Is 64gb of ram overkill?

SyncFail_@reddit

Perhaps they are talking about dual rank ram, which is a tad bit faster than single rank with the same specs? But not sure where they got their numbers from.

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Idle_Redditing@reddit

How does this even happen? People used to edit videos on far less ram than 64GB, even 4k video.

The same is true with other types of workloads.

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nickkuk@reddit

Yes but more CPU cores / more RAM will get the job done much quicker. If you can get a video render done in minutes rather than hours the price difference between 32gb and 64gb pays for itself.

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JohnnyStrides@reddit

I edit 4K on my 32GB AM5 system just fine (9700x/RX9070) and rarely go over 16GB usage let alone 32 lol (using Davinci Resolve).

The same projects handle just fine on a 16GB M4 Air as well.

Switch to Firefox

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iszoloscope@reddit

Only right answer.

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Not_FinancialAdvice@reddit

MATLAB

Bro gotta be going crazy with like simulink; I've never had MATLAB eat a ton of RAM.

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No_Path_7627@reddit

If you can afford the price difference, just get the 64GB. That's what I did. If you plan on playing MSFS 2024, they recommend 64GB.

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MotoChooch@reddit

This is the best answer. Right now there is at least one game that recommends 64gb and I'm willing to bet others will follow in the future. If you can easily afford 64gb now, just do it and you won't have to worry about it for a long time.

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EmanuelPellizzaro@reddit

Way more. I have 64GB myself and sometimes,games reach 33/34 GB, like Hogwarts Legacy with only the Opera browser open.

"Software is a gas; it expands to fill its container." If you have more RAM, the Software is going to take up more RAM. If you have less RAM, the Software is going to take up less RAM, down to a minimum. Ofc Performance wont be good but you get the point.

If you have 64 Gigs and you say hogwarts uses 33 of those, its not something speaking for 64GB.

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pacoLL3@reddit

Genuinely can't tell if this is sarcasm or not at this point. In the real world, it obviously would be, but i fear people on reddit genuinely believing utter nonsense like that.

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RecalcitrantBeagle@reddit

Shown utilization when you have more than enough RAM isn't a terribly reliable metric - because RAM isn't doing you any good if it's unused, if you have plenty of space Windows will happily just keep stuff in memory that it doesn't really need to, just in case. When people run Hogwarts Legacy (which is kind of the worst case scenario as far as mainstream AAA games go) with 32GB, it only hits 22-ish GB, so you're probably seeing more because other stuff is just laying around, so to speak - no reason to put it away if there's still plenty of room.

Yup this. Prices are good right now, there's no real need to be stingy unless you absolutely have to.

Can you people please stop basing your opinions on clickbait and spread stupidity all over the world? The game literally runs on 16GB RAM and 4k on a freaking 8GB 4060TI.

You guys look at extreme outliers and pretend it's the norm.

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No_Path_7627@reddit

I'm sure it does run fine and yes, I am probably an outlier, but it isn't clickbait. It's pulled from the official MSFS website. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 FAQ – Microsoft Flight Simulator Support

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YourHomicidalApe@reddit

they recommend 64GB

That website itself says the recommended spec is 32GB.

Pretty much all 4-DIMM boards do, and even 2-DIMM boards should support it with 64GB sticks, they just support lower speeds at those higher capacities

Yeah, you might want to look into it, because I was very diligent about checking RAM for compatability. The couple of x870e boards I looked at made it very clear that it would be a bad idea, and the one I selected didn't have a single compatible 2x64 option. So when you say "at lower speeds," I think it's important to point out that the "lower speeds" are base clock, or 3,200 Mhz if you're lucky and it posts.

Like I said, i only have 96 Gigs (2x48) of 6,400 32-39-39-84, AND it's on the board compatibility list, and EXPO still fucked up the config and I was getting weird crashes until I realized that BIOS was showing it as 6,400 with correct timings but everything else saw 5,200 with horribly incorrect timings. Thanks ZenTiming! So even with a supported kit in a supported configuration, it was either run at hilariously slow speeds or roll up the sleeves and start tweaking.

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TheFondler@reddit

When I say "supported," I just mean it will run, not that it will run at the kit's overclock rating. By definition, overclocks are never supported - that's what makes them overclocks. If they were supported, they would just be "the spec." The spec for 7000 and 9000 series Ryzen CPUs is 5600 @ 2x2R (your kit) and 3600 @ 4x1R (most 128GB configs).

Try this if you haven't already:

Reset all setting in the UEFI
Reboot
Set the EXPO/XMP profile, but manually dial the memory speed back to 5600MT/s
Reboot again

If you do that and spin up ZenTimings, does that give you the correct settings?

6000MT/s should be possible (if not more), especially with newer UEFI versions, and I hope we can at least get you there.

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the_lamou@reddit

By definition, overclocks are never supported

That's not entirely true — mobo companies will absolutely support some overclock configurations, hence motherboard QVL (qualified vendor lists) for RAM kits that have been tested and verified to work at the rated speeds and timings. The AMD spec is... well, there's people who buy mobos with absolutely garbage VRMs and they need to work, too.

Set the EXPO/XMP profile, but manually dial the memory speed back to 5600MT/s

I actually had the opposite problem — the RAM was reading as too slow, with timings that were far too high and far too tight. Only found it by process of elimination, since it was reading as an SDD fault.

I ended up finding a screenshot of a ZenTimings reading of my exact kit, copied the timings, upped MCLK to 1:1, tightened up some of the timings by hand, stress-tested the fuck out of it, and now it appears to be working within spec (or even spec+).

Running well at 6400 32-49-39-74 now.

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Those timings aren't too far off from what I'm running niw (my RAM is single-rank). Built my config [off of this cinfig]( Stable so far, so fingers crossed.

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TheFondler@reddit

48GB sticks are all dual-rank, that's why you were having the troubles you were. That's what the "DR" means after the model number at the bottom of ZenTimings there.

You have some headroom on VSOC, so you may hypothetically have a chance at 6600, but high VSOC was what was blowing up 7800X3Ds when they launched so I generally don't recommend going over 1.25v - very "at your own risk" there.

The most meaningful changes you can make are to tRFC and tREFI for latency and FCLK for bandwidth.

The recommended target for tRFC for Hynix non-binary M-Die kits (which is what you have) is as close to 160ns as you can get, which would be 512 ticks. Not all kits can do that though, so you may need to bump it up by 32 or 64 ticks (steps of 32).

tREFI you can just max out, it will run, but if your memory gets too warm, it will cause errors as the system runs. General rule of thumb is to go in steps of 8192, then subtract 1, so like the max is (8 x 8192) - 1 = 65535. Generally, if your memory stays under 50-55C when stress testing, it shouldn't be a problem to have that at the max, but if you are over that temp and get errors a few hours into a stress test, cut it back a few steps.

For FCLK, you want to shoot for 2133 at 6400 - that's the sweet spot for bandwidth and latency. This is really tricky to test because it can do huge error correction and won't throw any visible errors. Best way I have found is to set Linpack Xtreme stress test to run 10 times at the 10GB setting and compare the GFlops between runs with NOTHING else running. It should land within ~5GFlops difference between runs.

Other things you can try to apply (one at a time, so you know what doesn't work):

tRP = tCL+4 = 36
tWR = 48
tRTP = 12
tRDWR = 16
tWRRD = 4

Those are all values that will usually (not 100%, but usually) just work on Hynix memory chips, as well as matching tRDRDSCL and tWRWRSCL. You can also try disabling GDM ("ADDR_CMD_MODE = Buf" under the DRAM timings on Asus boards) - that will give a little bump in latency, but can be harder to get stable.

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the_lamou@reddit

48GB sticks are all dual-rank, that's why you were having the troubles you were.

That's what I'm seeing now, but I could have sworn while I was installing them I noticed that there were only memory chips on one side. I may possibly be going insane.

Thanks for the super-detailed explanation. It's been a very long time since I've bothered with anywhere near this level of OCing, so saying I'm rusty is a massive understatement. I really appreciate the help. Once the work day is over and I can stand to have the computer out of commission for a bit, I'll try some things out and post results!

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TheFondler@reddit

I consider memory OC probably the hardest category. I've only recently started to grasp some of the basics of it, so don't take my word as gospel, I'm still kind of new to it. There are smarter people over in /r/overclocking, on overclock.net, and the German HardwareLuxx forum that can probably guide you better if you want to dig into it.

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the_lamou@reddit

Thanks to your tips, along with some extensive readings of the forums, I think it's starting to come back to me a little. I doubt I'll ever remember the timing relationships like I used to when I was 17 a hundred years ago, but it's beginning to click and I've got a good little OC running at high stability:

I started here.

And I ended here (along with current ZenTimings).

Next steps: see how much I can lower VSOC (on a 9950x3D, which allegedly can handle a little higher -- it defaults to 1.3) without hurting scores. Then on to see if I can hit a CAS of 30. And then who know, maybe 6600 is in reach.

Thanks again, I really appreciate all the help. It's been great.

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TheFondler@reddit

Nice improvement!

You can get it down a littler further just by disabling SVM in BIOS to get rid of that hypervisor warning at the bottom. It's a little bit less secure, since it disables some virtualization based security features in the OS, but it makes a decent dent in latency. Up to you if you actually want to run that way daily, but I turn it off for benchmarking.

There should also be a "Core Tuning" option or something like that in the BIOS - set that to legacy for testing. It disables some advanced prefetching that makes your latency look much worse than it is. You should leave it at "Level 2" for daily use, but when you bench with AIDA, it gives more accurate results on "Legacy."

For CAS latency, that's more dependent on your memory kit than your memory controller, and will usually scale with RAM voltage (VDD/VDDQ). It seems to take quite a bit more voltage with each step down, but I was able to get my single rank M-die kit down to CL30 with 1.4v. I need 1.55v for CL28, though and I'm not comfortable pushing that without a fan blowing straight on the RAM.

VSOC is your memory controller voltage, basically, and getting dual rank to 6400 will usually take a bit there. I wouldn't worry if you can't get it down much bellow where it is now, it seems to be doing alright.

the system doesn't run good with more than two memory sticks. Make sure the kit is on the list

Now let's not overblow this. It just doesn't always run the RAM at optimal speeds. The system will still run. And if your workload requires requires lots of RAM, running 4 sticks at lower speeds is fine

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Dark_Archer92@reddit

Is there a reason for it? If theres 4 slots you should be able to use 4 just fine. Seems odd that you suffer for it.

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Bubbly-Technology361@reddit

the memory controller on Zen 4 and 5 cant hit the highest rated frequencies when using 4 sticks... sometimes it can, but usually it cant. not sure about intel, but i think they have better memory controllers

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Dark_Archer92@reddit

Love the downvotes for asking questions. So is it because its stretched too far covering four slots? Or is it more like a SW limitation

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FancyJesse@reddit

Running RAM at higher speeds is basically an OC. You run into instability when OCing, but OCing 4 sticks is more problematic than OCing 2 sticks.

Deep90@reddit

Generally it is not good to mix kits, and like I said 4 sticks already have pretty questionable compatibility in most cases.

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karmapopsicle@reddit

There's many different factors, but much of it depends on the silicon lottery for your memory controller, a bit on the motherboard, etc. You can check your motherboard's QVL to see if there are any qualified 4x16GB configurations tested.

Generally best practice is to sell the old kit and just buy a new 2x32GB kit instead.

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Yes.

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Deep90@reddit

That is actually what I did, but I hesitate to recommend it because it's really overkill and significantly more expensive.

The optimal number of sticks for dual channel has always been two. Running four always has the potential to have instability and/or having to downclock or run with looser timings to get it to work. They include four slots because users largely have this long-standing view that they should be able to upgrade by adding rather than replacing. Super high end overclocking boards usually will only have two slots, because no one in their right mind paying $1000 for a board to overclock on is going to even think about using four sticks of RAM.

It's simply more apt to be a problem on DDR5 because it's still a relatively new standard and the transfer rates are so high. DDR4 had tons of memory incompatibility issues for the first few years of its life as well.

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AShamAndALie@reddit

That was my understanding, but I thought I saw some Linus videos showing that 4x sticks were outperforming 2 a while ago?

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chrisdpratt@reddit

Don't remember anything like that. Without a link, I can only theorize. I know, as one example, they just did a build recently where they used four sticks of CUDIMM RAM for the capacity, because it was claimed by the manufacturer that it could run at 5600MT/s, which for four sticks and the capacity they were using, is damn fast. You'd usually be stuck with 3600MT/s in that scenario. Still had issues, only got two to actually run on the main video, but edited that they eventually got all four to run after tinkering with it.

That's not saying four is better, though. In fact, it's the opposite. It took specialized and vendor qualified RAM to get data transfer rates that are still less than what you can get with two, but it was impressive for what it was.

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AShamAndALie@reddit

Sorry, it was GamersNexus, not LTT. Also interesting that 3200 CL14 outperformed 3600 CL16 and 3866 CL18 with Ryzen 5600, I thought these CPUs loved higher MT/s.

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chrisdpratt@reddit

I don't support Steve's channel anymore, so I can't speak more to it, with not watching the video. Sorry. Maybe some one else can explain.

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munky82@reddit

Curious as to why don't you support Steve' channel?

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karmapopsicle@reddit

It's just down to memory ranks. Two single-rank sticks results in a dual-rank setup. Four single-rank sticks results in a quad-rank setup. Quad rank outperforms dual rank.

Running two dual-rank sticks provides the same performance difference. Running four dual-rank sticks puts a huge load on the memory controller and usually requires cranking down the clock speeds for stability.

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Deep90@reddit

Some 4 stick kits exist.

Gskill has a 4 stick kit coming this month that isn't slower.

Also Corsair sells fake ram sticks to fill the slots if you really want.

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_asciimov@reddit

It's down to the design of the memory channels and the memory controller being in the cpu. You get to choose between performance on fewer sticks or more memory at (slightly) lower speeds.

I made the choice of faster ram vs higher capacity.

If I can hi-jack the top comment - what is the feeling on 24x2=48GB?

The numbers feel weird.

Busy researching for an upgrade soon, 32GB is the current setup, 64GB will push the budget just too hard, but 48GB seems reachable.

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Ninja_Weedle@reddit

I feel like 32 to 48 wouldn't be a big enough upgrade, at least for me. If i'm spending 100+ on a ram kit I want to get enough to at the very least run 70B llms locally (I have 16GB VRAM as well, should be enough with a GGUF).

I think it definitely makes sense financially, given it seems like 2x24 is only maybe 15-25 dollars more expensive than 2x16 kits right now.

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munky82@reddit

In my country the prices are ~$140, $190 and $240 respectively.

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Gouca@reddit

This is such a stupid comment. You'll hit your RAM capacity regardless of the resolution at some preview length.

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MyStationIsAbandoned@reddit

I'm at 64gb and it's great when video editing. I use Vegas Pro though because I can buy it for like $30 on Humble Bundle every other year and it's only like one or two versions behind the latest. and no monthly fee etc. and it's fully patches/updated, so I don't have to worry about any new bugs from the latest version.

For me it's the stabilization that DaVinci offers, it's so much better than Premier.

wombat1@reddit

Revit is destroyer of RAM. I can't believe how bloated modern models are getting. I've been using it for a decade and remember designing hospitals on a Surface Pro. Now my 32GB RAM ThinkPad workstation is brought to its knees by much smaller buildings.

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JohnnyStrides@reddit

32GB is more than enough for most 4K editing tasks in Premier or Resolve (the "big 2" editors available on Windows).

I think that two sticks of 16 is faster than the identical four sticks of 32. In my experience. For pure speed and response… not capacity, of course, and the benefits that brings. It’s probably also negligible so I would not worry too much about it.

I read before that you want the RAM to have high usage (not 100%) because that’s the point. With 32GB you can have 2 games open and be fine with it, the RAM will literally optimize usage so that it doesn’t hit the limit

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Yoruha01@reddit

Good answer, this happens with vram too. In diablo 4 people with 4090s reported that their vram usage was over 20 gb whereas with other cards it was below 10.

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Yoruha01@reddit

Have you noticed this in any other games? Pretty sure marvel rivals has a memory leak it doesnt make sense otherwise, that game has a 16 gb recommendation.

Ive played games like ff7 rebirth and monster hunter wilds and ive only been up to 16-18 gb of usage total with a few chrome tabs and applications running in the background.

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Terrible_Duty_7643@reddit

I hit 30gb playing just WarThunder with a bunch of browsers open.

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Superb-Earth-@reddit

Yeah rivals is trash on that aspect, I have 32gb ram and still the game manages to crash once every two days showing error like memory dump crashed or something like that.

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RedPanda888@reddit

Yeah yeah it is best to get the best you can at the time to make it last as long as possible. Because if you skimp out you end up in a situation where it is hard to upgrade without getting tempted to re-do your system. For example right now I really need to double my RAM. But that then brings into the question...do I go DDR5? But wait...my CPU is AM4, if I upgrade to DDR5 I need to move to AM5 and replace my CPU/MOBO too! Looks like I am getting a new system early...

Seems an overreaction but everyone knows this thought process. Best to just give yourself the best system you can at the time, accepting that in the future to upgrade to anything recent you will probably have to replace a few components at once.

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A-SAMEH@reddit

Finally someone got an excellent and perfect answer

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CommunityBrave822@reddit

Underrated answer

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Money-Education-4190@reddit

It depends on what you’re planning to do. If it’s just gaming, 32GB is more than enough for now — most modern titles barely touch that. But if you think you might get into tasks like editing, you need that extra breathing room. Also comes down to budget really.

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DarthV506@reddit

Nope

When I was part shopping for my 9800x3d upgrade, i had a ton of tabs open in multiple browsers, slack, teams, discord, steam, epic, battle.net and was playing a game...was using 31gb RAM.

Couple that with how am5 boards handle RAM speeds with 4 sticks, was a no brainer to go with 2x32gb.

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-Hexenhammer-@reddit

No such thing as Overkill in Computers.

The price between 32gb and 64gb these is negligible, its better to have MORE than have less and think "I wish I had more"
Im using 64Gb since DDR4 times, back then just like now some people screamed that 16gb is enough and 32gb is if you need to work.

back on DDR3 I had 32gb and everybody and their pauper mother screamed that 8gb is enough and 16gb is good for work.

back on DDR2, I had 16Gb, and welp, everybody screamed that 4gb is enough and 8gb if you work

These people never change

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CosyBeluga@reddit

I have 32gb of ram because I usually have Sims running AND another game and other stuff.

I regularly use more than 32GB of ram while gaming.

”Is 64GB overkill?”

It’s going to depend on what you do.

BitingChaos@reddit

It was simple for me.

My old Core 2 Duo Desktop system had 8GB RAM.

My old MacBook Pro had 16GB RAM.

My old Core i7 7700K Desktop had 32GB RAM.

And now my new Ryzen 9700X Desktop system has 64GB RAM.

I wasn't going to get a whole new computer and then NOT upgrade my RAM.

Why wouldn't you go for something like 64GB of RAM? Some games have been recommending 32GB+ already.

And with all the VM stuff (WSL1/WSL2, WSA, BlueStacks, VMware, Hyper-V, Docker), insane memory usage of dozens of web browser tabs, multimedia apps (from Adobe, Affinity, and so on), there are lots of things to quickly eat up memory. Extra RAM gives you plenty of headroom and can even help with caching and general system responsiveness.

No one has every complained about having too much RAM. Ending up with too little can really hurt you, though.

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Moldyshroom@reddit

32gb more than enough for pure gaming... unless you flight simm or something. I have 32gb and the only ram errors I get are maxing out my vram in VR... Nvidia only putting 8gb in a 3070ti vut 12 in the 3060 was dumb, almost as dumb as me getting that instead of the 3080 at the time.

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RodneyMcKey@reddit

I have 64gb and the only time I managed to use more than 32gb is when I open Escape from Tarkov, Browser with lots of tabs and heavy minedraft modpack (gtnh with 12gb of ram allocated). So 32gigs would be more than enough.

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iTzApe@reddit

64 or bust could even go more

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Trick-Nature-1255@reddit

From my perspective, 32 Gbytes is not enough, primarily because whenever the memory use exceeds 50%, the system runs buggy. I might keep 100 to 150 Chrome windows open, and have a dozen or so other programs running. At this point, I'm considering buying another 32 Gbytes in order to see if the system runs better.

"Buggy" means Chrome windows won't run properly, software freezes, shortcuts get corrupt, pretty much any weirdo symptom you can imagine.

2013 my laptop had 16GB constantly ran out cus iGPU...

2018 first PC 64GB essentially never RAM out outside of certain things like zipping massive folders and wanting a large dictionary size or running a bunch of bluestacks instances

2025 second PC 192GB on average HWinfo reports around a 37GB peak usage when im not doing anything overly intensive

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ssuper2k@reddit

Why almost nobody considers 48GiB (2×24) ?

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SyncFail_@reddit

Because 2x24 is an M-Die kit and I personally prefer A-Die kits, which are the better overclockers (if you care about overclocking ram)

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munky82@reddit

It is weird numbers though. Are there issues with these?

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karmazynowy_piekarz@reddit

I went 64gb only because my pc is a monster and 64 looks better.

I found 32GB insufficient when I started to creep up to 50+ instances of chrome for my work.

Depends on what you do with your system, if you just game and stream, and have YouTube and stuff open, 32gb is plenty! I got 64gb of ram and the only time I see more than 32gb of ram being used is if I'm hosting a game server for friends and me, lately it's been satisfactory.

Other that 32gb would be plenty for me even, I run a jellyfin server, and and bunch of other crap in the background on my machine.

I was playing last night and for the first time I saw my ram usage hit 58%-60% load and im 32gb ddr4

I suggest going 64gb and just future proofing your problems, cause games won't be getting any better optimization anytime soon.

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jk147@reddit

There is no need to future proof if you just get 2x16.. and buy more later if needed.

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DisastrousFroyo8@reddit

when its time for my upgrade, ill just go for two sticks 32gb each for ddr5 and i wont worry about that for the remainder of the build tbh

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Agreeable-Ad4079@reddit

that is quite the opposite, actually. With the new graphic cards barely being a leap, 32 gb is going to be fine for a long time since now they are going to optimize for 32 in mind, leaving 16 behind

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DisastrousFroyo8@reddit

I would say yes, but the current gaming industry is based solely on pushing AAA games year in and year out -- COD is a prime example of optimization hell but people still flock to every title cause they can't stop lol

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burnabagel@reddit

For gaming yes, but if you do multitasking or professional work then no. I like to have everyone open with bunch of tabs on chrome while playing a game without having to worry about ram usage so 64gb is good

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pnoozi@reddit

I'm on 72 GB of RAM (8GB + 64GB) and 4.5 TB of storage. Feels about right.

Nice headroom to have as many Chrome tabs as I want, run Discord, Spotify, etc. and leave a VM running while gaming. I'd go 128 GB but it seems silly considering I'll probably upgrade DDR4->DDR5 before needing it.

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sumochump@reddit

Still running 16GB DDR4 for all games with no issues. 32GB DDR5 will probably get you by for the next decade.

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pcikel-holdt-978@reddit

If you want it get it simple answer eh.

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tibbon@reddit

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Votten_Kringle@reddit

I built a pc in 2021-2022. Back then, believe it or not, people said 32gb was overkill. I still got 32 gb. Ended up now in 2024 upgrading to 64gb. If you use the pc for more than just gaming, you could do 64gb. However, 128gb is not recommended because you have to use 4 dimm slots on motherboard, which for some reason isnt working that well with ddr5 ram.

Use the dual slots ddr5, 2x32gb. 6000mhz speed is all you need, and no need to aim below cl30.

Do you use Chrome and open more than 3 tabs at once?

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If you're only using the computer to play games, 32GB is enough.

For work, no amount of ram actually supported by the CPU/socket is too much.

Aggressive_Special25@reddit

I have 128gb of ram. It's enough, most of the time.

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Alternative_Deer415@reddit

If you load up 500 skyrim mods, yes.

That depends

For Internet browsing? Yes. For low to mid tier gaming? Yes. For high tier gaming? Not really, but maybe. For mid to high tier gaming plus something else? No. For streaming / video editing? No. For rendering? HELL NO...

nope not at all. theyre dirt cheap. i dont think youre a ram minmaxxer trying to overtake people in OC leaderboards.

are 64gb timings technically SLOWER than 32gb ones? yes. TECHNICALLY. Will you feel it on a day to day basis? No. Get the 64 if its on sale cuz why the hell not.

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You will never regret getting more. That being said, I have 64 gigs and never get anywhere near to using it.

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No-Nrg@reddit

Will the $100 difference between the two cause you to make cuts in other areas like GPU or CPU? If so then go 32gb and put it towards a better of those, you can always add another 32gb down the road.

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Ozzie808@reddit

Based on the lack of information on this post, I dare say your just chasing stats. Go with 64GB and be done with it.

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Slyons89@reddit

48 small an option. I built my new 9800X3D system with 2x24 GB 6000 CL30, works great, was a bit cheaper than 64.

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burnitdwn@reddit

normal usage 32gb is fine.

Power user would be wise to consider a 48gb kit.

Light to Medium Productivity workload you likely would be looking at 64gb.

96, 128, or more if you really need it. But, its a waste of $$$ for most of us.

I ran 32 gb for years, but just upgraded to 64 since I was running out a bunch when I had a ramdisk, a VM, a game, and like 100 browser tabs up. I could close any 1 of these things and not exceed 32gb, but, with everything I was running, I was breaking past 40GB sometimes. (was using a Ramdisk for a game Kenshi since otherwise it tends to load from the SSD every 30 seconds and lag due to the way the old Ogre Engine works)

Of course, all that happens if you run out of physical ram is that your pc lags for like 1-2 seconds when it swaps over to virtual ram/swap space. Not really annoying until it happens over and over and over again ....

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HurricaneFloyd@reddit

For gaming, yes. For creative work, no.

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ComplaintSolid121@reddit

Go for 64gb. I regret only having 64gb (granted I'm a compiler dev), but if the price difference isn't that much it's just set and forget

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Clown_Toucher@reddit

Given other answers in here, when did 32gb become standard?

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kevcsa@reddit

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smietanaaa@reddit

Depends what you are planning to do. I game and have had no issues with 16gb.

If you design, edit in 4k etc then maybe 64gb would be good for you.

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Comrade_Chyrk@reddit

If it's for gaming, yes, it's overkill, and you will see little to no gains in performance over 32gb.

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32GB is good for gaming. 64 is best for things like video editing.

You could use 64gb in a gaming rig, but frankly I’d put the difference into a better CPU/GPU.

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undercoveryankee@reddit

The price difference between 32 and 64 is small compared to the cost of a CPU or video card, and you might want to do media production/AI/whatever in the next five years even if it's just for gaming now. Better to build for what you can imagine yourself wanting if you can afford to.

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qalmakka@reddit

Only as long as you're going to use less than 32 GB. Then it becomes absolutely necessary.

Do you game? you're fine with 32 GB, heck, even 16 often suffice. You do any kind of heavy tasks with VMs, building code, ...? Then probably 64 GB aren't enough anymore and you'd be better off with 96.

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G00chstain@reddit

Yes

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Zoopa8@reddit

If it's work-related, it can vary drastically. If we're just talking about playing video games, 32GB should be fine. There are perhaps some outliers, like Star Citizen (which is more like a demo than an actual game), Cities: Skylines II (when building massive cities), and, I believe, the latest Microsoft Flight Simulator, which recommended 64GB for the best experience I think. However, all of these should usually be totally fine with 32GB.

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intrepidone66@reddit

32GB is good. 64GB is better...

Depends on what you do, I hover around 20-30GB of RAM usage while not playing games so 32GB is absolutely not enough for me which is why I have 64GB. Now I know what I'm doing that causes this RAM usage and could stop doing it and get away with less RAM but instead I just spent the extra money to get 64GB.

Now, if you max out your current RAM usage around 20GB during your most RAM intensive activities then you probably don't need 64GB.

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Zak7062@reddit

It really is, but RAM is so cheap that I basically said why not

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pcfan86@reddit

64 gig are not overkill, but 32 are fine.

If you have the budget and plan to use the PC for a few years without apgrading, get 64. But try to get 2 sticks, if possible for either one.

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DiggingNoMore@reddit

The machine I built in 2016 had 32GB. The machine I replaced it with this year has 96GB.

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keblin86@reddit

I have 32gb and the most I have noticed in use is just over 14gb so far.
If I was getting a DDR4 system right now I'd just buy 64gb, if I wanted to spend lots on DDR5 I'd do the same but then your talking probably near £200 just on DDR5 ram so that's a bit much!

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RTCanada@reddit

Cities Skylines with my 200+ assets and 30-40 mods its page file hits around 38GB.

I went with 48GB for my build.. 64 is more readily available but if it wasn’t for that game it is overkill.

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Puzzleheaded_Ad_9080@reddit

It all depends on your workload. I run and train AI models locally and edit videos, and 64gb is too little for some of the AI models.

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AnotherPCGamer173@reddit

Overall for gaming, it isn’t needed. Modded gaming, it would be nice but 32 is still fine.

Running a server? It will be nice. Running a modded server and playing a modded game? You’ll probably want 64 at that point.

For other stuff such as productivity, you’ll want 64. Video editing takes a lot. 3D modeling can use a lot. Streaming can be fine on 32.

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I upgraded to 128GB, max my motherboard supports. It's amazing, one of my favorite upgrades. I can run everything simultaneously, it's like working in a warehouse when you're used to a garage. It's completely overkill, but RAM is cheap and I can't afford a new gpu.

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RoxoRoxo@reddit

no,

16 is minimum, 32 is recommended, 64 is almost overkill anything higher is definitely overkill unless youre doing stuff that isnt gaming.

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Herdnerfer@reddit

Borderline overkill but I just upped to 128gb because I’ve been getting into AI and LLM development so what do I know.

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Jesterstear99@reddit

If you can afford it, get 64GB (as 2 sticks of 32GB).

No point in scrimping and then later on finding you need more, and have to buy the whole lot again to avoid instability with 4 sticks.

I could probably get away with 32GB, but I just went for 64 as the price difference was so small.

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kanakalis@reddit

what games do you play? 3 of mine goes over 32, hell one of them needs 96gb ram

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Different_Lemon_7656@reddit

For gaming? Yeah

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bright2darkness@reddit

16 is fine, I regret getting 32

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OtherAlan@reddit

16 was fine 2 years ago or if you dont plan to play past 1080p resolution. Windows itself uses like 4-6GB.

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PsyOmega@reddit

Windows itself uses like 4-6GB.

I'd say 32 if you're going to play recent games with Chrome/Discord open on a second monitor. The newer games I got are optimized like trash so I recently went to 32 and didn't regret it. Also heard Win 11 is still trash and resource hungry, I dread the forced upgrade.

wordswillneverhurtme@reddit

Get it and be happy. I no longer have to worry about ram when hosting servers to play with friends. I can run a seemingly infinite amount of things. Its just amazing.

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brendamn@reddit

For me, no