


None of the games I tested used close to 16GB, let alone 32. Stepping up to 32GB yields quite a bit of freedom as far as leaving applications (and / or lots of browser tabs) open without a care in the world. But outside of those kinds of use cases, most of us can get by just fine with 16GB.

Those who are rendering large files or doing other memory intensive work, should consider going with 32GB or more. If you’re a creative professional, however, your needs are different.

My typical use includes gaming, MS Word and Excel, photo manipulation in Paint.Net and keeping a dozen or more Chrome browser tabs open. My personal system has 32 GB in total and I find it difficult to go over even 16GB with my use model. This is getting close to the 16 GB limit, but how often are you really leaving all your work open and playing a game? That amount gives you the headroom to do a couple of things at once, without having to close tabs or applications to exceed your available RAM.Įven with The Division 2 using 11 GB (system total), keeping a browser up with 14 tabs, using MS Word, and streaming Twitch in the background, I used around 14 GB. Today, 16GB is the sweet spot between price and capacity for most enthusiasts and gamers. You can do plenty of productivity work without swapping out to the page file, but if you plan on running something memory intensive and doing another task at the same time, you could end up exceeding your limit. So if you are a gamer, you may be able to get away with 8GB, but we recommend going for at least 16GB.ĨGB of RAM is fine for those who stick to basic productivity, or those who aren’t playing modern games. Even the low-end 6.6GB is too close for comfort to pegging 8GB capacity, given the overhead for the OS. In these titles, the amount of RAM used in total ranges from 6.6GB to 11.3GB ( F1 2018 and The Division 2, respectively).
