I always hear 16gb memory is an overkill - but why ?

[scaryjim]

... remember, this is a very conservative usage scenario ...

There I completely disagree. Your usage scenario is extraordinarily memory hungry compared to the vast majority of PC users. Most people aren't running VMs, aren't editing "a few streams of 1080p video", aren't firing up Premier Pro / Adobe CS 6 all the time. Most people check their email and facebook and watch youtube videos, or run outlook and MS Word in an office environment. I work with large Access front ends and SQL server databases, plus quite often run a VM for alternative OS/Browser/Office version testing (and occasionally fire up Visual Studio). I rarely see over 4GB of usage even then. I've run similar loads on machines with 4GB quite happily, without noticing any obvious slow down (although I'm not complaining about having more memory on my current machine, as it means I can up the RAM on my VMs ). The fact that the vast majority of people commenting on this thread - who by their association with Hexus can be assumed to be at the more demanding end of the user scale - seem to find your tab usage and memory load unusually high should tell you something.

Your usage is *not* conservative. And for the vast majority of people, 4GB of RAM is more than enough, just as a basic 2GHz dual core CPU is enough, and basic Intel integrated graphics is enough. None of that precludes some users needing more powerful hardware (you don't need to read too far back in this thread to find me describing one example in a previous job), but it does mean that it can be hard to understand how those edge cases occur - even for those of us with plenty of experience. To be running a web browser in such a way as to consume 7GB of RAM on its own is such a huge outlier it's understandable that many are incredulous at it.

[dulcificum]

Most people don't build their own PCs. I thought a thread like this on a forum like this was aimed at those sort of people where video editing and VMs are much more common.

Not to mention the number of regular people with YouTube accounts who edit their videos before uploading.

In any case I meant conservative compared to what's usual for me not the average PC user. Only two years ago I made do with 2 gigs for a while but it's going to be more and more common for people to find 8GB insufficient and especially the sorts of people threads like this are aimed at.

[kalniel]

Not to mention the number of regular people with YouTube accounts who edit their videos before uploading.

*shrugs* we do our home YouTube editing on a machine with 4GB RAM - CPU speed is more important it seems.

[scaryjim]

Most people don't build their own PCs. I thought a thread like this on a forum like this was aimed at those sort of people where video editing and VMs are much more common.

Most of the people posting in this thread are of the opinion that 4GB is just about enough, 8GB is plenty, and 16GB is overkill. If this thread isn't aimed at the people who are posting to it (me included), then I'd like to know who it is meant to be aimed at!

Plenty of people have pointed out that they edit videos or run VMs and are more than happy with 4GB or 8GB. Yet you seem to be insisting that this is impossible. In a not dissimilar way to the behaviour you were talking about when you said "But it's silly when people act all incredulous as though it's a physical impossibility."

You need more than 8GB of RAM. That's fair enough. But the reason people say 16GB is overkill, is because - regardless of whether a thread like this is "aimed" at them or not - most people don't use anywhere near that much memory.

[dulcificum]

I understand and accept that. However, the number of hobbyists working with video is only going to grow and I would honestly like to see how people can edit videos with just 4GB. In general, I wouldn't be surprised to hear people changing their tune.

I freshly rebooted my system the other day. Currently have "only" 20 tabs open taking up 3.4GB memory and a further 4.4GB virtual memory. On Chrome, Gmail, GPU and Browser alone take up 1.5GB. And many people need multiple Gmail tabs (I only ever have 1 or 2). Any page with video on it takes up at least 100MB. And I just tried downloaded a dozen files from mediafire which locked up my computer with 100% CPU and 100% RAM for about 15 minutes.

This might not be "normal" behaviour but it's not too many deviations off these days...

[ajones]

OK, so I'm happy with the discussion that for most users 16GB's of memory would not be used. You'd be left with a £50-odd stick of RAM hanging off your motherboard doing nothing (please no trolls stating the obvious that PC use with 2x8GB the memory would be distributed between the 2 sticks....)

Looking at this the other way: Are there any ways, such as RAM Disk, that "most users" could in some way eek out more performance from their PC's with the incorporation of this much RAM?

[MrRockliffe]

One thing about having 8GB as 2x4GB is that I hate having free space left. I could do with spending 400 quid on aesthetics. I'd sell CPU to get Haswell for a black motherboard, sell motherboard, RAM and case. Only problem is RAM is really expensive at the moment. Stupidly so.

[shaithis]

Looking at this the other way: Are there any ways, such as RAM Disk, that "most users" could in some way eek out more performance from their PC's with the incorporation of this much RAM?

Unlikely. What are you going to put in the RAM disk? Now factor in the time to copy it there and the time to save it back out.....

I am sure a very small group of people do something very specific on a regular basis that could make it worthwhile.....but instead of wasting £50 and faffing around with a 8GB RAM disk, you might as well buy a 60GB SSD.

[Tknibbs31]

If you plan to video edit then you should get 16gb but for gaming and most others it's just a waste of money

[dulcificum]

Here's an example: BRAND NEW install of Windows 7 Ultimate. Running Chrome with three tabs (including this one). Gmail and YouTube ONLY.

Just that takes up 1.5GB of memory!

[Splash]

Windows 8.1 with 8 Chrome windows open (none of them Youtube) as well as a smattering of other apps (Spotify, GoogleDrive, Malwarebytes, Gamefly, AIDA64, GoG.Com Downloader, Kies, VMware Workstation (though no VMs), Acronis True Image etc etc etc

3.8Gb in use.

8Gb would be absolutely fine for my needs were it not for VMware Workstation: I use it for nested ESXi for lab work (along with my *proper* lab) and for testing designs out, and as such I'm rocking 32Gb of RAM in this box. I'm a niche use case, as it seems are you.

Also bear in mind that memory not being used is wasted memory. You get no benefit from having a massive overhead of RAM available to use.

[TheAnimus]

I think it depends how many you have open and how you browse, for instance one my desktop, I've got a lot of screen real estate, so often I'll have 30+ browser windows open. It often starts when I have a problem or something, I end up doing a quick search, I get maybe 6 blogs or SO links come up, out of those I'll then refer to documentation or similar which will result in new tabs opened.

Then they will stay open for a while as I go and program up a version of what I've just been reading about.

My desktop has 24gb of RAM, this was due to some research I was doing on fairly large data sets. But it is very useful legacy.

[glomper99]

I personally have 16GB simply because it was only £10 more at the time of purchase over the same 8GB kit, and it means that it's able to run more intensive applications as and when I need it to.

[robredz]

I will be upgrading from 16 Gb to 32 Gb as soon as the price comes down a bit, it is better for video editing to have as much RAM as posssible,

[dulcificum]

Just for another datapoint, I had 6GB of RAM taken up just by five Gmail tabs and two YouTube tabs recently. With just 8GB that leaves hardly anything for extensions and the OS, let alone running any other programs/browsers.

[mikerr]

How do you switch between and manage 70+ tabs ?