Is 8GB of RAM Enough In 2018?

[asus killer]

why would anyone leave chrome tabs open while playing is beyond me. 8gb is plenty, as i said many times, for the average users

[AshleyAshes]

My workstation at home has 32GB and I just got another 16GB for $157 CAD with the aim of hitting 64GB once I locate another matching set of 8GB DIMMs.

[Blademaster91]

8GB is enough,but glad I bought 16GB of ram when it was still under $100. I can't justify paying double for another 16GB.

 

46 minutes ago, Daniel644 said:

no, thats why I use Firefox and NOT chrome, I can still see enough of the tab to atleast ID the website the tab is

Why not try one of those tab extensions for Firefox,or onetab? I'll get over 50 tabs in firefox,but getting to the point where you can't tell what a tab is too much for me,plus even Firefox is more responsive at 100 tabs or less.

 

[SolarNova]

Depends on what ur doign i supose.

 

I've got 16gb RAM and i have rarely seen my RAM usage get close to 16gb, and those times have been down to bad game patches that caused memory leaks.

 

Sitting here with my backgroudn programs and 6 tabs open using firefox browser im using 3.1gb.

 

So i'd say 8gb is the recommended minimum, whilst 16gb should be a solid goal if a budget allows. Anything more would have to be for "future proofing" or specific requirments that use alot of RAM.

[Razor512]

16GB should be the bare minimum for basic use, while 32GB is acceptable for moderate gaming and other common tasks.

64GB is about right for most users today who are doing gaming, web browsing and some light content creation work.

Sadly due to the DRAM price fixing, the amount of system RAM that users have, has not increased by much.

 

https://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/matthew-wilson/chinas-economic-regulator-is-investigating-dram-and-nand-price-fixing/

 

 

[AshleyAshes]

3 minutes ago, Razor512 said:

16GB should be the bare minimum for basic use, while 32GB is acceptable for moderate gaming and other common tasks.

64GB is about right for most users today who are doing gaming, web browsing and some light content creation work.

I can't tell if this is satire or not.

[Daniel644]

5 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

8GB is enough,but glad I bought 16GB of ram when it was still under $100. I can't justify paying double for another 16GB.

 

Why not try one of those tab extensions for Firefox,or onetab? I'll get over 50 tabs in firefox,but getting to the point where you can't tell what a tab is too much for me,plus even Firefox is more responsive at 100 tabs or less.

 

to much work to switch tabs through an extension, i've got all my tabs how I want them, I could probably trim a few off if I wanted to, but either way once RAM prices return to normal i'll get more then and just deal with it for now, I already robbed 8GB out of my 6700k gaming rig to have RAM for my Ryzen 5 1600 rig

[poochyena]

So yes, unless you have a workstation or don't understand how to close tabs, then 8GB is plenty.
Kinda annoyed they didn't test firefox though.

[HeroXLazer]

Meanwhile, there is me with 4GB.

[Drak3]

If Chrome is involved, no single CPU can support enough RAM to get by.

[Guest]

Main takeaway from this is Chrome is very RAM heavy. I imagine all the OEMs in business PCs would have around 4-8 . . . Google should really consider optimizing Chrome better when I'm using around 2GB of RAM with 8 tabs open - or could it be Windoze 10?

[Egg-Roll]

I have 32GB ram and I sometimes require tons of tabs... I've crashed chrome at 500+ tabs  (exact numbers unknown incidentally opened up 700+ tabs)

The most annoying part is not my ram but watching chrome gobble up my CPU resources for no real reason 

 

I will always suggest more than 8GB for any gamer, 12-16 is the min imo because not everyone will close everything, plus those background processes, including yes chrome...

 

2 hours ago, asus killer said:

why would anyone leave chrome tabs open while playing is beyond me. 8gb is plenty, as i said many times, for the average users

Important tabs, the fact google removed the restore tabs page like how firefox has it still, the list is nearly endless

For me if I close chrome it would take upwards to 5 minutes to load everything and continue on... So instead I leave it open, yes i sometimes see issues but rarely.

[asus killer]

9 minutes ago, Egg-Roll said:

 

Important tabs

i use the phone

[Razor512]

2 hours ago, AshleyAshes said:

I can't tell if this is satire or not.

It depends on your use case.

 

If all you are doing is checking email, then yes, 8GB might work out for you, but for anything more intensive, and you will not have a smooth experience, especially over the course of a day of usage.

[AshleyAshes]

11 minutes ago, Razor512 said:

If all you are doing is checking email, then yes, 8GB might work out for you

Ohhh okay.  Definitely satire.  No one could actually be that stupid.

 

You had me, that was good.

[SkilledRebuilds]

I don't like having apps in systray or any auto launch mechanic...I have 16GB

 

I use 900mb to 1100mb after Windows boots to idle.

Usual usage is 1.5-4gb when using the machine in most everyday tasks.

Only when gaming or editing does it crack past 8gb easy.

 

But only cos it's there.

If I remove 8GB, it all runs similarly, but will be swapping data as I sit about 7gb-7.8gb total when doing games/editing.

[Canada EH]

depends on what you are using your pc for

8GB is fine for 88% of regular users!

[Misanthrope]

5 hours ago, Windows7ge said:

My desktop has 64GB DDR4. Startup alone I'm using around 2~3GB. Opening up, Chrome with a few tabs, Notepad++, Visual Studios, 3D modeling software, LibreOffice, while streaming a video on VLC from my network server memory usage pegs around 6.5GB...yep...

Yes I also have a long list of apps I can open but why would you ever need all of those simultaneously? That's just ridiculous and don't try to tell me you can 3D model, Code, write your documenting notes, watch a video and operate this while streaming it simultaneously because I just wouldn't believe you.

[Arika]

this by no means how it should be but this is how i see it

 

4GB - very light use, checking emails and occasional internet searchs

8GB - "normal use", web browsing, watching videos light photo editing

16GB - the above and gaming

32GB - heavy gaming, streaming, moderate video and photo editing, small home servers

64GB - Large home Server, heavy content creation

[Shreyas1]

battlefront 2 uses 10 gb of ram...

[Guest]

TL;DR, yes. Been using 4GB for the past few months, and my only issue is not being able to play Just Cause 3. Which my GPU can't really handle anyway. Plus, I think Opera uses a bit less RAM than Chrome, so I'm fine there.

[Razor512]

One issue is why aren't these companies pushing for higher density memory?

 

Why isn't anyone making non ECC memory that can hold 32-64GB per stick.

 

Assuming that prices become more sane, why can't they push to have standard Z270 and Z370 platforms using 64GB sticks of RAM in order to support a more comfortable 256GB of RAM if all slots are populated?

 

If we could get 256GB of RAM on a mainstream platform, we would have enough RAM to do things like run adobe premiere pro, davinci resolve, and photoshop at the same time, and possibly have some left over RAM to have reddit pulled up for some much needed cat, dog, and red panda pictures.

[kaiju_wars]

7 hours ago, asus killer said:

why would anyone leave chrome tabs open while playing is beyond me. 8gb is plenty, as i said many times, for the average users

I have dual monitors, that's why.  

I stream, so having the game on one monitor, and my Twitch up on the next also helps out a lot.  Helps me make sure that my stream is actually working and people aren't staring at a black screen.

8 is fine if you close down programs when you game and you only have one monitor.  It's not good enough if you multitask though, especially with streaming, or even looking up guides to help in games.  

 

Some games even love more RAM, such as Battlefield 1 and Wildlands.

[Mr. Smiley]

3 hours ago, Misanthrope said:

Yes I also have a long list of apps I can open but why would you ever need all of those simultaneously? That's just ridiculous and don't try to tell me you can 3D model, Code, write your documenting notes, watch a video and operate this while streaming it simultaneously because I just wouldn't believe you.

Run the video in the background for noise or just something to glance at every once in a while.  Document open to take notes, 3d modeler to make models, coding to do who knows what, and then a web browser to search for answers on how to code or model something.  

 

I regularly have a game, microsoft word, opera, firefox, discord, HWmonitor, my minecraft server, matlab, random research papers, and who knows what else at the same time.  Doesn't matter if I can't see it all the time but it is still all there.  It is just easier to leave stuff open to quickly flip back to it when needed than to constantly open and close programs.  

[ryancheu]

This was a good video, I appreciate how they don’t fudge their numbers. Too many sites have done this sort of test and their numbers always show 16Gb to be faster or equal, never slower. When it actually has no impact, you expect the 8Gb to be better just as often as the 16Gb.

 

It’s interesting that Rise of the Tomb Raider is actually faster on 16Gb. I think there’s a good chance that’s actually an indication of a bug, though it could be some fancy optimization.

 

I think the suggestion that 8Gb will have problems in the near future for gaming is unfounded though for most games (even the most demanding). RAM speeds are not fast enough to use more memory, which I’ve written about here: https://www.quora.com/Why-does-gaming-performance-tend-not-to-benefit-from-more-than-8Gb-of-RAM/answer/Ryan-Cheu

 

There are programs and applications that use more memory, which Linus showed in this video, but gaming is not one of them.