Is the 16GB RAM benchmark becoming obsolete?

[Stahlmann]

Ever since I became part of the PC enthusiast community the general consensus was that 16GB is the ideal amount of memory for gaming PCs. 8GB is too little, 32GB is unnecessary.

 

I had 32GB of memory in my system for a few years now. But because of an ongoing RMA with G.Skill I have a temporary 16GB kit. And I was very surprised how easy it is nowadays to fill up 16GB. Discord running in the background, one browser tab with video or music playback on the secondary monitor and one game on the main monitor is already enough to fill up 80-90% of my memory with some AAA games. It's easy to see how this can lead to problems with new releases in the very near future.

 

Before sending out my 32GB kit I actually considered just a single 8GB stick as a temporary replacement. I guess i'm lucky that i didn't get that.

 

While keeping in mind how cheap RAM has gotten (<$100 for a 32GB kit of DDR5), would you still recommend just 16GB for a mid-range gaming PC?

[Tan3l6]

16GB has gotten obsolete it seems, but all depends on workload. 16GB for casual and even newer games should play nice, 32GB is nicer though.

Mostly games with a lot of mods installed peak over 16GB I believe....

[Alex Atkin UK]

A lot of people seem surprised, but it makes total sense that once games started being designed for current-gen consoles then PC requirements would go up.  The consoles have the benefit of being able to pull data into RAM more quickly than PC, so effectively they can use higher quality assets than their memory quantity would suggest.  Just look at Spiderman 2, its insane how you can fast travel to anywhere on the map and the camera quickly zooms across the map to that location.

 

On PC as I upgraded to a 7800X3D I also went for 64GB RAM. as it never hurts to have more than you need, allows more game data to remain in cache.

 

So yeah, personally I think 32GB is a minimum now.

[filpo]

23 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

would you still recommend just 16GB for a mid-range gaming PC?

it only makes sense for ddr4. Because those you can get for next to nothing (35 bucks) so they can be great for budget builds, this also means you can get a 5600 + 6600xt/6650 xt build in $650

 

The reason why it doesn't make sense for ddr5 is cuz it's not very common in the DDR5 space so the cheapest >5600mt/s <=cl36 costs only 10 bucks less than a 32gb kit 

Kingston FURY Beast 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR5-5600 CL36 Memory (KF556C36BBEK2-16) - PCPartPicker

TEAMGROUP T-Force Vulcan 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-5600 CL36 Memory (FLBD532G5600HC36BDC01) - PCPartPicker

 

then if we go higher to 6000 cl30 the cheapest 32gb kit is $95 (great price) but for 16gb there isn't even a kit with 6000 cl30 (for ddr5)

Silicon Power Value Gaming 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory (SP032GXLWU60AFDEAE) - PCPartPicker

[porina]

32 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

While keeping in mind how cheap RAM has gotten (<$100 for a 32GB kit of DDR5), would you still recommend just 16GB for a mid-range gaming PC?

Define mid range? I'd even recommend differently depending on the platform.

 

For anyone at all caring about performance, anything DDR5 is 32GB minimum (2x 16GB), due to the lower density modules being rather awful.

With DDR4 I'm more lenient, since I don't think 1Rx16 has infected enthusiast grade desktop ram yet. In that case, 16GB (2x8GB) is still acceptable, more likely towards someone kicking an AM4 system on or a similar budget build.

 

Overall to me it feels like we are in that transition era. It doesn't feel like that many years ago we were asking if 8GB was still enough or should we go 16GB. It isn't a hard cut off point. 16GB today I think is still good enough for most people, most of the time. For a new build, if you're going upper mid range (4070 tier gamer or higher) then 32GB minimum is a no brainer. 4060 tier gamer is more questionable.

[Stahlmann]

6 minutes ago, porina said:

Define mid range? I'd even recommend differently depending on the platform.

I'd define mid-range around $1000-1500 USD.

 

I've been out of the picture for over 2 years now since i built my last PC or made the last big upgrade and it seems a lot has changed with the introduction of DDR5. Seems i got my work cut out for me when i plan to switch platforms in the future.

[Lurking]

19 minutes ago, filpo said:

it only makes sense for ddr4. Because those you can get for next to nothing (35 bucks) so they can be great for budget builds, this also means you can get a 5600 + 6600xt/6650 xt build in $650

 

The reason why it doesn't make sense for ddr5 is cuz it's not very common in the DDR5 space so the cheapest >5600mt/s <=cl36 costs only 10 bucks less than a 32gb kit 

Kingston FURY Beast 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR5-5600 CL36 Memory (KF556C36BBEK2-16) - PCPartPicker

TEAMGROUP T-Force Vulcan 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-5600 CL36 Memory (FLBD532G5600HC36BDC01) - PCPartPicker

 

then if we go higher to 6000 cl30 the cheapest 32gb kit is $95 (great price) but for 16gb there isn't even a kit with 6000 cl30 (for ddr5)

Silicon Power Value Gaming 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory (SP032GXLWU60AFDEAE) - PCPartPicker

This. For DDR5 there is no meaningful saving with 16GB. So the question is moot.

 

Windows also will make effort to use more RAM to reduce SSD use. 

 

No one ever used a computer and wished for less memory. No replacement for displacement.

[filpo]

15 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

'd define mid-range around $1000-1500 USD.

16gb is definitely obsolete then

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i5-12600KF 3.7 GHz 10-Core Processor  ($184.99 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler  ($33.90 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: ASRock Z690 Extreme ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($129.99 @ Newegg) 
Memory: Silicon Power GAMING 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  ($54.97 @ Amazon) 
Storage: *MSI SPATIUM M371 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($47.32 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: *PowerColor Fighter OC Radeon RX 7800 XT 16 GB Video Card  ($509.99 @ Amazon) 
Case: *Phanteks Eclipse G300A (1 Fan) ATX Mid Tower Case  ($39.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: *MSI MAG A650BN 650 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($65.98 @ Newegg) 
Total: $1067.13
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-01-15 08:46 EST-0500

 

And at $1500 with ddr5 it's easy

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7600 3.8 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($199.00 @ B&H) 
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler  ($33.90 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: ASRock B650M-HDV/M.2 Micro ATX AM5 Motherboard  ($139.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: Silicon Power Value Gaming 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  ($94.97 @ Amazon) 
Storage: *Leven JPN600 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($89.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: XFX Speedster MERC 310 Black Edition Radeon RX 7900 XT 20 GB Video Card  ($779.99 @ B&H) 
Case: Lian Li LANCOOL 216 ATX Mid Tower Case  ($99.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: Cooler Master MWE Gold 850 - V2 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($95.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $1533.82
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-01-15 08:45 EST-0500

[GuiltySpark_]

8GB DDR5 DIMM's (for 2x8GB kits) being performance compromised means they shouldn't even be considered and frankly shouldn't exist. 

 

32GB minimum, period. 

[venomtail]

It will highly depend on where you live. For gaming and live in the West? Yea, 32GB will become the new lowest recommendation. Living in a 3rd world? Gaming, entertainment and even daily infrastructure apps will still be build around slower machines that also lack RAM in total.

[Tan3l6]

I'm old enough to remember when 16MB was way more than enough.

The times have evolved a "bit".

 

/OT

[porina]

2 hours ago, filpo said:

16gb is definitely obsolete then

 

And at $1500 with ddr5 it's easy

Those are nice illustrations of what's possible in that budget. I have to admit, when I saw the price range, I was like, what does that get you now?

[Mihle]

I have 16 GB RAM (Ryzen 3600, 5700 XT) and are yet to use a game that use up all of the RAM. The most I have seen is 14/16 but usually it's closer to 12/16, that is including browser, Spotify etc.

 

But I usually don't play games from this year, I usually play games that is more than a year old.

 

I do expect to find a game that fill up the 16 GB at some point in the next 3 years tho, but I might have upgraded already at that point.

 

An memory limit I have hit twice is 8GB VRAM on the GPU, Horizon Zero Dawn being one of them. That is a much bigger limitation on my PC than the the 16 GB RAM. I had to spesifically have lower settings, not because of GPU performance itself, but because the VRAM.

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

3 hours ago, Mihle said:

I have 16 GB RAM (Ryzen 3600, 5700 XT) and are yet to use a game that use up all of the RAM. The most I have seen is 14/16 but usually it's closer to 12/16, that is including browser, Spotify etc.

Its not easy to judge given Windows will quite actively page out anything it thinks it doesn't need "right now", as you still need some RAM left over for the IO cache.

 

All games AFAIK benefit to some degree from having a bigger IO cache, as it completely eliminates having to go to the SSD for an asset it had already loaded previously but had been removed from RAM as it wasn't needed for a while.  However fast SSDs are, pulling assets from the RAM cache is way faster and especially if Windows is messing around paging stuff.

 

In Linux for example, a lot of distros have moved to having the pagefile (swap) in RAM so rather than pushing it to the SSD it is compressed and put into a virtual pagefile in RAM.  It seems kind of nuts initially but with CPUs being so fast just compressing that data so it takes up less and moving it from normal RAM to the swap RAM is far more efficient than dumping it to permanent storage using up SSD writes.

 

Simply put, you can't have too much RAM (as long as you didn't sacrifice on the RAM timings to get more RAM) as it can always be used by the OS to improve performance.

 

Also you mention Horizon, its possible if you HAD 16GB on the GPU you would then run into a system RAM problem, as all assets have to move via system RAM to get to VRAM.  The more VRAM you have, the more system RAM you need also.

[Mihle]

1 hour ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Its not easy to judge given Windows will quite actively page out anything it thinks it doesn't need "right now", as you still need some RAM left over for the IO cache.

 

All games AFAIK benefit to some degree from having a bigger IO cache, as it completely eliminates having to go to the SSD for an asset it had already loaded previously but had been removed from RAM as it wasn't needed for a while.  However fast SSDs are, pulling assets from the RAM cache is way faster and especially if Windows is messing around paging stuff.

 

In Linux for example, a lot of distros have moved to having the pagefile (swap) in RAM so rather than pushing it to the SSD it is compressed and put into a virtual pagefile in RAM.  It seems kind of nuts initially but with CPUs being so fast just compressing that data so it takes up less and moving it from normal RAM to the swap RAM is far more efficient than dumping it to permanent storage using up SSD writes.

 

Simply put, you can't have too much RAM (as long as you didn't sacrifice on the RAM timings to get more RAM) as it can always be used by the OS to improve performance.

 

Also you mention Horizon, its possible if you HAD 16GB on the GPU you would then run into a system RAM problem, as all assets have to move via system RAM to get to VRAM.  The more VRAM you have, the more system RAM you need also.

Interesting, didn't know that. I wonder if there is a way to see historic data, or Log how much RAM is put in to pagefile, I thought that only happened when you maybe hit maybe 15,5/16 or something.

[Lurking]

11 hours ago, Mihle said:

I have 16 GB RAM (Ryzen 3600, 5700 XT) and are yet to use a game that use up all of the RAM. The most I have seen is 14/16 but usually it's closer to 12/16, that is including browser, Spotify etc.

That is using all RAM. Rule of thumb is to upgrade when 75% is used. I suspect in your scenario Windows is already using SSD to keep a bit working RAM open.