How much RAM do I need?

So I see a lot of people asking if they only need 8GB of ram, 16GB, 32GB... and so forth. And we always have a mix of replies. Some people say you only need 8GB, other's (like myself) say 16GB is the sweet spot without going overkill... and overkill starts at 32GB and further.

I decided to do a test. To give you an idea. Now this on my living PC. It currently have a 4930k @ 4.4ghz, 32GB of 2400mhz Corsair Dominator Plat, 2x 256GB 840PRO's in raid and 1x 4tb WD Black. It's a decent pc.

What I've done is opened up and ran several programs that I actually do on a typical basis. I've maxed out the CPU to 100%, and loaded things that require memory to be there.

Programs I have running in the foreground. Diablo 3 in full screen 1080p @ Ultra settings. Handbrake, converting and encoding a 1080p 4GB size movie. Facebook is open. I have a 1080p movie playing (Max Mad 3...).

In the background I have xampp running my Apache server, FTP server, SQL server, and SMTP protocols. Among other random applications running in the background.

Point is, I'm running more at one time than the average users runs at one time. And with all of this going at full speed, being allowed to use as much memory as it wants. I'm using a total of... 7.6GB of ram!!!!

Moral of the story. 8GB is enough. 16 GB is perfect. As it leaves you with plenty of ram to run everything you need at once, and not worry about any random memory leaks that will push you over 8GB.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions.

(link to image: http://i.imgur.com/iB6FeIn.jpg)





Edited by Meller - 27 Oct 2014 at 4:37pm

Yea, I just wanted to give the average user a realistic view at what they can expect. Everyone is always saying this and that, and we rarely see proof to back up a lot as most of the advice people give is advice they received and just went with it.

Not saying this is bad. There are certain people who don't need to ever supply me with proof and I'll believe what they say in terms of pc advice just because they've proven time and time again they know their stuff and won't just put out bad info.

So I thought it was time to give a realistic view of how much ram an average user can really max at out.

If I really wanted too, I could easily eat up 20-30gb of ram at one time, but let's face it. Most users, even gamers (Now I wish I would have been streaming when I did this) will encounter what I ran my stress test on.

Only thing I left out is streaming. Add another GB of ram to streaming at 1080p 60FPS. So there you go, over 8GB. 16GB is today's sweet spot in terms of memory. Or 12GB if you want to be weird.

Cache is still pointless in terms of comparing an 840 pro vs an 850 pro. Most of them still utilize your ram for cache purposes.

And before the question comes up, the difference in performance of 1600mhz vs 2400mhz quad channel for this situation won't matter.

So to answer your question. Even with 850 Pro's, you'll still be hitting your sweet spot @ 16gb vs 8GB's.

I also should have noted, I'm running Windows 8.1 Pro

Love the testing and results.   Nice job.

lol I was more so stating so that people get a better idea of where ram is being used, not the detail in which the screen shot provides.

Yes, the detail in that task manager allowed me to see how much RAM was actually getting eaten up with my last laptop.  I saw that the reserved RAM was topping out close to 8 even though it wasn't necessarily using that much at the moment, hence the warnings from Windows.  I could also see exactly what apps were behaving badly at an easy glance.

16GB is definitely the sweet spot.  I had originally considered bumping my Krypton up to 32GB not long after the purchase, but haven't had a need at all.  Still plenty of headroom.

4 years ago I got 6 gb of ram and was like..yeah what the heck would I need more than 6 gb of ram for?.......Fast forward 4 years and bamf. You just don't know what the future would lie. I would highly recommend what other users are saying and go at least 12-16gb for an average user nowadays. I just upgraded to 12gb myself a few weeks ago. I still have my ds rig from 4 years ago that I just upgraded a few parts. The next time (hopefully in another 4 years) I want to change anything I will just buy a new rig or at least change out the entire guts. It's like workin' on an old car. Sometimes you gotta replace the transmission or the belts but the body is so sleek...knowwutimean