Is it the time for 32GB Ram?

[mclaren85]

And the year is 2021. Do you think 32gb ram is overkill for game&rendering? Or should we wait for the prices to get lower?

 

[Vayra86]

Overkill, worst timing ever, and 8 > 16GB is just now going mainstream.

I think for DDR4 you can rest easy with 16GB until DDR5 is commonplace enough.

 

[EzioAs]

Overkill? Certainly not. I already bought 32GB kit last year. Mostly because when I was working from home last year, I was hitting close to 16 GB RAM usage already.

For pure gaming, sure 16 GB is overkill at the moment. However, if you run a lot of applications and work that require a lot of memory, getting 32 GB is not an overkill at all.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

Lately, even now, not as hard to get as a video card, but the prices are higher than I like them to be. (at Newegg)

32 GB, does look like "the new 16 GB". Like what 16 GB was in 2016.

 

[Mussels]

I go over 16GB usage fairly often now that i can
16GB is enough, it's just that we cant say jump to 20GB easily - i suppose you could go 24GB if 32GB is too pricey

for high res gaming (textures) or any kind of heavy workload, 32GB is a good idea for new builds (at the bare mininum PLAN for 32GB - get sticks you can add more of later)

edit: with my browsers, streaming stuff, launchers, and nicehash open i'm idling at 14GB

 

[xtreemchaos]

allways better to have it and not need it in my view. but for sure if you just gaming 16gb is just fine

 

[8BitZ80]

Buy once, buy heaps of it and you'll never need to worry about running out of memory. I've learned that lesson.

 

[xrror]

My general rule of thumb is try and have about 2GB per core. That's not absolute obviously cause the numbers don't line up that nice in reality. So a quad core 8GB, 12 virtual cores/threads 16GB (hey socket 1366 you could have 24GB [edit: just saw mussels suggestion above with mis-matched sets, that works too if in a pinch and more than 2 slots]). Anything more like 8/16virtual is try and get 32. I haven't had experience with machines higher than that, but if I did get say a 16/32virtual I'd definitly be looking at 64GB just on the thought that if you ever run anything that parallel (like distributed computing) you'll need the RAM for those cores to do anything w/o consuming 100%.

I mean sure you can run like Rosetta@Home on a 3800x with 16GB, but you fire up a web browser and your pushing tasks off waiting for memory. Seems kinda a waste to have cores but no place for them to work?

edit again: Another factor might be that unlike years ago, it's seems like modern Intel and AM4 are actually pretty darn good with running 4 sticks vs. 2 performance wise. You don't really take a timing/tuning penalty to run 4 sticks vs 2, so it's way easier to plop in an additional 16GB instead of having to totally replace your old sticks with a new 32GB set. And 16GB sets that are actually good are so cheap right now - now's the time to load up on DDR4 if you're gonna I think - it's nuts you can get 16GB DDR4 4000 CAS 18 sets for like $90 right now.

 

[Mussels]

Buy once, buy heaps of it and you'll never need to worry about running out of memory. I've learned that lesson.

i did that with my now-dads 4770k system and its 32GB of DDR3 2000
All its needed is GPU upgrades to remain relevant as a gaming system for a very long time

 

[MIRTAZAPINE]

It is a yes for me. Chrome web browser and productivity app would have me touching 30GB. 16GB simply could not cut it which why I jump to 64GB. If you were to not multi task and have sane browser like microsoft edge you can survive with 16GB but it get tied if you multi task.

 

[jboydgolfer]

8GB-16GB is sufficient for most situations.
Windows will use more RAM if you add more, & screenshots showing 20GB's RAM usage after upgrading from 16GB to 32Gb's is not a surprise to anyone other than the person arguing they 'needed that new RAM' , & seeing windows use it is the proof.

8Gb's is enough to get by, i didnt upgrade from 8Gb's until around December 2020. I ran 8Gb's while running Escape From Tarkov & it was never a problem at 2K Res & it was never a hindrance.
I only upgraded because RAM prices went so far down, after being super inflated for a long time, & buying 16Gb's was the same cost as buying 8Gb's the year prior.

Switching to 16Gb's or 32Gb's changed nothing, other than the amount of system RAM used
anyone can argue 'look I need 128Gb's of RAM' with 74Tabs open, running 13 benchmarks, while compressing video files all day.
im speaking in regards to normal users & what they NEED

 

[toilet pepper]

I had 16gig overprized-bottom-of-the-barrel 3000mhz Trident Z RGB bought for $200 in 2016 when I built my first Ryzen build. Prices way back then was horrendous. Its easy to fill the 16GB up with Oculus software, Steam VR, Steam, a couple of browsers, OBS, hardware monitoring tools, peripepheral crap and then a VR game. Every now and then I would the slowdwon but it is still manageable.

 

[AsRock]

For a gamer hell no, 16GB will be perfectly fine. All comes down to what you use the PC for.

I only have 32GB due to price at the time ($130) which was a steal in my eye's for the minor speed loss. O yeah and shit was starting to go to shit.

Just checked it's $180 now lmao.

 

[Calmmo]

You can buy 32gb kits 1800mhz ram for less than 200, been like that for a while now, buy set and forget any and all ram worries (unless it's pro usage where maybe 32gb is too low).
The cost hasnt been prohibitive for a while now.

Did the same with 16gb building a PC back in 2013 when everyone was preaching 8gb and the decision worked in my favor several times over the 6year use of that machine and *gasp* I wasn't forced into that inevitable 16 gb upgrade.
Unless you're on an extreme budget or the computer in question is going to have a 1-2 year lifespan before you ditch it for something bigger and better i don't see why not.

 

[64K]

I can only address gaming needs but 16 GB is plenty for that. People have been making the argument that the new consoles have 16 GB RAM so PC gamers better get more than 16 GB but part of that 16 GB RAM on consoles is used for graphics. On PC we have cards for that.

 

[bug]

I got 32GB a couple of years ago because I could get them for like $150. Can't say I absolutely need that much, it's mostly for peace of mind.

 

[silentbogo]

If there's such thing as "right time to buy", it was yesterday. RAM prices haven't gone up too much yet, and they'll only grow over the next year (or more).
With all the recent "expert forecasts" and past "accidents" at various manufacturing plants (contamination at Samsung, power outages at Micron etc.) I'm very pessimistic about future RAM pricing.
DDR5 still has a long road ahead before modules hit the shelves (and even more before it goes mainstream), so semiconductor manufacturers still have at least a year or two to dictate their prices.
Just a couple of weeks ago I've upgraded to 32GB cause it was cheap (got a used OEM kit for less than $150), and good thing I did. Prices from local retailers are going up on the daily basis, and in a pinch at least I can pull a couple of sticks from my main rig.
Honestly, I don't need 32GB of RAM in my main rig. There is no way I can use even half of it. But I have that gut feeling (sphincter instinct? ), which saved my wallet back in 2016. Got 4x8GB kit of HyperX DDR4-2400 right before the price of PC memory doubled. Not much, but it was enough to build a couple of relatively cheap rigs for my family.

 

[elghinnarisa]

16GB is generally more than enough for most people I would imagine, but it always depends on how you use your computer.
I went with 32GB, I rather not run out of RAM and I know I do all kinds of things with this computer, from photo/video editing to rendering to playing around with VMs and it's just nice to not be limited by RAM at that point.
But if I actually need it? No, not really. I could close the stuff I am currently not using and make do with 16GB without issue, except being VMs perhaps. But I am also the kind of person that has 18 things open at once and switch between different tasks very frequently. Like, waiting for a match in a game, eh might edit this photo a bit while a wait.

For gaming, 16GB is fine. For rendering? Well, depends on what you exactly do when you say rendering. Maybe, maybe not. But if you have to ask, chances are 16GB is fine for that as well. Otherwise you would probably know you would need more memory.

 

[freeagent]

I'm ok with 16GB, but I run 4x8 for the little bit of free performance.

 

[dirtyferret]

Overkill, worst timing ever, and 8 > 16GB is just now going mainstream.

I think for DDR4 you can rest easy with 16GB until DDR5 is commonplace enough.

+1, 16GB is more than enough for the vast majority of people. Obviously there is a niche of people who need 32GB (or more) but they know they need it and don't have to ask if they need it.

 

[Zyll Goliat]

It's really depends what are you doing with that RIG....Personally I love to have hundreds tabs open in Opera/Chrome and I will keep them open for days while I am gaming and watching or listening something from youtube....Tho' with all of this my Max amount of used ram was bellow 30Gb and that was wile gaming Star Citizen that was known for for astronomical ram usage.....

 

[bencrutz]

And the year is 2021. Do you think 32gb ram is overkill for game&rendering? Or should we wait for the prices to get lower?

for rendering? i'd say go with 32GB

 

[bug]

It's really depends what are you doing with that RIG....Personally I love to have hundreds tabs open in Opera/Chrome and I will keep them open for days while I am gaming and watching or listening something from youtube....Tho' with all of this my Max amount of used ram was bellow 30Gb and that was wile gaming Star Citizen that was known for for astronomical ram usage.....

Fwiw, I have noticed Chromium leaking when playing video and switching tabs. With 16GB RAM, I would often find myself looking at a non-responsive desktop, with 32GB this almost never happens (because I have time to reload tabs and mitigate the problem, not because 32GB is enough). But this is on Linux, Idk if Chromium on Windows does the same.

 

[WhitetailAni]

I currently have 32GB, and I upgraded from 16GB three days ago.
I started hitting 15GB usage a lot after I started working on my Mario Bros. Wii hack, and I figured I'd get some at Micro Center since it was on sale.
It was 3200 C16 instead of C14, but I have it OC'd to 3333 MT/s C16-16-16-32 tRC 48, no errors under memtest86.

 

[phanbuey]

32 GB is a nice size - lets you feel like for sure you won't run out even if you don't close everything in the background before popping into a game. Also Ryzen 5000 and Intel chips perform well with 4 banks of dual rank populated, so it's pretty convenient to get 4x8 or just add to your current kit.