Why 8GB + ??

Folks, I am about to buy my next ultrabook and considering a 4gb version. The Dell XPS 13...

Reason being I realize that when I am on the go I only perform very light gaming which this unit would be capable of:

Archeage Online / World of Warcraft
Dota 2
CS GO
Starcraft
ETc.

Anyways what I want to find out, is why would I even want 4gb + for an ultra book?

Also why more than 8gb for a gaming pc? I have a I5 4690k 780ti SLI 8gb gaming machine that does 4k+ gaming no problem. Never ran into an issue...

Can someone tell me honestly? I am just trying to understand, when I have never seen a use case requiring tons of ram.

Maybe because I don't photo edit?

For business I just use excel, word processors, pdf files, etc.

I also am the type of guy who has a million windows open in chrome, even of my 4gb surface pro with no issues.....

 

Are you talking about buying the Dell XPS 13 with 4GB RAM or 4GB VRAM?

I'd say 4GB is not quite enough RAM for smoothly running win8, multiple browser tabs, and 64-bit applications like Excel, Outlook (now many games are now 64-bit as well).

 

For purely gaming, you are right. 4GB for those games you play is more than enough.

 

If you've never run into a problem with 8GB on a gaming PC, you don't do very much with your gaming PC other than game. I consistently use 5-7GB of RAM without even launching a game; simply because of the amount of stuff I have open all the time.

In short, it's up to you and how you use your machine. The way I use mine? 4GB is a joke. 8GB is "minimum" for me. 16GB is "breathing room" and 32GB would be "highest I'd go for now".

 

Yeh 4gb is cutting it a bit fine. Even just using Chrome can eat a fair chunk of it.

 

4gb is not enough. Take the 8gb for sure.

 

So guys I appreciate the feedback I have a few responses below:

1) Right now I am typing on surface Pro laptop i5 with 4gb of ram. I currently have google chrome with 4 tabs open, Skype with my GF talking to me, Black berry link, Ms Excel, and vmware client all open. I am using only 2.5meg of ram.

2) My gaming pc I use it for work as well, and I am notorious for using tons of apps at once. Vmware, excel, steam, 15+ chrome tabs, etc. I have never had problems.

Can anyone point to some benchmarks proving more than 4gb is required?

It's just in my experience people always opt for more ram without truly needing it. It's kinda like I7 for gaming...

I am not saying I am right, I am just hoping someone can prove me wrong. So I make the right choice and buy a 8b+ laptop. Part of my other issue is the 8b+ models of XPS 13 all have QHD. I do not want a QHD I want a FHD with better battery life.

IMO QHD touch screens are such a fad. I have a 27 inch 4k monitor but that's actually worth it as it's 27 inches... not 13...

 

Well you are not wrong.

I also survive with 4GB of RAM. I have dropbox, postgres, apache2, tomcat6, skype, vlc, and chromium with 8 tabs running and I am at 50% used by programs and 20% cached.
I can reach 20 tabs with youtube videos and streaming and still be around 70-80% use by programs. I also occasionally run Windows 7 pro in VirtualBox where I have it configured with 1GB of RAM.

However, it just happened that earlier I wanted to run a script of mine on a medium to big graph to get some experimental results, and it ate away around 3GB of RAM, so I had to close chromium.
Also in the past whenever I would do some light bench-marking I would free up some RAM.

It is not the end of the world, but my next laptop will be 8GB of RAM just to have some breathing room. I think it would be a good idea for you too.

 

Sometimes it pays to have a bit more breathing room than you require at the moment. If you plan to keep your system for a while then you may find over time that the applications you currently use may become more memory intensive due to new updates and added features.

With DDR4 starting to come into fray I would consider upgrading sooner (at its cheapest point) rather than later as it will become quite expensive once DDR3 modules phases out from mainstream.

As an example I have a notebook that uses DDR2 modules, I bought 2x 4GB DDR2 modules for £60 back in the day. If I was to buy them at today's price then it would've cost me £190 so the price inflation is quite huge, I could actually sell the modules now for considerable profit but this notebook have sentimental value to me so it's a keeper!

 

Even though 4GBs should be enough for those games, I would still go with 8GBs of RAM, future proof and all, you know.

 

The memory can't be upgraded, and on Dell.com the difference between 4GB of RAM and 8GB of RAM is $200. If you know your usage and don't expect that to change drastically any time soon, just go with the 4GB.

On my main computer I have 8GB of RAM, but on my secondary one I only have 3GB. I was going to upgrade it, but after trying it out as it was, I realized I didn't need it. Don't let people tell you that you need X amount of RAM based on their own usage.

 

Thanks for you reply. It's not the $200 dollars that discourages me. It's buying a model with QHD +. I love the Dell XPS 13, but I HATE DELL. I will never buy from them direct again after the experiences I have had. So if I buy the unit, it will be from the Microsoft store...


So if I want FHD I need to stick to 4gb. Once again for the life of me I will never understand this obsession with QHD touch on a laptop...

 

Are you only limited to Dell, OP?
I too wouldn't buy QHD, especially on 13" laptop, so I would look elsewhere.

 

8GB is the new 4GB

 

Yes, aftermarket RAM is very cheap, can't you just buy 8GB stick and install in the XPS 13? Or is it one if those models like Apple and Razer that can't be upgraded?

 

That's called memory leakage causing excessive memory usage when it shouldn't.

 

Can't understand everyone saying 4GB is enough these days...

Programs are taking more and more RAM memory.. how is 8GB not recommendable.

 

The way I see it if it is DDR2 memory that not going to be a cheap upgrade to go 4 to 8 as opposed to DDR3 going from 4 to 8 is less expensive route. But Gaming relies more on the GPU and GPU memory and less on System RAM. Having more memory is good but you have to see if the cost out weighs the benefits. If you game like WWW or COD or BF4 then you should've gotten a Gaming rig that cost above 1500US already for that for True Gaming. And for everyday purpose I used 4gig on a 1525 Dell with Windows 7 without much problem only when you start to open to many windows that might be a problem but it has DDR2. I do have another Gateway P7811FX with 8gigs DDR3 in it and runs ok but haven't gamed on it yet but it does have dedicated GPU for that purpose if need be. This way if you don't game alot 4gigs should suffice but if you start doing heavy Video and CAD and Multimedia then you should consider 8gigs instead of 4gigs and get a laptop that has a dedicated GPU with plenty of GPU RAM for that purpose.

 

Memory usage feels as though it's tapered off a bit in the last few years. Part of this had to do with the prevalence of 32 bit applications (most games were), which means they could only use 4 GB of RAM, so if you had 8 GB total, you were pretty well covered in most situations. For standard web surfing, a bit of business work, and light gaming, I'm sure you could get by with 4 GB total by just closing down programs that you don't need (and probably not even doing that much of it).

Unless you're doing multimedia editing or running a lot of VMs, it's unusual to climb above 8 GB, unless you're trying to eat memory. Personally I have 16 GB, but I do some work with VMs, so I do climb over the 8 GB mark at times.

If you already have a gaming desktop, then it probably becomes even less of an issue. The fact that it's 4k capable isn't terribly relevant: much of the work for that should be done in VRAM and not system RAM. Laptops always have the potential issue of upgradeability - but how long do you anticipate it being before you buy a new one? If you buy a new one every two years, "future proofing" doesn't carry much weight. If you really don't want the QHD screen (which is understandable) and you have a gaming desktop, I wouldn't be inclined to worry about it and just go with the model you want.

 

I have installed Win 8.1 on couple low-ram machines, with 2GB and dGPU, and 2.5GB and iGPU respectively, and they run perfectly fine - without page file at all, mind it. Nobody plays any games on them, though - but browsing, media playback, office stuff runs fast and without any problems. So those claiming high Windows 8.1 memory consumption and 4GB not being enough for smoothly running the OS itself, leave that blah-blah-blah to yourselves.

Now, back on our main topic - games that is. They indeed are getting more and more memory-hungry, many titles being x64 only. Nick11, I'd say 4GB is OK only if it is upgradeable to 8GB or more. You can easily get away with games you listed on 4GB RAM machine, but some newer titles and global updates for older ones might have problems in the future, if not right now. Bottom line is, if memory is 4GB soldered and there is no socket - AVOID.

 

8G for gaming is fine.. If I actually did work on my blade and didn't prefer my rmbp for that I probably would not have the blade.. Or would have sold whatever it was I ended up begrudgingly settling for last year and gotten the 2015 blade a few weeks ago.

 

8GB is more than enough.

16GB is for those that installed useless bunch of stuff and never figured out what they are or those that actually run a lot of software in the background without closing, in which case for the sake of laziness, they need more than anyone.

For ANY gaming at this moment, 8GB is more than enough.

 

I would never use any computer with less than 32 GB of RAM at this day and age with RAM being dirt cheap

 

Where are you getting your RAM? Even a 16gb kit is like $80-$100, 32gb is probably double that.

 

Are we talking about system RAM and Video RAM? 8GB of system RAM is the MINIMUM you need for today's games and 4GB of Video RAM is what you really want to have in your videocard for 1080p games. Some say you can get by 3GB, but if you truly want to max out all the settings and experience absolutely no stuttering, then 4GB is the way to go. Some games, like ME: Shadow of Mordor can use even more than 4GB of VRAM, but Shadow of Mordor runs perfectly smooth with 4GB of VRAM with Ultra textures, yet it gets plenty of stutters with 3GB VRAM cards of the same speed when Ultra textures are enabled.

What I wonder is why the hell are they putting 8GB of VRAM to go along with GTX 980M? Does it increase the overall price of the system? I think it may and by good $150 if not more. 8GB will make GTX 980M last longer when it comes to intensive gaming, but by the time even 6GB of VRAM becomes a requirement for Ultra-level graphics settings, GTX 980M GPU is going to be slow enough to warrant an upgrade.

If you take into consideration that DirectX 12 will allow stacking VRAM in SLi configurations, then it makes the whole thing even crazies. 2x GTX 980M SLi with 8GB of VRAM in each card will be able to utilize 16GB of VRAM (8GB from each card) with DirectX 12. With so much VRAM you can run the whole system on your videocard AND that VRAM is so fast that the system using it would be blazing fast! They have RAM drives, but what about VRAM drives? Just fit the entire games or at least all of its graphics data onto the card's VRAM drive with 12GB size, leaving 4GB for the graphics demanded immediately. It should be possible, shouldn't it?

 

"RAM being dirt cheap"??! Uhhh...DDR3 price is the highest its been in like 4 years. I remember when you could get an 8GB kit for $30. Now? $60 at least.

And what do you do that would require so much RAM, if I might ask?

 

MonarchX, some people don't care about max settings, they need games to run without lag at low/medium and that's it. Your estimations of minimal RAM requirements are irrelevant.

 

I don't understand what you're talking about. You need 8GB of SYSTEM RAM to run any demanding AAA games, regardless of whether you use Ultra settings or Low settings. Hell, Windows 8.1 and 7 aren't running all that smooth with 4GB of RAM without games. For perfectly fluid Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8.1 experience, you do need 6GB of RAM and that MAY fit some AAA games, but 8GB is what you really want to have for both - fluid + smooth Windows experience and fluid + smooth gaming. If all you play are simple indie games, then 6GB is plenty, but if you want to run Dying Light, then 8GB is the minimum. 16GB is the perfect amount for a high-end rig and you don't have to worry about shutting down applications, optimizing, etc.

Now Video RAM is different. For Low and Medium settings, even 2GB can be enough, and for many games 3GB is enough for High settings, but for Ultra-level maxed out settings, 4GB is the minimum.

 

"Damn, it feels good to be a sheik."


But yeah, I too wonder what Ferris does with those 32GBs of RAM
Video/photo editing? CAD? FEM?

 

Topic starter is interested mainly in these games. They will run perfectly fine on 4GB, maybe even less.

That's ********. It runs perfectly well on 2GB RAM. It runs flawlessly on even less if specific software alternatives and some tinkering are applied.

Of course more RAM = better, thanks a lot, Captain Obvious. But is it really required for topic starters scenario? Hell no! Reasons behind you deliberately pushing topic starter into different notebook category are beyond my understanding.

 

There isn't a single game on the market that requires of 8GB of system RAM. Even native 64-bit executables like PlanetSide 2 use less than 6GB, which should leave more than enough room for Windows and background processes, assuming a non-bloated OS install and closing other memory-intensive apps before gaming. Most AAA's nowadays use more VRAM than RAM. 8GB is perfectly fine for gaming.

 

But but, Call Of Dooty Ghost. Such graphics, much wow, so next gen, 8GB plz...

 

Minimum System Requirements

• OS: Windows 7 64-Bit / Windows 8 64-Bit
• CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 2.66 GHZ / AMD Phenom X3 8750 2.4 GHZ or better
• RAM: 6 GB RAM
• HDD: 40 GB HD space
• Video: NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 / ATI Radeon HD 5870 or better
• Sound: DirectX Compatible Sound Card
• DirectX: 11
• Internet: Broadband Internet connection and Steam and Online Multiplayer

Recommended System Requirements

• OS: Windows 7 64-Bit / Windows 8 64-Bit
• CPU: Intel Core i5 – 680 @ 3.6GHz
• RAM: 8 GB RAM
• HDD : 40 GB HD space
• Video: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 @ 4GB
• Sound: DirectX compatible sound card
• DirectX: DirectX 11
• Internet: Broadband connection and service required for Multiplayer Connectivity. Internet connection required for activation.

 

^^^Wow, you sure went there an extra mile for a joke .

 

That's bullcrap.. I have 5GB's of pagefile and along with it, COD has constantly used 3.5GBs++ of RAM... I have it on almost max settings on full HD res.. HAHA 2GB RAM... Must been playing it on medium.. or low..

 

The main reason new games require those specs in the first place is probably because of minimized optimizations that went into them.
But, 8GB system RAM should be enough for most if not all new games... 16 to 32 GB would be recommended if you are doing things such as 3d modelling, photoshop, etc.
I do such stuff and for the moment I still have 8GB system RAM (signature) - then again, when I get a new laptop, it will be maxed out (with 32GB RAM as well).

Depends on what you use the system for.
Basic stuff and gaming, 8GB is enough for most.
Anything beyond that and those requirements go up... but arguably, for large PS and 3d Studio Max files/projects you need a powerful CPU and GPU... while on the RAM side, 8 to 16GB should 'technically' suffice (again... depending on how large projects you are processing).

 

Are you stating from experience or what reports because I play at Ultra textures with 3GB vRAM on 970m and it plays smooth. Just because it consumes that much vRAM doesn't mean it needs that much vRAM. I was hesitant before I opted for a 3GB vRAM GPU laptop, but in the end it hasn't been problematic so far. Even Advanced Warfare fills your vRAM but it runs smooth as silk at 90FPS and no stutters.

Even with DirectX 12, I'll believe it when I see it with memory stacking. There's a long way to go before that is realized in games without glitches and other issues. SLI still has its share of issues over a decade after its introduction. It's good in concept but will require solid drivers and developers following proper programming rules for it to work effectively.

 

I know from experience that Shadow of Mordor maxed out @ 1080p with 3GB of RAM on overclocked GTX 780 Ti + 3770K @ 4800Mhz and Ultra textures installed ran with great framerate, but it mini-stuttered (tiny hitches) every 10 seconds for half a second or so when there wasn't a ton of enemies around, especially during the 2nd part of the game with grass and all. It was NOT 100% fluid and smooth. Benchmark results were excellent and the benchmark itself ran smooth with 3GB, but when you had to fight 30 orcs at once, tiny stutters occurred every 5-7 seconds and at times every 3-4 seconds. 4GB GTX 980 eradicated all the mini stuttering. Maybe you're not sensitive to such small stutters, but all reviews that analyzed the game showed it truly maxed out all 3GB of VRAM on on 3GB cards and needed it almost every frame, not just for pre-caching. I am aware that utilization is not the same as the actual need, but in case with Shadow of Mordor it is. I don't know if you had Ultra textures properly installed or some settings below the maximum, but 3GB cards provided good frameRATE,yet there were frameTIME bumps throughout gameplay that resulted in mini-stutters. I played it on 120hz screen without V-Sync, but even with V-Sync the issue stayed. The game recommends 6GB VRAM, 4GB runs it 100% smooth, high-end 3GB runs it with good framerate, but variable and bumpy frameTIME that results in noticeable tiny stutters, especially during heavy fighting. Maybe with Maxwell, something changed in the way 3GB of VRAM were utilized in the game - I don't know, but GTX 780 Ti 3GB @ 1250/7600Mhz on 3770K @ 4.8Ghz with 16GB of RAM @ 2200Mhz, 256 Samsung 830 SSD, and updated Windows 8.1 produces tiny stutters every 3-10 seconds, depending on what's going on (fighting or not) throughout the game with Ultra textures enabled and everything else maxed out @ 1080p. On High or Very High textures, the game ran 100% flawlessly without a single stutter.

These mini-stutters were a lot like tiny Far Cry 3 and 4 stutters that occur on every system. They were NOT like the super-stutters that occured in Watch Dogs and still occur, even after the very latest patch + huge mod + 4GB GTX 980 card. It was playable, but not 100% smooth and during heavy fights it was very annoying.

The same 3GB end up creating mini stutters in Assassin's Creed: Unity @ 1080p with everything maxed out, 4x MSAA/TXAA. I know the game is badly optimized, but GTX 780 Ti 3GB ran is with way more hitching than GTX 980 4GB did. You can't just go with optimized games or else you miss out on many consolified AAA titles that are decent games when they run well. A high-end gaming laptop should be powerful enough to run ALL games maxed out without stutters.

 

FYI, I always keep my PC highly optimized without any extra services, startup items, anti-virus (never get them, EVER), nothing else in the background, everything updated and tweaked. I do run AdwCleaner and Hitman Pro for spyware removal, but it was years since the last time I got spyware on my PC.

Windows pre-caches a lot of data into system RAM. When I switched from 8GB of RAM to 16GB of RAM, game load-times improved, and then upon exiting a game and starting a new one, load times continued to be faster than with 8GB by 1-3 seconds. ALT+TAB usage while the game was running also improved and I could switch back to the game without waiting on some 2-3 extra seconds for before it runs 100% smooth again. Hell, when I would quit a game and start a different one with 8GB, I would always get 3 seconds of stuttering upon loading a level in some games. It felt as if data needed to be purged from 8GB and re-populated with new game's data to get it going smoothly. With 16GB of RAM, that beginning-of-game 3 second stutter disappeared.

I am not saying you NEED 16GB. I would go for 16GB to make your machine future-proof for upcoming games, which is why I got it (as a present actually!). Don't go for less than 8GB of RAM for AAA games.

4GB of RAM is NOT enough for Windows 7 SP1 to have 100% fluid experience if you plan on using web browsers, MS Word, Excel, PPoint, Access, Project, Visio, etc. I worked as a PC repair tech and I've worked on 100's of machines to know that. You can tell almost immediately that Windows 7 SP1 runs better with 8GB than with 4GB. Windows 8.1 is slightly more optimized and it does better with 4GB, but still not as fluid with 4GB as it is with 6GB and 8GB.

 

Blah blah blah.

I agree with HTWingNut and have not encountered problems with ram or vram gaming.

Blah blah blah need more ram blah.

 

You've got 16GB system RAM and 4GB VRAM if not 8GB VRAM. No problem there.

 

MonarchX, you'd better run anti-virus on your system, maybe it will help to improve your Windows experience on any amount of RAM by removing viruses and spyware. And disable counter-effective optimizations. Or just quit the Alota RAM is the only way to smooooth cult, whatever. If you can't make Windows run smooth and all on 4GB and less RAM, it's your personal problem, seriously. Live with it or deal with it, but stop extrapolating it on others, it's pretty annoying.

 

We have different definitions of "smooth" then. I am very picky and sensitive to any kind of hitching, pausing, stuttering be it micro or barely there - I see it. My system runs extremely well, scoring higher in most synthetic and game benchmarks than rigs with similar or even better hardware. I am not installing stupid anti virus because I do not have a virus. You only get viruses if you do not know what you are doing and download sketchy files with spyware or warez from sketchy sites. Never do that and you will not get a virus. I use Malware Bytes portable that never finds anything other than cookies, but it doesn't need install and run in background all the time to consume resources. Anti-Virus apps overtake your PC big-time and can slow it down, especially if it has only 4GB of RAM. Norton AV causes 10x more problems than it ever solves. Small and easy on resources apps like Malware Bytes, AdwCleaner, Hitman Pro, RogueKiller, Autoruns, and CCleaner + CCEnhancer are your best tools for spyware and virus removal, although if you do get a real nasty virus that spread itself all over your PC, then I suggest BitDefender AV, but format and fresh Windows install would be a better solution in such a case.

4GB will run Windows, but not optimally and sure as hell wont let you game semi demanding games without slow downs even with SSD. I do not need anyone's confirmation on that. I used 100s of machines to know this to be true. 6GB is the minimum for Windows 7 / 8 and simplest 2D games for fully smooth and fast operations. 8GB is the minimum for Windows and demanding AAA games for smooth and fast operations. 16GB is for the possible future game RAM needs, but it also helps with current AAA games and not worrying about background tasks and ALT TAB game to explorer switching performance.

EDIT: How do you check who gives your LIKES and TROPHIES and for which posts/threads? I need to check out my fan base .

 

In adjacent topics you're asking newbie questions expected from a person who just got his first notebook. Anyway, enough's enough. Have fun jerking off your infinite knowledge and prodigious wisdom, I interfere no more.

 

I don't know much about laptops, it was the other tech's responsibility!

 

That's not future proofing, it's a waste of money.

Unless you have Adobe programs running, doing video editing, gaming at the same time and use virtual machines, 16GB is a waste.

Actually just plain useless. 8GB will make sure you run just fine. I have 32GB, but I actually USE it. Only seen horrible BF4 use a lot of RAM due to it's horrible optimization.