16 is minimum and 32 is recommended if you do much pc gaming, browsing, or torrenting. Things with multiple programs. A single browser and steam open. I regularly hit 16 to 20gb on mint and librewolf. I rarely never see a use past 32gb. I find that to be the sweet spot right now. Anything higher than 32 is better spent on ddr5 upgrade. Caveat being if you run some serious programs but that’s overly rare even by today’s software.
I have 8GB in my laptop running mint, its used for browsing, office work, 3D print slicing, and occasionally I torrent a file from it…it is absolutely no issue whatsoever and it never even breaks 4GB use unless it’s actively slicing a 3D model. 16GB minimum I can agree with for gaming, but for desktop use as mentioned above you can easily get by with less.
for desktop use as mentioned above you can easily get by with less.
Sure, as long as you’re willing to deal with the performance hit of constantly swapping to disk.
Even SSD drives are a magnitude slower that any modern RAM stick, so you’re adding TONS of processing time by running that little memory. And gods help you if your swap is on spinning rust…
SSDs are fast enough as swap to be imperceptible to the untrained eye. A good test is to disable swap for a while. You can bet they will see their system grind its gears at some point.
Operating systems are designed with the assumption that swap will be used. 32GB is roughly the waterline where you can forgo it all together while avoiding consequenecs of the code freaking out when it needs it and doesn’t have any.
I also have 64, but I’ve seen up to 34 in use a couple times. I could have stayed with 48gb, but the timings/cas latency was much better on the 64gb kit, than running mismatched sizes across 4 slots
Unused RAM is wasted RAM. If you’ve got 64GB of RAM but your system never uses more than 8GB of RAM, you don’t need 64GB of RAM and you’re not getting any benefit from it.
On any modern os unused ram is ot simply unused. It is used for caching files and other stuff. So more ram can provide significant performance improvements for some taks even if “unused”.
I regularly use over 16-24GB of my 32 GB, and considering I just had to replace 4 8s with 2 16s, I’m honestly kinda tempted to get another pair just to have knowing the shit that’s coming down the pipe.
Yeah, by the time it becomes an issue you’ll be ready to upgrade anyway. There are few use cases for as much RAM as I have. I only bought it to fuck around with VM’s. I’m probably skipping ddr5 and am5 so you’re in good company.
I hope 16 gigs is good for a while.
16 is minimum and 32 is recommended if you do much pc gaming, browsing, or torrenting. Things with multiple programs. A single browser and steam open. I regularly hit 16 to 20gb on mint and librewolf. I rarely never see a use past 32gb. I find that to be the sweet spot right now. Anything higher than 32 is better spent on ddr5 upgrade. Caveat being if you run some serious programs but that’s overly rare even by today’s software.
I have 8GB in my laptop running mint, its used for browsing, office work, 3D print slicing, and occasionally I torrent a file from it…it is absolutely no issue whatsoever and it never even breaks 4GB use unless it’s actively slicing a 3D model. 16GB minimum I can agree with for gaming, but for desktop use as mentioned above you can easily get by with less.
Sure, as long as you’re willing to deal with the performance hit of constantly swapping to disk.
Even SSD drives are a magnitude slower that any modern RAM stick, so you’re adding TONS of processing time by running that little memory. And gods help you if your swap is on spinning rust…
SSDs are fast enough as swap to be imperceptible to the untrained eye. A good test is to disable swap for a while. You can bet they will see their system grind its gears at some point.
Operating systems are designed with the assumption that swap will be used. 32GB is roughly the waterline where you can forgo it all together while avoiding consequenecs of the code freaking out when it needs it and doesn’t have any.
If that was the case I wouldn’t have 4GB of idle ram just sitting in my PC. There is no unloading to swap when 50% of available ram is unused.
you did notice the person you are replying to is using linux, right?
they are correct, 16gb goes a loooooong way in linux. I know begause I too have 16 on my work and gaming rig and ram has never been a bottleneck
your comments sound like typical windows experience
You can run it on 8GB. Doesnt mean you won’t benefit from more.
Your system outsources the memory to swap space or is memory starved and needs to unload programs.
I have 64 and I have rarely ever used as much as 16.
you must have correctly moved on from Chrome
I also have 64, but I’ve seen up to 34 in use a couple times. I could have stayed with 48gb, but the timings/cas latency was much better on the 64gb kit, than running mismatched sizes across 4 slots
How is it 2025 and people still don’t understand how RAM works?
If you’ve got 64GB of RAM, ideally you want to be using nearly all of that 64GB at all times.
It’s not like I’m manually clearing things out of the ram. And before the power outage last weekend I had an up-time over 2 months.
Is there a way to have the OS utilize more?
Explain why.
Unused RAM is wasted RAM. If you’ve got 64GB of RAM but your system never uses more than 8GB of RAM, you don’t need 64GB of RAM and you’re not getting any benefit from it.
On any modern os unused ram is ot simply unused. It is used for caching files and other stuff. So more ram can provide significant performance improvements for some taks even if “unused”.
That doesn’t show as unused.
I regularly use over 16-24GB of my 32 GB, and considering I just had to replace 4 8s with 2 16s, I’m honestly kinda tempted to get another pair just to have knowing the shit that’s coming down the pipe.
That’s reassuring, gotta make sure I take care of mine. The pc market has been too messy the last few years.
Yeah, by the time it becomes an issue you’ll be ready to upgrade anyway. There are few use cases for as much RAM as I have. I only bought it to fuck around with VM’s. I’m probably skipping ddr5 and am5 so you’re in good company.