[Barnum4000]

I recently upgraded my PC from 8GB to RAM to 24GB of RAM. I did this to future proof my PC a bit longer and for me at least 8GB was barely enough. I was using at least 90% of the 8GB when running intense applications making it ard for me to have other applications like web browsers open at the same time. With the new upgrade everything runs a lot smoother and I now only use about 25% of the memory.

Do you think that 8GB is enough RAM or is more required to have  a smooth experience?

[bertelli]

Obviously it depends what you are on. Windows 7 with demanding games are very different from console based work.
Working on GIS with OS applications, I never needed more than 4, but, if you want, using only a browser with a lot of open tabs and windows, you can make an 8GB pc swap for memory. Nowadays even Word is a memory hog, so look at what you usually do. Maybe it's a little priggish, but avoiding bad habits can save money and time (and avoid install, configuration and so on).

[Genesis]

Do you think that 8GB is enough RAM or is more required to have  a smooth experience?

Probably depends what you are doing, and also the Internet Speed as the Internet Speed can work against the computer as well. I feel I can get by with 4GB on a 32 bit machine on Windows 7. Obviously 8GB on 64 bit will be much better on Windows 7. However if I were to make a change I'd probably go for a mega change like 24 GB as you are planning to do and Windows 10.

[Barnum4000]

Probably depends what you are doing, and also the Internet Speed as the Internet Speed can work against the computer as well. I feel I can get by with 4GB on a 32 bit machine on Windows 7. Obviously 8GB on 64 bit will be much better on Windows 7. However if I were to make a change I'd probably go for a mega change like 24 GB as you are planning to do and Windows 10.

I have upgraded but it is important to note that RAM do not like to play along sometimes when mixing different sticks. I upgraded from 2x4GB by adding another 2x8GB they were the same company and same speed except for size but they still caused problems. The pc would turn on for a second and then turn off and keep doing that until I cut the power and tried again which then booted fine. I had to slightly raise the voltage of the RAM for it to be able to launch properly. That is something to take into account when upgrading.

[adamthewebman]

I have noticed that "matched" (sold specifically as) pairs in sets seam to be the most stable. Also, memory from the same manufacturer, same specs, same size produced even one day apart can have issues, because there are always slight variances in any component that may not occur except under load. Always do a full burn-in and hope for the best.

Sent from my SM-G900R4 using Tapatalk

[bigdaddy]

To my opinion 4-8 RAM for regular user is enough.

16 RAM enough for gaming (even 8 can be enough it depends)

1) but why do you need 24BG?? how did managed to consum 8GB RAM?
2) do you have SSD?
3) are you using virtual memory?

[Barnum4000]

To my opinion 4-8 RAM for regular user is enough.

16 RAM enough for gaming (even 8 can be enough it depends)

1) but why do you need 24BG?? how did managed to consum 8GB RAM?
2) do you have SSD?
3) are you using virtual memory?

I was running games and other applications open like a stream or video because I have two monitors. Some games consumed a lot of RAM. I also have a HDD and not an SSD as I'm not really into SSDs yet because of the cost and size. I do not use virtual memory, but it was a good upgrade because i can have many applications open without the performance being hindered, I also wanted to future-proof my computer a bit.

[bigdaddy]

To my opinion 4-8 RAM for regular user is enough.

16 RAM enough for gaming (even 8 can be enough it depends)

1) but why do you need 24BG?? how did managed to consum 8GB RAM?
2) do you have SSD?
3) are you using virtual memory?

I was running games and other applications open like a stream or video because I have two monitors. Some games consumed a lot of RAM. I also have a HDD and not an SSD as I'm not really into SSDs yet because of the cost and size. I do not use virtual memory, but it was a good upgrade because i can have many applications open without the performance being hindered, I also wanted to future-proof my computer a bit.O

Ok now i can see why you need more then 8GB RAM,

Games + video or/and audio or/and browser :)

anyway i know that ssd is expensive and i understand your consideration,
But just you to know that SSD will increase your performace dramatically... because windows is usind the HardDrive all the time and usually it is the bottle neck.
you can combine SSD + regular Hard drive. 

Just think about it :)

[Barnum4000]

anyway i know that ssd is expensive and i understand your consideration,
But just you to know that SSD will increase your performace dramatically... because windows is usind the HardDrive all the time and usually it is the bottle neck.
you can combine SSD + regular Hard drive. 

Just think about it :)

 I have never had any problems with using HDD in terms of performance of course loading times are significantly faster but i don't mind waiting a bit for the PC to load the applications. Applications seem to take up a lot of data so I can see the SSD getting filled up incredibly quickly.

[nobodyspecial]

Nothing

[bigdaddy]

I have a spread scheet that I have to work with, when i open it, my laptop swaps almost 40 gigs to my ssd hdd, and use the 8 gigs on my laptop,
Using a SSD for mem caching shortings the life and size of your SSD, just a heads up.
Try it one day, buy a cheep high speed flash card, and use it for swap for 180 day
then see how much usable disk space is left


Memory all depends on what you do

5 years ago
8 gig's was good enough for most things

today

16 gig for standard gaming and office work
32 Gig's heavy data work or large graphics
64 Gig's large data relationship and spreadsheet work

mutli thread processesors and applications also tend to use alot more ram
every core of the proccessor that works needs to also make use of ram

I do not agree with you:

1. This is true that this is not suggested to use your SSD as a memory swapping machine, however it happens if you like it or not (at least in windows).
   
   1. So setting virtual memory as constant size may help in that case, BTW it is suggested to put the amount of virtual memory same size as your physical memory that you have up to twice in size.
      
   2. You can move parts of your swapping files to another drive if you have another one (not ssd).
      
2. 8 GB ram for office and home use? I do not agree, it depends, if you just using internet browsing, music, movies etc. 4 GB can be fine in windows 7/10 and for sure in linux.
   
3. If you are playing new games and/or programming (like JAVA) so you can work fine with 16GB (my work notebook has 16GB and I am java programmer that use eclipse and intellij)
   
4. But if you a massive user like our friend Barnum4000 so you may need more.
   
5. There are some cases that graphic card is more important than ‘MORE’ RAM.
   
6. SSD will improve your computer performance in any case, because windows manages “Memory-Store Data” transformations all the time.
   

[nobodyspecial]

Nothing.

[CHT]

@Fat_Jay
Don't forget all the RAM for virtualisation.

[nobodyspecial]

Nothing

[django23]

I feel like 8GB nowdays is a minimum requirement for any kind of use.
I'm a gamer, but also a streamer and I like to use design softwares like Photoshop and I really feel the need to upgrade to 16 or 32GB asap.
Too bad i'm not sure if to buy DDR3 or 4 modules yet.

[Barnum4000]

I feel like 8GB nowdays is a minimum requirement for any kind of use.
I'm a gamer, but also a streamer and I like to use design softwares like Photoshop and I really feel the need to upgrade to 16 or 32GB asap.
Too bad i'm not sure if to buy DDR3 or 4 modules yet.

DDR3 determines the socket in the motherboard a DDR4 stick of RAM will not fit in a motherboard if the motherboard supports DDR3 or the other way around. Another note is that motherboards have a limit to the amount of RAM they can have in total. My motherboard can support up to 32GB of RAM anymore and it will not work.

[myserver99]

I assume that you know that the RAM is working at its full potential only if the rest of the components are hi-tech gear too. If you just want a smooth gaming experience you should have at least a gtx 980 GPU and an I7 octa core CPU. But for average user use, 8 gb RAM and i5 CPU with some decent integrated graphic card is more than enough this days.

[CHT]

I assume that you know that the RAM is working at its full potential only if the rest of the components are hi-tech gear too. If you just want a smooth gaming experience you should have at least a gtx 980 GPU and an I7 octa core CPU. But for average user use, 8 gb RAM and i5 CPU with some decent integrated graphic card is more than enough this days.

Wat
The only thing that decides the RAM speed is the motherboard. Not the CPU, not the GPU.

[Barnum4000]

Wat
The only thing that decides the RAM speed is the motherboard. Not the CPU, not the GPU.

Myserver99 is saying that you can have all the RAM in the world but the CPU and Graphics card can bottleneck the performance for playing games which is true of course, but I would say you don't need an i7 or 980 to have a good experience.

[strokerace]

I feel like 8GB nowdays is a minimum requirement for any kind of use.
I'm a gamer, but also a streamer and I like to use design softwares like Photoshop and I really feel the need to upgrade to 16 or 32GB asap.
Too bad i'm not sure if to buy DDR3 or 4 modules yet.

I still use 4gig of DDR2 and I can do anything you can with my computer. Its not so much the programs you are running, but the O/S you are running it on. If you switch to any 64 bit platform, or Win10, then you need that much memory just to run windows. I am using a 10 year old laptop with windows 7 and 4 gig of ram. I have 3 other laptops that are newer with 8 gigs of DDR3 that I hardly use at all. They seem very slow and sluggish compared to this one. They all run windows 7 on them. 8.1 was a nightmare as on a fresh install, it was using up 40% of the ram. My desktop has 4 gigs of DDR3 with XP on it. Its lightning fast but I have an APP that doesn't work on XP yet until I redo it. But this old girl has seen better days. I am afraid that all my abuse to it is catching up. Working 8 hrs a day with server software, photoshop, Kodi, and 3 browsers open at the same time is taking it toll on it. It hard finding another laptop that can take 2 HD's.

[zeus192]

Of course if you work with graphic design and several monitors, you need to run several hard applications together then you can feel that 8Gb it's not enough. But if use no more two monitors and just one heavy app (and some light, like browser, text editor) and you feel problems with RAM, maybe there are some problems with your device or installed soft (something side app runned on PC, viruses, some issues in other hardware).

[CHT]

Wat
The only thing that decides the RAM speed is the motherboard. Not the CPU, not the GPU.

Myserver99 is saying that you can have all the RAM in the world but the CPU and Graphics card can bottleneck the performance for playing games which is true of course, but I would say you don't need an i7 or 980 to have a good experience.

I was replying to his part about RAM not being able to run at the fastest speed it can due to GPU and/or CPU bottlenecks, which is simply not true.

[Barnum4000]

I was replying to his part about RAM not being able to run at the fastest speed it can due to GPU and/or CPU bottlenecks, which is simply not true.

Yeah I don't think myserver99 meant that GPU and CPU bottlenecks the speed. If myserver99 meant that it would have been explained differently.

[CHT]

Yeah I don't think myserver99 meant that GPU and CPU bottlenecks the speed. If myserver99 meant that it would have been explained differently.

 

I assume that you know that the RAM is working at its full potential only if the rest of the components are hi-tech gear too.

If so, then why put the sentence like that? I really don't think there's any other way to actually interpret this without a similar line of thought I had when I was replying to it.

[seiji]

For me the ideal would be 16gb of ram, considering everything I do here, but it depends on what you use

[dev70194]

It really depends on what you're using it for. If its just web browsing and gaming then you should be fine. But things like video editing and more CPU intensive applications then it would help having more.

[nobodyspecial]

Nothing

[alqutob]

For me 8 GB is very enough although I am running Windows 10 - 64 bit.
I am always aware that not to run intense applications at the same time .
And yes I agree with the opinions above, it depends on what you are on and what you are doing

[rave]

it depends on ur work and the programs u installed in ur pc.for me 4gb ram is enough and i am having 4gb ram in my pc.

[paddelboer]

You still can game with 8gb of Ram, but Ram was never a problem I think

Most of the time the gpu or cpu is limiting

Ram is so cheap that you can upgrade so easely