allocated per virtual machine versus just 2 GB.

 

For the i7 build, I got the RAM because I noticed that I frequently use more than 8 GB of RAM. I also figured if I was going to use it without a graphics card for a while, I might as well have some extra memory for the integrated GPU to work with without affecting anything else.

 

From my experience, when playing certain games (War Thunder, Defense Grid: The Awakening, Killing Floor 2, and others) for a couple hours on my MacBook Air (has an integrated GPU and only 8 GB of RAM), Windows would sometimes complain of low memory. This was strange, because usually only around 60-70 percent of the RAM was being used.

[David S 0]

It really depends on what you use the PC for. Typically if you just use it do your work and browse the Internet I'd say 8GB of RAM is quite enough. You really don't need to go over the top with it!  But if you use it for gaming, then 32GB of RAM IMO. You can upgrade it to 64, if you have the money to do so! But it depends also on what type of games you play! I have 32GB of DDR4 RAM and I don't game at all. I gone over the top with it!