16GB or 8GB?

[Dhunter729]

i've 2x4 and when i played d3 never passed 60% so for the time its cool 8 GB

[NatoR]

8 GB = Win 7

16 GB = Win 8

32 GB = Gaming

[iMike]

8 GB = Win 7

16 GB = Win 8

32 GB = Gaming

No. Just no.

@Dhunter729 - You could probably get away with 8GB, it's not worth buying anymore than you need at the moment: memory prices go down all the time and so you should buy what you NEED now and upgrade in the future if necessary.
The memory quotes above are way off.
What are you mainly using your computer for? This is so that we can judge roughly how much ram you'll need.

Basic Tasks:
4GB is recommended for Windows 7 as the computer will generally use around 2GB upon startup dependent on how many startup processes etc you have but 4GB will generally give you enough maneuverability and also allow you to complete some memory intensive tasks such as opening Photoshop for example.

Gamers:
I honestly doubt that you'll need more than 6/8GB of ram due to the nature of most games, as you say: most games will not push your overall ram over 75%. The extra ram is just to play it on the safe side and you could also be multi-tasking with some web pages open as well.

Semi Professional:
8GB is recommended for more professional users are you will most likely be relying on multi-tasking and that consumes a lot of memory keeping programs open. The programs that you use will probably be very memory intensive too.

Professional:
If you are a very professional user then your computer would rely heavily on its capability to do very memory intensive tasks. This could include running VMs etc.
Having 16GB would be a nice benefit although not absolutely necessary, I run VMs on my computer which has 8GB of ram with no problems at all: generally there are two concurrent VMs running with 2GB each dedicated to them.

To be totally honest with you, for most common uses 4GB would be enough (for Dual-Channel). It's slightly different with tri-channel as it would be recommended to have 6GB.
Since you have 8GB already, I'd recommend that you stick with it for the time being.

[losertheone]

16 GB is absolutely overkill in my opinion.

8GB is more than enough for gaming, usually even 4GB.
8GB is suitable for pretty much anything right now. If you want 16GB in the future, do so in the future because it will certainly get cheaper.

[PowerPie5000]

8 GB = Win 7

16 GB = Win 8

32 GB = Gaming

I'm sure you're joking. lol.

[ajax2061]

thinking of upgrading my ram to 16gb, reason being i am thinking about a 4gb ram disk and set windows page file to run from that which leaves 12gb to use which should be more than enough for the life of this current machine.

[vettieboo]

I sort of disagree. When I switched to 8 from 4 it did make things like flipping to the desktop instant versus taking a bit of time otherwise. 8 is the sweet spot right now (it has been for a while actually) and whilst you're right in that very few games eat large amounts of RAM it is nice to have plenty spare for the system cache/other apps that you might want to keep running alongside the game. 16GB would make no difference to me whatsoever for my home system versus 8GB. One day that might change but then Win8 seems slimmer rather than fatter so.. could be a while yet.

That said, i'd look at the pricing and go with more than you need unless the cost is prohibitive. I didn't think I'd 'need' 8 on my last build but it was cheap enough so I though what the heck. Turns out it was a good choice.

I'd have to agree with this point honestly. Just ordered some 8GB RAM to replace my 4GB, which was honestly starting to slow everything down when I played some games like L4D2. Chrome and other browsers also seem to take RAM, so I think 8 GB is a worthy upgrade, considering the price. Not sure I'd push for 16GB though, seems a bit overkill for most users.

[Oswald]

I have 8GB 1600mhz ram in my gaming rig, and don't notice any difference with the 4GB 1333mhz I had before.
In my work laptop I only have 6GB, and when using vmware, it does go to 100% memory usage. So I could use more ram in that thing, but I don't use vmware that often.

[flearider]

lol 16gb at the price it is why not .. nice 1866 and overclock it .. it allows you to do more if you want or have to ..
why settle for a somthing when for a little more you can have it all ..
and whos to say within the next yr or 2 games wont need 8gb or more .. ??

[mickyjim]

depending on what software you are running 8Gb is more than enough i do a lot of DVD work and never get above 25% i also have SSD drives so the data does not have to hang around in RAM however DDR3 being so cheap at the moment why not max it out, i built a PC for a musician i7 3930 and he was adamant he wanted 32GB of RAM also had 2 ocz revodrives glad i was not picking up the tab but the performance was blinding and he keeps calling me to thank me for what a great system i built for him £3000 guess that's chicken feed if you get a top 10 hit.

[Iain162]

thinking of upgrading my ram to 16gb, reason being i am thinking about a 4gb ram disk and set windows page file to run from that which leaves 12gb to use which should be more than enough for the life of this current machine.

Wouldnt it make more sense and end up being less hassle in the long run to just disable the page file :/ with that kind of memory a page file shouldnt be necessary as all its designed for is to act as an overflow for when you actually run out of physical memory in the first place..

[clovy]

vote 8gb.. 16gb just for gaming is wasting money. IMHO. 16gb is proper to do video rendering, 3D animation,etc.

[technodean]

Personally Iv'e recently added another 4gb to my 8gb, Have I noticed a difference? YES. Gameplay seems smoother, internet sites are more responsive, and photo editing software renders the images better. Although the pc says i'm using just 14%, it is using over 8gb right now as cache.

[fuzzy786]

Agree I’ve got 16gb which is hardly being used but it’s nice to have the extra memory

[MattHibbard]

8 to 12 is all u need for a good few years

[TheDutyPaid]

What about 12GB 3X4GB ?