How long will 16gb of ram remain viable?

[Evie Struggles With Life]

Obv speed and generation matters as well but that aside, how long do you think 16 gigs of ram will be enough for gaming? From personal experience and benchmarks I've seen 16 gb is still is and most likely will be more that enough for gaming, even in more demanding titles. The question is, how many years will it last? Whaddya think?

[igormp]

Only for games? Should be a long time still, unless you're into modding games and running lots of stuff on the background.

[CommanderAlex]

It should last long enough before having to overhaul the computer and upgrade to a new platform. 

 

That's just my $0.02 but unless you start getting really deep into mods as @igormppointed out, should be totally fine. 

[Evie Struggles With Life]

7 minutes ago, igormp said:

Only for games? Should be a long time still, unless you're into modding games and running lots of stuff on the background.

 

4 minutes ago, CommanderAlex said:

It should last long enough before having to overhaul the computer and upgrade to a new platform. 

 

That's just my $0.02 but unless you start getting really deep into mods as @igormppointed out, should be totally fine. 

vanilla zomboid multiplayer entered the chat

[Qyygle]

Even modded games, you'll usually run into game engine limitations before 16gbs becomes the limiting factor. Vram usage also can be an actual limit depending on what graphics card you use, but that's not solvable outside of buying more expensive GPUs.

 

If you run virtual machines or other stuff in the background, it's more an issue, but for most games, running the game only, 16gb is fine till you need a new computer. It might even still be fine for the next 2 computers honestly.

 

I feel like until game engine devs start making serious use of multi-threading and implementing more serious NPC AI + persistant open world spaces, a lot of the random procedurally generated stuff now is barely scratching the core/memory capacity of modern systems. Most of what we see currently is just chasing moar FPS or super high resolution or ray tracing, none of which are actually RAM intensive.

[aDoomGuy]

Stay on 1080p and 16gb will last you long time. Hard to say how long... my crystal ball is at the shop getting upgrades.

[porina]

Feels like it wasn't that many years ago we were asking if 8GB was enough. Devs wont make games requiring more than what most people have. Steam Hardware Survey shows roughly 60% have 16GB or more ram. Interesting that the next logical step of 32GB is almost 15% by itself, compared to almost 20% still on 8GB.

 

I've not looked too closely at DDR5 but think I've seen reports that 8GB modules under-perform due to the way they're arranged internally. If that is the case, the starting point for a high performance DDR5 system would be 32GB. Regardless, 8GB modules are not even close to half the cost of 16GB modules, so going forwards I think we'll see many more 32GB systems as standard.

[LloydLynx]

Lemme guess in 6 years, 16GB will be like 8GB is now. Idk I just have a feeling. 

 

I remember back in the early-mid 2010s getting a laptop with 4GB of RAM and thinking I'd have all the RAM I'd ever need. I was floored to discover that the school computers had 8GB and wondered how in the world someone could use so much RAM. I'm still using that same laptop with 4GB which is plenty for what I need(and the max this machine can handle), but my gaming rig nowadays has 16GB and it feels like the sweet spot. 

[spat55]

If you play Star Citizen or Escape From Tarkov then 32GB is a must have, most games are fine with 16GB.

[Evie Struggles With Life]

13 hours ago, spat55 said:

If you play Star Citizen or Escape From Tarkov then 32GB is a must have, most games are fine with 16GB.

Tried playing EFT(unfortunately) and 16gb was more than enough, the game was optimized by some sewer rats working for breadcrumbs though, probably the worst optimized game I ever played and I've been gaming since I was 5

[spat55]

On 11/30/2022 at 5:59 PM, Evie Struggles With Life said:

Tried playing EFT(unfortunately) and 16gb was more than enough, the game was optimized by some sewer rats working for breadcrumbs though, probably the worst optimized game I ever played and I've been gaming since I was 5

If you upgrade to 32GB and tried it you'd see your system hit over 22GB usage on Lighthouse, I know as I play it and have done that.

[Poinkachu]

On 11/29/2022 at 11:59 PM, Evie Struggles With Life said:

Obv speed and generation matters as well but that aside, how long do you think 16 gigs of ram will be enough for gaming? From personal experience and benchmarks I've seen 16 gb is still is and most likely will be more that enough for gaming, even in more demanding titles. The question is, how many years will it last? Whaddya think?

Pretty sure it's long enough to make you forget you asked this here.

[Beerzerker]

If it's a concern, just grab 32GB's and be done with it - Seriously.
That's what I've got for my setup so I'm set for sometime to come.

However no one can really say for how long 16GB's will be enough, things change over time and sometimes these changes are quick to happen. Some of it will depend on what's being released as new features are added to games and how they are implemented but in the overall, 16GB's as of now is fine.

[Chiyawa]

Depends on your usage.

 

- My parents have a system that only has 8GB RAM, and they couldn't fully utilised it. They usually do e-mail checking, Youtube watching and play casual games.

- My sister use her PC to play modern games such as Mass Effect Andromeda, Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Her system has 16GB RAM and her average gaming session (yeah, she just play games, no streaming or recording game footage) barely hit 8GB, the most is a little over 7GB.

- Me? I play simulation games a lot, such as City Skyline and Anno 1800 or 2205. RAM filled up a lot and the maximum RAM usage recorded are close to 12GB. I don't stream or open other applications. My system has 16GB RAM.

- My friend? Well, let's just say he is close to using all 32GB RAM. He is actively streaming his game, open quite many tabs from his browsers, and running a virtual machine to host Minecraft server (8GB). He needs more RAM as he is constantly utilising over 80% of his system RAM.

 

So, yeah, it really depends.

 

Anyway, I usually use this rule of thumb to determine if you need more RAM: If you constantly hit 80% of RAM usage, you need to upgrade your RAM. For many system that I come across, if the memory usage is over 80%, your system seems to slow down by a margin. Windows OS will actively swap the RAM data to and from your storage media. Of course, sometimes trojan, malware or virus could hog all the resources, but if your system is clean and you always hit 80% of RAM usage, you might need to consider upgrading your RAM.

[whm1974]

I would just get 32GB and be done with it. You don't know how long you will be using your Rig. You may end up being broke in the future.