How Much RAM Do You Really Need?

This has always been a controversial subject, but with the price increases on RAM lately, it's even more problematic than usual. DDR5 is sitting around $10 per gigabyte; DDR4 is closer to $6.50. So 32GB of DDR5 runs you about $320, and 64GB doubles that to $640. The math gets painful fast.

From what I've seen, there are two schools of thought. One — you just need barely enough. A few years ago, going with 16GB was kind of overkill; 8GB was just enough. Nowadays that is hardly the case.

I would advocate for at least 16GB as the new minimum. In an ideal world that wouldn't be true, but game developers seem to care less and less about memory optimization. A really good example of this is Rust. Rust is mostly just an empty map with a few simple assets rendered on it — but those simple assets become extremely complicated with the introduction of skins and cosmetics. Every player you encounter has their custom skins loaded into your RAM whether you want them or not. This is true for most AAA online games. They're loading your computer full of crap cosmetics. As the average consumer gains more RAM, developers spend less time optimizing, and the minimum keeps creeping up.

The other thing eating your RAM is everything you have running in the background. Discord, Spotify, Chrome with twelve tabs, Steam, the launcher for whatever you're playing, your antivirus, Windows itself. On a fresh boot before I open anything, my system is already using ~5GB. Add a modern game on top of that and you're easily at 18-20GB. With 16GB you're swapping to disk, which means stutters.

My opinion today is that 32GB is the perfect balance. There's a real, tangible difference between 16GB and 32GB in everyday use. The jump from 32GB to 64GB pales in comparison. Unless you're using really specialized heavy-duty software — video editing in DaVinci Resolve, running virtual machines, training local AI models, hosting a Minecraft server with thirty mods — you'll never touch the second 32GB.

Or, you know, if you love to hoard hundreds of Chrome tabs. No judgment.

One more thing while we're here: don't confuse system RAM with VRAM. Your GPU has its own memory pool, separate from this. A 5070 has 12GB of VRAM, which is a totally different number than the 32GB of system RAM I'm telling you to get. They're not interchangeable. Both matter. Both have wildly different prices per gigabyte. People mix them up constantly.

Also a quick note on dual-channel: if you're picking RAM yourself, get two sticks (e.g. 2x16GB) instead of one big stick (1x32GB). It's actually faster because it runs in dual-channel mode, and per-GB pricing is often the same or cheaper. Most prebuilts already do this, but worth checking — some budget builds ship with a single stick to leave a slot open for "easy upgrade later," and then performance suffers in the meantime.

So: 32GB is the answer for most people. Save the money on the second 32GB and put it toward something that actually matters — like a better GPU. Sort our catalog by PC/$ to find one that beats DIY parts cost.