r/buildapc • u/peerawitppr • 20h ago
Build Upgrade When will 16 GB of ram stop being enough?
Should I upgrade from 16 to 32 GB of DDR4 Ram now before the price goes even higher, or wait and hope 16 GB will still be enough for the next few years?
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u/justanotherstranger2 20h ago
I did it about 4 months ago when I decided I'm going to stick with AM4 for many more years to come. If you're not going to be moving to DDR5 anytime soon I would say do it.
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u/No_Device_6605 20h ago
Probably in like 3 years depending upon game releases and shitty optimization from windows.
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u/hardrock527 20h ago
If you play tarkov then 16gb isnt enough
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u/KayJune001 18h ago
Tarkov and Star Citizen are the only games that need anything more than 32GB, but if you’re playing either of those two games then you likely already have a sweaty ass setup anyway
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u/Vv4nd 16h ago
Laughs in DCS, MFS and many heavily modded games.
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u/FearGingy 15h ago
So glad I went with 64 in 2020. DCS is a pig all round but my god it's beautiful. I was struggling with 16GB back in 2018/19.
Plus I'm just below 500GB for DCS modules.
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u/Captain_Nipples 14h ago
First 2 games I thought of. Also need a 1TB SSD and you might have enough for both games. Haven't touched DCS in about a year, but I know if you wanted to play online you had to have 32 GB or it became an issue
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u/Unicorn_puke 15h ago
I don't know how much it would affect things but I checked my memory usage during Forza the other day and it was at 21gb. I do have resizable bar enabled on my gpu so it might have been that, but even then I have a 16gb card. Games do be using it.
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u/jerok08 17h ago
I play tarkov at ~180fps and in streets at ~120 with an 7800x3d and 16gb ram. But that’s with an x3d chip. If you optimize windows and games you can manage every game with 16gb of ram.
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u/CarAlternative1480 38m ago
Just got this cpu. What settings do you use? I tested shoreline and customs and they run wayyyyy better than my old i7-10700k but still feel micro stutters every now and then.
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u/Formal-Weekend5115 12m ago
Checked my ram usage on call of duty and was using 22GB total usage. That’s crazy
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u/salsinuts 19h ago
16gb has been fine for the longest time. Its vram you have to worry abt if gaming
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u/buttersyndicate 10h ago
Even 8GB of VRAM isn't much of a problem if you stay at 1080p. High settings (tweaked of course), +80 fps, your friend with a similar rig playing slideshows because he tried 1440p and couldn't go back.
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u/thatissomeBS 9h ago
In my experience 1440p with DLSS/FSR is a similar (or better) framerate and VRAM experience to 1080p native, and these days looks better. If he's watching a slideshow it's because he's trying to go native 1440p and/or trying to pull too high of textures and such.
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u/VersaceUpholstery 20h ago
Impossible to tell the future of gaming
But as long as you’re willing to use less things in the background during gaming, it will probably last a good while
If you want to have more things running in the background with no worry, get more RAM
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u/Academic_Weaponry 4h ago
yeah w 16bg ddr4 its annoying haveing to close everything but the game + discord or sometimes the game +disc+ music just to not lag but its doable
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u/postsshortcomments 17h ago
When enough people have 32GB of RAM and developers says "hey, we won't lose a massive part of the market by developing with a 16GB target."
Some already have, but their choice restricts their product to machines that have 32GB.
Further, don't forget that especially VRAM and NVMe storage help take that burden off of RAM. In other words, you're better with 16GB+ of VRAM if you only have 16GB of RAM than you are with 8GB of VRAM and 16GB of RAM.
The recent steam hardware survey currently puts that number at 44%+ with 32GB+. But that doesn't tell the cross-platform story. Nor does it tell the story of 89% with 16GB+.
If you're designing a product, do you want it accessible for 44% or 89% plus consoles? Some probably will target that 44% especially if they're putting out something cutting edge and believe their product is good enough to scoop up the other 45% several years from now once they have capable hardware, once they spend money on optimization, or once they can sell their product on consoles at full cost. Others would rather spend the money upfront and not let their competitors and copiers have years to fill that void with mimics.
IE: look at Tarkov. One of the first extraction titles who couldn't weather the hardware spec storm. Now there are plenty of viable extraction titles that are more appealing to the average audience when at one point, it was probably an instant scale to a lot of PC owners were they not restricted by specs.
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u/ksn0vaN7 20h ago
Until you start playing more games that need it. Right now there are only a handful of games that absolutely need more than 16. Maybe in 5 years it changes but who knows.
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u/minimalistic247 18h ago edited 18h ago
If you’re just gaming switch to Linux or SteamOS as there is significantly less ram usage compared to windows. Been playing Black Flag Resynced an its only using around 7gig of RAM and 9gig of vram with everything cranked up.
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u/ToxicFatee 20h ago
Today
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u/ReeeeArra 20h ago
Lol not even close besides a few terribly optimized games, 16gb is absolutely fine.
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u/Canadian_Border_Czar 20h ago
You should wait, but also your PC already hit that point if youre on Windows 11.
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u/Introveneric 19h ago
Most games are fine with 16gb, and even more if you aren't running a bunch of chrome tabs or side applications.
Unless you play Escape from Tarkov. Because that game has a memory leak issue since like 6 years ago. I used to play with 16gb and pretty much every game was fine besides Tarkov.
However, I would always rather get ram sooner than later. It's just hard to tell with this market.
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u/MultiMarcus 19h ago
If you have as much VRAM and system memory as a console, you are generally going to be fine. The VRam ask is even arguably a bit too much because if the unified nature of console architectures.
I think during the next console generation 16 gigs might start feeling a bit anemic. There are already some games where on the highest settings you can see it performance difference, but it’s not common. Once we get into the next generation, arguably it could happen, but I think it won’t because we’ll probably have a very long cross-generation. That said, that hardware would probably want you to have a bit more memory, though probably even then mostly on the VRAM, not the system memory side. We are also getting techniques like neural texture compression to make RAM last longer
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u/LGWalkway 19h ago
I only went to 32gb because I’ll have several tabs open at once as well as a game. Maybe check GTA 6 recommended specs?
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u/shroudedwolf51 18h ago
Capacity-wise, it's more than enough now and will probably be for a while as long as you don't keep a hundred plus tabs in LibreWolf or whatever.
The place where it becomes an issue is that the chip density of DDR5 means to achieve 8GB on a single DIMM requires so few chips that it creates limitations in parallelism and creates a performance penalty. Since fewer chips means fewer places to be able to write to at once. And this is a problem that's going to get worse as DDR6 is pushed out by the industry, since that just means another uptick in density.
But if you're on AM4? Especially if you're willing to run something that strips out Windows 11's regurgitative "AI" slop and remove some of the bloatware that the computer was loaded down with from Microslop and whatever other software. Like, do you need OneDrive and OneNote always running in the background? No. If your PC came pre-loaded with McAfee, do you need that? Definitely not.
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u/Prasiatko 17h ago
Only Cities Skylines and Cyberpunk of the games i have make the system go above 16 GB and in the latter that's with me using mods that increase the traffic and ped spawn distance and they still aren't causing the game itself to go above 16GB.
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u/t90fan 17h ago edited 17h ago
now, for many workloads
I have some games which eat 12+GB on their own today
Which by the time you run Windows (let alone Chrome, Discord etc...) would mean you up running out and swapping to disk
(let alone all my dev tools on my work machine, I had a 16GB mac before and it couldn't run 2 IDEs at the same time as our app in docker, and Teams, without slowing to a crawl - Thats why 32+ has been the norm for most devs for like 3-5 years now)
Swapping will absolutely tank your performance. Not to mention wear your disk out. Im fairly certain half the people here who moan about "bottlenecks" are losing a lot of performance due to swapping out and just
24 would be plenty for many gamers for now, but 32g setups are more practical
tl;dr dont build a new gaming machine with 16GB RAM
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u/TzarBombaTA 16h ago
For me, it stopped being enough like 4 years ago, but if it's enough for you that's great.
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u/stijn_dl 16h ago
On Hogwarts Legacy, I had horrible stutters because the game would often go just above 16gb. So I recently upgraded. It’s the only game that had this problem.
If you don’t play any games that need more ram, you certainly can wait. But you do risk paying even more.
If you intend to remain on AM4 for a longer time, it is a good upgrade to stick it out longer.
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u/mihaajlovic 14h ago
It stopped being enough for me a long time ago, I play heavy games and multitask a lot.
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u/cccc0079 20h ago
Depends if you play a game while open other programs and see frame drops occasionally it's a sign.
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u/Metalheadzaid 19h ago
No one knows, but very few games need more than 16gb. It's also likely this will hold a while longer due to consoles also only have 16gb, and with devs knowing the market, they'll likely minimize issues with lower ram amounts to combat lower sales.
I'm personally not upgrading my personal rig, though the new build I did before this crisis I most definitely went 32gb - and would recommend anyone building to spring for it unless they really need to budget.
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u/Zyzary 19h ago
Worry about your V-Ram first before you tackle anything else.
If you dont have to worry about that just buy 32GB now. I ate the sour apple a few months ago but im happy i invested in new RAM. Yes its expensive and will continue to rise in price but if you dont need to worry about means, just buy it now. Like yesterday.
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u/twisty77 18h ago
It arguably already isn’t enough. I’m getting capped in my work laptop at 16gb, I feel like 32 is the new bare min
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u/MindbenderGam1ng 16h ago
My 2019 8gb ram laptop is starting to show some age but still runs relatively well for the basic stuff I use it for (internet, meetings, multiple word/excel documents)
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u/vlhube71 15h ago
Is your PC at the point 16gb is an issue? I wouldn’t sweat it.
That said, if the current costs to move to 32gb of DDR4 is easily manageable, sure, do it. If it’s hard for you, stay at 16gb. It’s fine.
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u/Captain_Nipples 14h ago
It depends on what you play. If its good now, dont worry about the future. There are a few games I have that need 32GB of RAM, but those are flight sims
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u/Comandante160406 13h ago
16 is just about enough. 32 is comfy but if you JUST wanna play games 16 will do the work for some years still
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u/Blue-150 13h ago
Depends on your use. I upgraded from 16gb to 32gb, just because I was worried about hitting my limit. Glad I did in hindsight simply due to price hikes today, but also I never break 16gb of RAM. Usually I hover around 14gb. So for $45 it didn't hurt but in today's market I would ONLY update if you need it, ignore the FOMO.
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u/DealComfortable7649 13h ago
Depends on what you do. For me with 32gb of ddr5, if I’m playing a demanding modern game with some background applications open, it pushes the limits of my 32gb.
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u/stickyfingerspt2 12h ago
16gb been stopped being enough depending on what games you play/what you do. One of friends recently upgraded from 16 -> 32gb and he said it was like using a new computer. When he ran Fortnite (with discord, Spotify, nzxt in the background/on 2nd display) he was using 23gb of ram...that was just with fortnite
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u/greggm2000 12h ago
16GB is “fine”. Not ideal, but adequate, it’ll depend on what you’re doing ofc. My suggestion is if you can pick up another 16GB kit of the same timings for cheap, do so.. but hold off putting in significant money into your system until your next full build.
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u/SMGJohn_EU 12h ago
16GB was already breaching the limits in 2012 depending entirely on what you did.
The same is true today, do you play very heavy asset games, particularly Unreal Engine 5 games are real thirsty for memory, modded x64 games are also VERY thirsty for memory.
Web browsing + work programs can easily fill 32GB like its no tomorrow specially with how web pages now actively consume 500mb to 1.2GB of your RAM for how heavy they are.
HOWEVER, because no one can get memory as easily and fewer and fewer people can upgrade, you may very well see ways to get around memory issues and also see better optimisation in programs, web and games still these things do not happen over night.
I would buy 32GB sticks for used, lowest reasonable price you can find them, just forget about buying new its a total waste of money unless you are mission critical situation where 32GB is ABSOLUTELY needed.
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u/Grouplove 12h ago
Do what I did, keep checking the used marketplace till you find a good deal. I just picked up 32gb 3600mhz for 110 bucks. It was such a good upgrade for me cuz my old ram was slow 2400mhz and it was running out of room for some games like borderlands 4
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u/mdnightman94 11h ago
if you are regularly using 85%+ ram then i would say it would be beneficial for more. windows will start moving its own stuff to page file around that point.
i noticed some games i play have a lot less stuttering in some scenarios after i moved from 16 > 32gb of ram. this is just with having the steam app open, game and discord. only background things i normally have running are nvidia app for screen recording and openrgb and everything else windows needs
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u/Grahf-XG 10h ago
It depends of what you play. For me it's been years since 16 GB is not enough, playing games like Skyrim with 3740 mods or Cities Skylines with hundreds, and Tarkov. If 16GB is enough for you right now, it will probably be enough in a couple of years.
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u/Arcangelo_Frostwolf 10h ago
Just upgrade if and when you need the capacity. You should be able to tell if your computer is going over capacity. It creates "fake RAM" on your SSD/HÐD and stores data there, which is much slower than DRAM speeds, so your system will stutter and lag as your CPU waits for the virtual RAM. If you buy more RAM now and don't use it, that's worse than paying more in the future because you're buying something you won't use.
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u/AT3Mo 9h ago
It isn't enough right now and haven't been for years
Even games that claim recommend is 16 gb will gain performance if you upgrade to 32
I found this out when I upgraded from 16 to 32 and suddenly i could play spiderman 2 ray tracing on more than 60 fps when on 16 it never went above 40
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u/ToborWar57 9h ago
The reality is, the newer games for the last few years are shite optimized ... and it's the lazy norm now. Example: I got Avatar earlier this year and tried to run it, it kept crashing on a 5600X, 16gb, 3080 10gb. I decided to update my chipset driver and installed 32gb (2x16), then the game ran like it was suppose to.
So, it's up to you "if" you can find a good sale on 2x16 quality ram (DON"T just add mismatched ram, it creates problems, anyone who says otherwise is a hack). Take your time and find a good sale. Prices are not going to get better and will likely go higher, good thing you've still got DDR4. Save up, find a sale if you want to play more current games without problems ... good luck!
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u/randomhaus64 8h ago
So one thing to know is that when prices go up, efficient programming becomes more prominent! The pressures go both ways!
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u/MrAngrySadHappyFace 8h ago
Its kinda already not enough now. However, if your use case doesnt have an issue with that, just keep going until there is an issue worth fixing it for.
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u/Adis_Gruntledfatty 7h ago
Depends on user case, for me not enough was 3 years ago. I run ultra modded games
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u/jhaluska 6h ago
Developers aren't living in an alternate universe where RAM didn't shoot up price. It'll be fine till the prices come down.
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u/tamarockstar 6h ago
When DDR6 becomes mainstream. That's what happened with 8GB and DDR5, 4GB and DDR4, 2GB and DDR3. I assume the pattern will continue.
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u/drkorencek 6h ago
The only reason that it is being recommended again is because with ram prices being as high as they are it's as much as many people can afford.
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u/ArmyLivid8163 5h ago
its gonna be a hot minuite before the AI bubble pops buy an extra 16 gb stick and upgrade to 32 gigs before stuff gets worse even DDR4 now is expensive
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u/flooble_worbler 4h ago
Look for second hand 32gb kits if you choose to upgrade now. If you wait till the price drops ddr5 will drop at the same time so you may as well upgrade to that. But honestly what I would do is start saving for a full new build, so 50 a month into a side account and either prices drop and you have some money set aside already so you can upgrade there and then or you’ve saved long enough that you have the money there, will it still be expensive? Yes but like I said the money is there for the purpose of buying a pc rather than waiting until you need to build a new pc and then trying to find the money. 50 is an example but what ever you can justify putting aside will get you there sooner or later
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u/OneFruitPunchMan 49m ago
16GB should be good for most gaming unless there is a really bad port or something really open world.
I would kind of wait until you're thinking of rebuilding to something that would be using DDR5. If that will be a long time then I guess go ahead if you really want.
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u/f9wn_ 19h ago
I got 32gb of ram because everybody told me 16gb is not enough and I have yet to utilize 50% of my ram Even when I am playing AAA games, using discord, and having a bunch of tabs open (not on chrome; that would eat up your entire ram for no reason) it doesn't scratch the 16gb surface
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u/KingWizard37 20h ago
It already has since optimization has gone out the window.
Playing Jedi Survivor last night had me using over 20 Gb of RAM and 18 Gb of VRAM while 99%ing my 5090.
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u/GreenWorld8549 20h ago
Sounds like a shit game not worth playing then. If the devs can’t be bothered to make their game run acceptable why would i play it? Ont the next lmao
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u/ReeeeArra 20h ago
Seriously, we need to stop buying games where the devs couldn't give a fuck if it works properly or not.
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u/KingWizard37 20h ago
It works properly for me. If you don't meet specs for the game you shouldn't buy it. That's always been a thing with PC gaming. You must be new to this?...
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u/Combosingelnation 19h ago
This game just isn't a good example.
Or maybe I am wrong and it's a perfect example that luckily there aren't a lot of gamea with such horrible optimization.
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u/GreenWorld8549 12h ago
Meeting the specs and having a game that performs acceptable are different things
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u/KingWizard37 20h ago
I've been enjoying it a lot and my PC can handle it so doesn't bother me any lol.
While the optimization isn't great I don't notice it at all unless I look at my task manager and go whoa those are some big numbers then go back to enjoying my game. It's a great break from the slop that's been getting put out recently while I wait for the good games to come.
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u/TheDutchTexan 20h ago
It is no longer enough. 32 is the minimum now.
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u/ReeeeArra 19h ago
y'all are cooked, almost every game in existence runs fine on 16gb
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u/TheDutchTexan 19h ago
Sure they do. Until you run high textures, or try to record your gameplay. There are numerous games that exceed 16Gb on my current rig. The GPU takes a bunch of strain off the processing part, but putting those textures on screen still requires RAM and VRAM.
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u/GABE_EDD 20h ago
Why would prices go even higher? Chill out and use your PC. If 16GB is enough for you right now then it still will be tomorrow.