Is 2GB of RAM enough for me?

[DevastatingMYTH]

Hi there

A bit of a computers noob here

The last time I had a computer was in 2013

So yea, I'm a 19 year old computers grandpa, and I need help

I don't actually even remember the specs of my computer back then, but it was able to run Red Alert 2 which was actually *literally* everything I used it for

My dad did give it an upgrade and my brother installed GTA IV and Battlefield 2 Bad Company on it, and I installed Red Alert 3 and Minecraft

They ran smoothly, and I think it was 1GB that they ran on? I don't really know

Then my computer stopped working for some reason, and we didn't fix it because I had to focus on studying, then we just left it there after we left our home

Anyway, nowadays my brother has a laptop, but it's broken, it turns on but the screen stays black, so it needs fixing, anyway, it has 2 GB of RAM, it was able to run the new version of Need for Speed Most Wanted (the one that had the konsegig-agera-something super car) and Far Cry 3? I think it's 3, the one where you're stuck on an island after your boat broke

I'm going to fix that PC in about three months, and I need to know if I'll need to upgrade its RAM

The PC is called Acer Aspire 4741G

Specs:

- Accepts win 10

- CPU: Intel core i5/i7 (idk, it has two stickers on it)

- Processor speed: 2.53GHz

- RAM: 2GB

- Resolution: 1366x768

It can receive a maximum upgrade of 4GB of RAM

I'm currently using Android for everything, I have a Redmi 7a 16/2 (2 GB of RAM) and it's serving me well

Games like Minecraft, War Robots, and World of Tanks Blitz all run smoothly even on the highest settings (except for the FPS of World of Tanks Blitz, it goes down to 31-32 FPS on the highest settings), with music running in the background along with apps like MacroDroid (think: Tasker)

But when I open a heavy Google Sheets spreadsheet, it starts to lag, and after I change a function or two it starts to have severe lag, then I have to restart the app for the lag to go away, I think it's because it has too much data in the Undo database thing

That's my current case on my mobile, but I think it differs for the PC, the PC may do better with 2GB of RAM than what a phone can

Anyway, I will be using that PC for opening heavy spreadsheets, typing out documents around 25 pages long, playing games like Minecraft but with shaders like SEUS, and World of Tanks

Will it lag on 2GB?

Is 4GB enough for my usage?

Will I need a better PC?

I consider myself a heavy user on mobile, actually too heavy; I got osteoarthritis out of it for typing too fast for long periods of time with just my thumbs — 78 WPM

I think I will be a heavier user on PC

So at first I'm going to use it for working mainly, so I need it to be smooth, I don't want the same lag I have on this phone when I open heavy spreadsheets

Later on I'll probably have 60 Chrome tabs open but not currently opened, 2 currently opened, with YouTube running (on 240p of course, if not 144p) on a TV connected to it, a document open on one side of the screen, with a picture on the other, and typing out stuff, and maybe with music, but that's a few months down the line

I don't mind working 12 hours a day and spending my entire salary on the top notch specs if 32GB of RAM is what it takes, but I also don't want to buy more than what I need.

I'm fine with 30 FPS, I just don't like the 2s input lag of text in big documents/spreadsheets, that's the one thing I'm most concerned about; it's unbearable.

So could you please have the goodness to advise me?

Edited May 4, 2020 by DevastatingMYTH
Changed V to IV, it wasn't even released back then.

[atxcyclist]

One thing to keep in mind here is that it's likely that your Windows installation is a 32-bit one, so you could max the memory on that board and it's only going to see about 3.25gb in the operating system if that's the case. Web browsers eat ram these days with a few tabs open, so 2gb might be very difficult to use. 

[aDoomGuy]

Hehe, well 2 gigs of RAM ain't gonna cut it these days. My machine is currently using 7,8 GB RAM and the only thing I have open is Chrome with 2 tabs but I do have loads of background things running.

 

The minimum I recommend personally is 8 GB but that's an absolute minimum. 16 gigs will be plenty. There are affordable options to buy you just have to set a budget for what you can afford.

[rahl97]

Google Chrome famously loves eating your ram and these days 4gb sadly isn't a ton. The standard amount is about 8gb. If you're planning to heavily use this device and play games on it I would probably recommend an upgrade

[DevastatingMYTH]

 

2 minutes ago, NZgamer said:

2GB is very small nowadays, I'd recommend an absolute minimum of 4GB. Shaders might even be a struggle on 4.

 

2 minutes ago, atxcyclist said:

One thing to keep in mind here is that it's likely that your Windows installation is a 32-bit one, so you could max the memory on that board and it's only going to see about 3.25gb in the operating system if that's the case. Web browsers eat ram these days with a few tabs open, so 2gb might be very difficult to use. 

Ok, so 2GB is obsolete

3.25GB will cause lag

What should I get?

Don't worry about the cost, I just don't want that dreaded 2s text input lag.

[DevastatingMYTH]

3 minutes ago, aDoomGuy said:

Hehe, well 2 gigs of RAM ain't gonna cut it these days. My machine is currently using 7,8 GB RAM and the only thing I have open is Chrome with 2 tabs but I do have loads of background things running.

 

The minimum I recommend personally is 8 GB but that's an absolute minimum. 16 gigs will be plenty. There are affordable options to buy you just have to set a budget for what you can afford.

Don't worry about my budget, I value my sanity over buying RAM that won't be enough, I'll work for it

2 minutes ago, rahl97 said:

Google Chrome famously loves eating your ram and these days 4gb sadly isn't a ton. The standard amount is about 8gb. If you're planning to heavily use this device and play games on it I would probably recommend an upgrade

Can you give me a few examples of what 8GB of RAM can do? So I can compare it to my usage.

[atxcyclist]

Just now, DevastatingMYTH said:

 

 

Ok, so 2GB is obsolete

3.25GB will cause lag

What should I get?

Don't worry about the cost, I just don't want that dreaded 2s text input lag.

If you're looking for another laptop, where you live will be a large factor. That Acer is quite an old platform and putting money into it is likely not a good idea at this point.

[DevastatingMYTH]

4 minutes ago, atxcyclist said:

If you're looking for another laptop, where you live will be a large factor. That Acer is quite an old platform and putting money into it is likely not a good idea at this point.

Where I live is another issue I need to worry about for finding the needed laptop brand — Syria

I'll try to figure something out, if it needs shipping, so be it – I really need a PC.

Okay, I'll buy a new one, but I still need to know the minimum requirements I need for my use.

Edited May 4, 2020 by DevastatingMYTH
I read the reply wrong at first.

[bmx6454]

you would be better off changing the hdd for ssd, you can max the ram, but if you max it, you will barely run most games on min settings 30fps, and that won't last long.

[atxcyclist]

1 minute ago, DevastatingMYTH said:

Where I live is another issue I need to worry about for finding the needed laptop brand — Syria

I'll try to figure something out, if it needs shipping, so be it – I really need a PC.

What brands would you recommend?

Many of the larger brands like HP, Dell, and Lenovo probably do sell laptops there, but their product offerings and availability may be very different than what we get where I'm from in the United States. Something with a Ryzen mobile processor would be a good choice these days, the integrated graphics in them are pretty good, and because of the newer platform the battery life will be great too.

[rahl97]

6 minutes ago, DevastatingMYTH said:

Can you give me a few examples of what 8GB of RAM can do? So I can compare it to my usage.

It's quite hard to say as obviously other parts of the system come into play, CPU and the graphics card If you're gaming much. As others have said, 8 GB is sort of the minimum for an average user. Once again it depends on what programmes and background applications you might have but it's enough for an excel document and most games will run on it in some capacity, a YouTube video and browsing. However, I would massively recommend 16 GB if you're gonna invest in a new system.

[DevastatingMYTH]

8 minutes ago, bmx6454 said:

you would be better off changing the hdd for ssd, you can max the ram, but if you max it, you will barely run most games on min settings 30fps, and that won't last long.

I don't want to go with something that walks on one leg, I need good performance, so I won't upgrade this one; like you guys said, I should go with a new one

7 minutes ago, atxcyclist said:

Many of the larger brands like HP, Dell, and Lenovo probably do sell laptops there, but their product offerings and availability may be very different than what we get where I'm from in the United States. Something with a Ryzen mobile processor would be a good choice these days, the integrated graphics in them are pretty good, and because of the newer platform the battery life will be great too.

Will keep that in mind

Thank you, and thank you everyone who replied for your helpful advices.

7 minutes ago, rahl97 said:

It's quite hard to say as obviously other parts of the system come into play, CPU and the graphics card If you're gaming much. As others have said, 8 GB is sort of the minimum for an average user. Once again it depends on what programmes and background applications you might have but it's enough for an excel document and most games will run on it in some capacity, a YouTube video and browsing. However, I would massively recommend 16 GB if you're gonna invest in a new system.

Does Minecraft with SEUS count as gaming much?

I mean, on my mobile I play for like 7h a day.

So I'll go with 8GB but I'll buy one that can be upgraded, then if I find that I need more, I'll go with 16GB

Is this a good call?

Edited May 4, 2020 by DevastatingMYTH
Elaborated a tiny bit on the gaming part.

[GroundDead]

I recently got another 8GB of RAM to previous 8 and not because I needed it but because I could. For those 18 months with 8GB in it, I would run out of it only if I really tried to do that, i.e. I could do it on purpose but my relatively heavy usage still didn't. Didn't really need 60 tabs though. I do (and did) play games on one monitor and watch YT videos in 1080p on another monitor while having Winamp, Discord, Whatsapp and Afterburner running on other two monitors at same time and I still didn't run out of those 8 GBs of RAM.

[DevastatingMYTH]

2 minutes ago, GroundDead said:

I recently got another 8GB of RAM to previous 8 and not because I needed it but because I could. For those 18 months with 8GB in it, I would run out of it only if I really tried to do that, i.e. I could do it on purpose but my relatively heavy usage still didn't. Didn't really need 60 tabs though. I do (and did) play games on one monitor and watch YT videos in 1080p on another monitor while having Winamp, Discord, Whatsapp and Afterburner running on other two monitors at same time and I still didn't run out of those 8 GBs of RAM.

Oh yeah I forgot I will also have Discord and Slack running too, thanks for mentioning them

That seems fairly heavier than what I would use, so I guess 8GB is enough

Ok, so I'm going for 8GB, but I will go for one that can be upgraded just so when it becomes obsolete I don't have to upgrade again.

Thank you everyone.

Any further advices would still be greatly appreciated though.

[DevastatingMYTH]

And about the 60 tabs, rn on mobile I have 26 tabs open, but not going through all of them constantly, I'm just going between like two, sometimes four at maximum

The other tabs are just things I searched for, then left them there to check later when I'm bored or have time to.

I did reach 100+ tabs and discovered the :D counter once, but it's mostly 20-80 tabs.

[GroundDead]

Definitely take into consideration possible RAM upgrade, just in case you need that later on.

EDIT: tabs in mobile browsers and PCs work differently. A tab in mobile one won't be loaded even if it's there on the list. If you use another app, tab won't load. Tab son PC by default will take resources. Even while browser is not an active app, it's take them. Bookmarks do wonders though and are way more usable than on mobile browsers.

[DevastatingMYTH]

1 minute ago, GroundDead said:

Definitely take into consideration possible RAM upgrade, just in case you need that later on.

Yea sure thing

Probably will go with Windows 64bit too, I don't want this same thing to happen a decade later from now when and if I ever need to upgrade again.

[GroundDead]

32bit is pointless right now on modern PCs even if you had less than 4GB of RAM. Just isn't worth the hassle it can make down the line.

[DevastatingMYTH]

1 minute ago, GroundDead said:

32bit is pointless right now on modern PCs even if you had less than 4GB of RAM. Just isn't worth the hassle it can make down the line.

Got it :)

So I'm going for these minimum specs:

- Windows 64bit

- 8GB of RAM, but upgradable up to 16GB minimum

Anything else I should take into account?

[DevastatingMYTH]

20 minutes ago, GroundDead said:

Definitely take into consideration possible RAM upgrade, just in case you need that later on.

EDIT: tabs in mobile browsers and PCs work differently. A tab in mobile one won't be loaded even if it's there on the list. If you use another app, tab won't load. Tab son PC by default will take resources. Even while browser is not an active app, it's take them. Bookmarks do wonders though and are way more usable than on mobile browsers.

Oh

I should definitely take that into account, thank you very much for mentioning that

I will use bookmarks.

[GroundDead]

SSD is a must, I wouldn't take any under 250ish GiBs but that's me. In general, 120ish GiB SSD as a system drive and some HDD, like 1-2 TiB for everything else or at least 250ish GiB SSD if without HDD. And trust me, Excel on SSD is amazing.

Dedicated graphics card can always be useful, something like 1050/1650 or in that range for AMD doesn't add much cost but is "fine" for almost everything.

 

Oh, and backlit keyboard. That's must as well.

Edited May 4, 2020 by GroundDead
N't on few places

[DevastatingMYTH]

6 hours ago, GroundDead said:

SSD is a must, I wouldn't take any under 250ish GiBs but that's me. In general, 120ish GiB SSD as a system drive and some HDD, like 1-2 TiB for everything else or at least 250ish GiB SSD if without HDD. And trust me, Excel on SSD is amazing.

Dedicated graphics card can always be useful, something like 1050/1650 or in that range for AMD doesn't add much cost but is "fine" for almost everything.

I will probably have to search most of what that means but thank you, I'm sure it's very useful.

6 hours ago, GroundDead said:

Oh, and backlit keyboard. That's must as well.

Thank you for this suggestion, but I prefer touch typing, I can just sense where that little thing is at in the keyboard then touch type using Dvorak

Even if I did get a backlit keyboard, I will be using stickers to change QWERTY to Dvorak which will render the lights useless, and I can't just switch the location of buttons as the keys will also have Arabic on them, so it'll look like this:

So I might only need this for seldom used symbols or for if I wanted to sell the laptop, which I probably might a few decades later, so yea I probably should get one with one, thanks again.

[DevastatingMYTH]

Ok, so, after going through the replies again I've decided the following:

I'm going to upgrade that PC to 4GB of RAM

7 hours ago, NZgamer said:

… I'd recommend an absolute minimum of 4GB. …

And switch from HDD to SSD

7 hours ago, bmx6454 said:

you would be better off changing the hdd for ssd, you can max the ram, but if you max it, you will barely run most games on min settings 30fps, and that won't last long.

And check https://www.crucial.com/compatible-upgrade-for/acer/aspire-a515-51g for any other upgrades

Because I will just use it for work at first and since SSD works best with Excel

6 hours ago, GroundDead said:

… And trust me, Excel on SSD is amazing. …

I think I'll be fine for the beginning

And since NZgamer is a Minecraft player who runs a server and recommended a minimum of 4GB then it means I can run Minecraft, so I'll play Minecraft with no good graphics at first

Then, a few months later, or maybe next year, after working on the PC had paid for it, I'll get a PC or a Desktop with a minimum of 8GB of RAM and Windows 64bit like most have recommended, maybe also have dual monitors, then start being a heavy user.

According to the capabilities of 8GB

7 hours ago, GroundDead said:

I recently got another 8GB of RAM to previous 8 and not because I needed it but because I could. For those 18 months with 8GB in it, I would run out of it only if I really tried to do that, i.e. I could do it on purpose but my relatively heavy usage still didn't. Didn't really need 60 tabs though. I do (and did) play games on one monitor and watch YT videos in 1080p on another monitor while having Winamp, Discord, Whatsapp and Afterburner running on other two monitors at same time and I still didn't run out of those 8 GBs of RAM.

8GB will be more than enough for me, better have more than what I need than less, but I will buy a PC that is 8GB minimum, not upgraded to 8, because I might need more RAM in the future and I don't want to upgrade my PC again when it inevitably becomes obsolete.

Thanks again everyone for your replies, I really do appreciate it a lot.

If anyone has any further advices, I'm more than happy to hear.