Can 64GB of ram be justified for most users?

[atavax]

I'm starting to budget for a new PC later this year. I'll probably buy a new CPU motherboard and ram as soon as the next gen comes out. There is certainly an argument for future proofing and that what convinced me to get 32gb with my current system which is about 5 years old at this point. And I guess the problem with having 32gb of ram is you don't know when 16gb of ram would have been problematic if you had not decided to get 32gb of ram. Has 32gb of ram been beneficial lately? Or is 16gb still enough for most end users?

[Guest]

16GB is still enough for most gamers. Streaming and additional software, probably 32GB would be the way to go. 

[Quackers101]

specific workloads, maybe more.

for most 16-32GB is where it can go. 8GB works, but seems to be far too low for today's apps.

16GB at times can feel low, but should have no issues for normal usage.

Also if you want speed over GB.

Edited May 6, 2022 by Quackers101

[Levent]

16GB is enough for most users (gaming, streaming and having lots of background services included). I have upgraded to 32G ram mostly due to I am testing lots of weird shit (mostly FOSS software) in VMs and that gave me enough headroom to run heavier software, even though that is around 2% of the work I do on my desktop, I dont feel bad about getting 32gb ram.

 

64gb of ram is not beneficial at for %99 of the users.

[BiotechBen]

I rarely if ever go above 12ish GB of RAM.

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, Quackers101 said:

 

Also if you want speed over GB.

16GB at 4000mhz or more is hard to beat. Though, there are some 32GB kits that can go that fast, it's just not worth the money spent.

[D4C1T3]

16GB is enough for most users, 32GB is for future proofing unless you're a video editor/streamer/3D modeler?

[DreamCat04]

5 minutes ago, BiotechBen said:

I rarely if ever go above 12ish GB of RAM.

While playing games, I do sometimes use more than 16GB of RAM (I have 48GB). I also have A LOT of stuff open in th background

[FliP0x]

While 16GB is enough for most people, I recommend 32GB at this point for intermediate users that also multitask or run demanding tasks.

 

Unless your usecase demands it, 64GB is overkill even in todays standards.

[porina]

Only used more than 32GB on two occasions: running y-cruncher 10b on hwbot, and using a TON of custom assets in cities skylines. 16GB is still decent enough.

[Quackers101]

7 minutes ago, DreamCat04 said:

While playing games, I do sometimes use more than 16GB of RAM (I have 48GB). I also have A LOT of stuff open in th background

not fully sure how it works, if by accurate reporting or just using more.

But the more RAM you have, you also see more is used.

Also as other mention in higher density single sticks can be better than many lower GB ones. If running in dual channel etc.

16GB is still fine for gaming and background tasks, but a lot more multitasking, then 32 GB might be nice to have.

 

Some production loads.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3A_VNDRb9I

Gaming and RAM?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kef3EEU5WcM

LTT and on some workloads.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUFWalEf31w

[Mark Kaine]

38 minutes ago, D4C1T3 said:

16GB is enough for most users, 32GB is for future proofing unless you're a video editor/streamer/3D modeler?

you wouldn't want to stream from the same machine you're playing on anyways (ideally)

So while 32gb might be good for some use cases (such as dedicated streaming pc) average use case has no need for it (gaming pc)

 

 

36 minutes ago, DreamCat04 said:

While playing games, I do sometimes use more than 16GB of RAM (I have 48GB). I also have A LOT of stuff open in th background

and that is a wrong way to go about it because the more ram you have the more windows will use, by design,  it doesn't *necessarily* mean the ram was actually needed (or in other words actually in use)

[da na]

I often go above 16gb in my work - often running a video editor, cad software, and a VM or two at the same time, perhaps even a game on top of that in addition to a web browser. I've never used all 32gb of my ram, most I've ever seen used is 29gb. So no, no one needs 64gb unless you're doing some serious CAD.

[porina]

23 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

and that is a wrong way to go about it because the more ram you have the more windows will use, by design,  it doesn't *necessarily* mean the ram was actually needed (or in other words actually in use)

I think when most people talk about ram usage, it is the main Windows reported value which is data+code, and does not include the cache that Windows grows opportunistically and shrinks if needed for more important stuff.

[HanZie82]

I multitask so much.
Have about 10 programs open at some times.
I used to have 32GB, i took it out for another computer, back to 16GB now.
And guess what.
NOTHING SLOWED!!!

 

And that includes gaming in memory hungry games, video editing. RAW picture editing. etc.
Not a single hint of difference.

Oh and having 3 browser windows open with each about 20 tabs. Also not a problem. (using Firefox but should be just as hungry as another browser).

 

Unless you specifically have an application that uses that much, then maybe its worth it.
For everyone else, 16GB is enough. Got some cash to spare get 32GB but thats about it.

[Stormseeker9]

1 hour ago, porina said:

Only used more than 32GB on two occasions: running y-cruncher 10b on hwbot, and using a TON of custom assets in cities skylines. 16GB is still decent enough.

Oh cities skylines  it made me upgrade from 16 to 32GB

 

 

[IPD]

I can easily hit 24GB at times, but I have 90 bajillion tabs open most of the time.  32GB is just fine...unless you are using programs that demand a lot.

[Kilrah]

I've got 32GB and with my use (heavy multitasking) I usually only fill that up when working on Lightroom and Photoshop at the same time. Will still get 64 for next build just so I'm set for long term like now (current machine's 7.5 years old).

[freeagent]

16GB should be fine. I am running 4x8 just for the bump in performance from single to dual ranks.

[Beerzerker]

Running 32GB right now myself - No regrets about getting it.  

While 16GB may be enough by today's standards you know the requirements will only increase as time goes by and you really don't know when you'd need the extra GB's, esp if you are planning on running the system for a few years instead of upgrading every other year or so.
I'd have to say get as much as you can or at least more than the current standard, this way you won't be lacking when the next game comes out that needs more than the current standard calls for - You'll already be covered and ready for it.
 

[freeagent]

3 hours ago, Beerzerker said:

Running 32GB right now myself - No regrets about getting it.  

While 16GB may be enough by today's standards you know the requirements will only increase as time goes by and you really don't know when you'd need the extra GB's, esp if you are planning on running the system for a few years instead of upgrading every other year or so.
I'd have to say get as much as you can or at least more than the current standard, this way you won't be lacking when the next game comes out that needs more than the current standard calls for - You'll already be covered and ready for it.
 

The extra can come in handy when you are crunching

[Pasi123]

I usually have few hundred browser tabs, Genshin Impact, Discord and few other applications open and my RAM usage (physical + virtual) is often over 30GB.

Currently I have only 16GB pagefile (and 24GB physical) so I always have to close the game and some browser windows before I can even open DaVinci Resolve.

 

For a while I had the same 24GB physical but with a 120GB SSD for virtual memory and few times I had over 100GB RAM usage with around 1000 browser tabs.

Thatwas pretty nice but I now have Windows 10 installed on the SSD. When I buy a bigger drive for the OS I'll probably use the small SSD for the pagefile again

 

16GB is still fine if you don't have more than ~10 browser tabs open while gaming and don't edit videos while having the browser and game open.

For higher end systems I'd recommend going with 32GB because then you don't have to worry about running out of RAM (unless you are like me).

[xg32]

64gb is slower, but if u need the ram then it's justified.

 

the last few builds i've went from 8gb is enough, 16gb is enough, 32gb is enough, toward the end of the lifecycle it's always became a problem

[freeagent]

For what it’s worth, I don’t use a page file and 99.5% of the time I can use all of my ram and not have any problem. But that one time out of a thousand I might run into something that gets cranky.

[Falkentyne]

14 hours ago, atavax said:

I'm starting to budget for a new PC later this year. I'll probably buy a new CPU motherboard and ram as soon as the next gen comes out. There is certainly an argument for future proofing and that what convinced me to get 32gb with my current system which is about 5 years old at this point. And I guess the problem with having 32gb of ram is you don't know when 16gb of ram would have been problematic if you had not decided to get 32gb of ram. Has 32gb of ram been beneficial lately? Or is 16gb still enough for most end users?

If buying new for gaming, it's smartest to just get 32 GB.  Then you'll be set for awhile.  Even more so if you're getting DDR5.  Windows is using more memory as time goes on, not less.  You can get by with 16 GB, but just running two not too new games goes out of RAM immediately (Apex Legends and Overwatch at the same time and Overwatch came out in 2016).  64 GB is useless unless you are a content creator or render artist who actually needs that much memory, but you can do a lot worse than put 32 GB of DDR4 or DDR5 into an upgrade budget.

 

RAM is just like storage---it's better to have more than you need, than to run out and pay the price...