8GB RAM vs 16GB RAM for gaming

[AlTech]

So I've had many  people dispute this and I wanted to ask you guys to settle this.

 

Should somebody building a new PC today buy 8GB RAM or 16GB RAM for gaming.

 

 

Leave your thoughts down below.

 

Personally I think 16GB is where it's at.

 

In about 2 weeks  10 days I will actually do testing to see the results and post back here with 5 or 6 games running with 8GB or 16GB.

[pwn_intended]

8GB is totally fine (and overkill) for most gaming. Only the biggest AAA titles will actually use anything above 4-6 GB.

16 is obviously better because MOAR, but likely won't make any difference in 99.9% of games.

 

[themaniac]

iirc games are now recommending 8GB of ram so 16GB is probably safe but you should be fine with 8GB for now

[Julian5]

Just now, AluminiumTech said:

So I've had many  people dispute this and I wanted to ask you guys to settle this.

 

Should somebody building a new PC today buy 8GB RAM or 16GB RAM for gaming.

 

 

Leave your thoughts down below.

 

Personally I think 16GB is where it's at.

 

In about 2 weeks I will actually do testing to see the results and post back here with 5 or 6 games running with 8GB or 16GB.

well I depends on your needs, I have 8gb and the max I use when playing GTA 5, CSGO or FSX is 7gb so for me 8gb is enough

[AlTech]

Just now, pwn_intended said:

8GB is totally fine (and overkill) for most gaming. Only the biggest AAA titles will actually use anything above 4-6 GB.

16 is obviously better because MOAR, but likely won't make any difference in 99.9% of games.

 

Actually in Minecraft I was able to allocate 6GB RAM to it with 16GB and it gave me better performance.

Before I allocated 3GB back when I had 8GB.

[Misanthrope]

Still haven't run into an "Oh shit can't run this due to ram" situations yet with 8, but that is only if you count with nothing else open.

 

If for whatever reason (i.e. streaming, watching videos at the same time you game, etc) you need to have stuff open I'd recommend 16gb. The Price difference is small enough that you can afford a bit of extra comfort imho.

[Lumaterian]

I'd love to see a game where 8GB would not be enough, but unless you're on an extreme budget RAM is so cheap nowadays you should just get 16GB.

[AlTech]

Just now, Misanthrope said:

Still haven't run into an "Oh shit can't run this due to ram" situations yet with 8, but that is only if you count nothing else opened.

 

If for whatever reason (i.e. streaming, watching videos at the same time you game, etc) you need to have stuff open I'd recommend 16gb. The Price difference is small enough that you can afford a bit of extra comfort imho.

Yeah I leave stuff open in the background so that when I stop gaming I can switch to something else or so I can stream games or record while gaming.

[GirlFromYonder]

6 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

So I've had many  people dispute this and I wanted to ask you guys to settle this.

 

Should somebody building a new PC today buy 8GB RAM or 16GB RAM for gaming.

 

 

Leave your thoughts down below.

 

Personally I think 16GB is where it's at.

 

In about 2 weeks I will actually do testing to see the results and post back here with 5 or 6 games running with 8GB or 16GB.

16 for the future 8 for the next 1 year

[Misanthrope]

Just now, AluminiumTech said:

Yeah I leave stuff open in the background so that when I stop gaming I can switch to something else or so I can stream games or record while gaming.

Chrome can easily throw your system into virtual memory if you stream definitively 16gb. Probably a 6 core if you can afford x99 too.

 

[AlTech]

Just now, Misanthrope said:

Chrome can easily throw your system into virtual memory if you stream definitively 16gb. Probably a 6 core if you can afford x99 too.

 

Lol I'm fine with my i5 and 16GB. I don't use Chrome. I use Edge or Vivaldi.

[xgn]

windows 10 is using 4gb ram for me now. I have open firefox and updater tools. Nothing else. 8GB Isn't that much. You defenly have to use pagefiles if you go for it.

I would say 12gb is fine and 8gb really isn't.

[xGGAx]

11 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

So I've had many  people dispute this and I wanted to ask you guys to settle this.

 

Should somebody building a new PC today buy 8GB RAM or 16GB RAM for gaming.

 

 

Leave your thoughts down below.

 

Personally I think 16GB is where it's at.

 

In about 2 weeks  10 days I will actually do testing to see the results and post back here with 5 or 6 games running with 8GB or 16GB.

almost no difference, but more ram is better if you can afford it

 

[SageOfSpice]

5 minutes ago, Lumaterian said:

I'd love to see a game where 8GB would not be enough, but unless you're on an extreme budget RAM is so cheap nowadays you should just get 16GB.

Space Engineers, Dragon's Dogma, modded Fallout 4...

 

I'm not going to say that you CAN'T run games with 8Gb, but you're going to have a much better experience with 16Gb imo. I have 8Gb, and I'm constantly getting low memory prompts. I do a fairly good job of keeping my processes under control, too. Only thing that saves my games from crashing a lot of the time is the paging file.

[Morgan MLGman]

I've had many games surpass 8GB threshold when gaming + having a Firefox open with like 15 tabs, when I play Black Ops 3, RAM usage is around 11GB-12GB, I've also had more than 8GB used in The Witcher 3, Rise of the Tomb Raider and H1Z1 (weird, right?)

 

TL;DR, even though 8GB should be enough to play triple-A games at the moment, for people who build new rigs, recommending 8GB is simply stupid and is not reasonable.

The sweet spot is at 12GB, but nobody would buy 12GB when you can buy 16GB for that cheap.

[Sumsar]

8GB of RAM will suffice in most cases. However, I am kind of a "power user", hence I think that spending 30$ more dollats on a 16GB kit of RAM is totally worth it.

[xgn]

Just now, SageOfSpice said:

 Only thing that saves my games from crashing a lot of the time is the paging file.

Exactly. Which basicly means you dont have enough. Im using 24gb ram and no pagefile. Ram is much faster than hardrives even ssd unless you have revodrives.

[2FA]

8GB is enough for gaming. If you have other programs open along with your game, you will almost certainly go over 8GB. I was up to 12GB with The Division, Chrome, and a couple of other programs open.

[Morgan MLGman]

14 minutes ago, Lumaterian said:

I'd love to see a game where 8GB would not be enough, but unless you're on an extreme budget RAM is so cheap nowadays you should just get 16GB.

Go and play Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 then. 12GB is nothing for that game.

[Lumaterian]

What in the heck are these games doing with 10+ GB of ram lmao

[themctipers]

23 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

So I've had many  people dispute this and I wanted to ask you guys to settle this.

 

Should somebody building a new PC today buy 8GB RAM or 16GB RAM for gaming.

 

 

Leave your thoughts down below.

 

Personally I think 16GB is where it's at.

 

In about 2 weeks  10 days I will actually do testing to see the results and post back here with 5 or 6 games running with 8GB or 16GB.

16gb minimum for me

unless you're playing minecraft, 32gb+ 

i mean it. minecraft maxes out my 24gb of ram.

[AresKrieger]

8GB is generally for now 16 will be fine for the near future, but there is no downside to to much in this case,

1 minute ago, Morgan MLGman said:

Go and play Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 then. 12GB is nothing for that game.

Is it really that bad, I heard it was a hungry POS, but that is really bad.

[79wjd]

3 minutes ago, Morgan MLGman said:

Go and play Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 then. 12GB is nothing for that game.

I have no issues playing BO3 with only 8gb (excluding the first week where I'd crash after like 30 minutes). 

[BiscuitMassacre]

I use 8GB DDR3 with no problems. I never ran out at all. I totally advise not using 16GB unless you plan on HEAVY video editing or if you have 800 tabs in chrome. Other than that I think the only other purpose is bragging rights. 

[SageOfSpice]

Just now, BiscuitMassacre said:

I use 8GB DDR3 with no problems. I never ran out at all. I totally advise not using 16GB unless you plan on HEAVY video editing or if you have 800 tabs in chrome. Other than that I think the only other purpose is bragging rights. 

Do you monitor your ram usage? Run with MSI, and set it to show pagefile usage as well. I think you might be surprised.

 

1 minute ago, themctipers said:

16gb minimum for me

unless you're playing minecraft, 32gb+ 

i mean it. minecraft maxes out my 24gb of ram.

Seriously? Lol. Don't you have to set minecraft up to use more than 2Gb?

 

5 minutes ago, Lumaterian said:

What in the heck are these games doing with 10+ GB of ram lmao

Well, Space Engineers is kind of a broken indie game that renders entire 120km wide planets at once, but...

The point still stands. I'm not really sure though, honestly.