How Much Does More RAM Affect Performance

[Hipstair]

So, how much does more RAM affect performance?

[helping]

zero effect as long as you have enough

 

the reason for the myth more RAM = faster is because the people that believe that usually have so much shit on their computer more RAM will actually help and prevent having to load/unload stored RAM constantly and use high page file from the hard drive.

 

In that case a reformat would yield more performance than adding the RAM in the first place. 

[SAV1OUR]

depends your use, just for gaming all you need is 8gb editing 16gb 

[Musikman]

For gaming and most general tasks, not much at all. For professional grade software usage applications (video-editing, media production, scientific computing) it makes a huge difference. 

[WoodenMarker]

Depends on what you're doing. Look for benchmarks that are relevant to what you're doing.

[-rascal-]

Having more RAM then what you need does nothing.

Example: You are using up 6GB of RAM. You have 8GB installed in your system. You have 2GB free remaining.

 

The problem comes up when you don't have enough. That's when the system sloooooows down. This is because the system has to use a part of your HDD as temporary storage, swapping the data in and out.

When a typical mechanical HDD is advertised as ~150MB/s - 200MB/s...and the speed of RAM is somewhere in the range of 100,000MB/s with latency in the nanoseconds...yeah, big difference.

Example: You are using 6GB of RAM. You have 4GB installed. You have -2GB free remaining.

[Fred Castellum]

Looks like everyone's already covered your question for ya. All in all you shouldn't need a lot of ram if you don't render video or have at least 100+ chrome tabs open 24/7.... 

[The_Strict_Nein]

I'd recommend downloading around 200GB. That should be enough.

In all seriousness, today, DDR3-1600 8gb is the recommended level. To make it last another few years, 16GB is plenty. However, with mainstream DDR4 around the corner, you're probably better of waiting to get 16GB on a new rig