RAM 16 GB? 32 GB or more?

See:
https://www.tomshardware.com/opinion/32gb-ram-is-my-minimum

Curious what others are using on their most basic platform(s).

My minimum is 32GB (Dual Channel) for any system I use personally to be optimally productive on. Not just any 32GB SODIMMs either; I install and use the latest available (see below for why).

I recently upgraded a client's i5-8250U based two-year-old Single Channel system from 16GB DDR4 2400MHz RAM to 16GB DDR4 2667MHz RAM and saw an immediate improvement in responsiveness. Even with the new SODIMM running at the same 2400MHz speed (platform limit).

I then proceeded with a clean install of Win10 1903 to an Adata XPG SX8200 Pro 2TB M.2 SSD OP'd by only ~25% (400GB unused capacity) and found a further performance boost from the 1TB EVO 960 Pro that was previously in use.

Not just in performance and responsiveness (in some things; up to 2 times faster than the 960 Pro), but also in efficiency too with much-improved battery life (up to 3x) from when the EVO 960 1TB M.2 SSD was powering the platform previously.

(If maximum battery life with highest performance is needed, the XPG SX8200 Pro 1TB or 2TB SSD's are highly recommended. If maximum battery life with a more modest performance expectation is required, the Intel 660P (and probably the soon to be released 665p) 1TB or 2TB drives can't be beat, especially on absolute cost.

I used this system before I gave it back for a few days in its new configuration and was actually most impressed with it. The 16GB RAM would be limiting for me if I had installed all my productivity software, but running Office, MS Edge Chromium Developers edition, Adobe Acrobat Pro and other miscellaneous software simultaneously, the system remained fast and responsive enough.

With each rebuild I do (and I do many each year for myself and others) I test the effectiveness of having a pagefile. With 32GB or more, I felt that the latest Win10 build (1903) benefitted with a pagefile of at least 400MB or more (the max I use is 1GB or 1024MB's for all my systems currently, regardless of how much RAM is installed). This is in regards to 'responsiveness', not really a pure productivity boost.

On this system that is limited to 16GB Single Channel, enabling the pagefile at a 1024MB min/max size showed substantial improvement in the responsiveness and also how fast the system 'settled down' after it was booted too.

Before doing the hardware and O/S clean install and before I had installed the newest 16GB SODIMM available on the old setup, I also tested for the effect a pagefile would have on the old setup. There was a noticeable difference, but not as pronounced as when the system was 'clean installed' though.

The setup (clean install O/S, update firmware, drivers and software) and hardware upgrades (RAM, SSD, WiFi AX200) I performed are more than enough to bring this system into 2020 and beyond without any excuses.

With 32GB+ Dual Channel RAM? I would be using that system myself as my main 'digital notebook' that would keep me connected and productive each day.

What are you using for your everyday needs? Is 16GB enough for you or have you too moved to 32GB or more? How many hours a day are you using your systems for? For myself, 16 hours a day is a normal/short day on my 'digital notebook' (not counting any desktop workstations I use concurrently too) and having maximum responsiveness on my systems is not an option; it is a requirement.

 

16GB is more than enough for my daily tasks.

Though on my ranger I run 32GB and only use about 22-24GB of ram whilst playing monster hunter: world.

 

I recently upgraded my PowerSpec 1710 (Clevo PA70HS-G) from the GSkill DDR4-2400 16GB (2x8GB) Dual Channel to Kingston HyperX DDR4-2933 32GB Dual Channel (2x16GB), and I'm very happy with the performance boost. System is snappier and more responsive, I turned off the pagefile w/o any issues thus far, and gaming performance better on the load lag and min fps performance. OS is running off a 960 EVO 500GB, with an Intel 660p 2TB for game installs. There's also an 860 EVO SATA 1TB for storage replacing the HGST 1TB HDD that came with it.

Memory kit was $143 from Amazon. Using it's XMP profile for 2933 settings, which are tweaked slightly vs defaults. I haven't started tightening the settings of the 17-19-19-39 profile. (Micron memory chips) AIDA64 reports:

CPU CPU Clock Motherboard Chipset Memory CL-RCD-RP-RAS Read Speed
4x Core i7-7700HQ HT 3200 MHz Clevo 1710 HM175 Ext. Dual DDR4-2933 17-19-19-39 CR2 34667 MB/s
CPU CPU Clock Motherboard Chipset Memory CL-RCD-RP-RAS Write Speed
4x Core i7-7700HQ HT 3200 MHz Clevo 1710 HM175 Ext. Dual DDR4-2933 17-19-19-39 CR2 42065 MB/s

 

See:
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-ryzen-3000-best-memory-timings,6310-2.html

The improvements with better RAM, even when clocked down, is impressive.

My question to the forum here...

Is the following SODIMM a single or a two Rank module (or more)?

See:
https://www.amazon.com/HyperX-2666MHz-260-Pin-HX426S15IB2-16/dp/B01N7K4DV4

See:
https://www.kingston.com/dataSheets/HX426S15IB2_16.pdf

 

4GB of DDR4 @ 2133MHz single channel is fine for my parents. And they're the kind of people who drag windows down to the bottom instead of minimizing, and a) forget that it's down there or b) can't drag it up again. So they repeatedly open up new instances of programs. I'm not sure their Pentium G4560 could benefit more.

On my laptop, 8GB of LPDDR3 1866Mhz Dual Channel at 14 17 17 40 is fine. I often have multiple edge/chrome tabs open, word, outlook etc open. The limiting factor for me is the m3-7Y30.

IMO I think my m3-7Y30 is going to be capable until well after 2021 when I graduate from my school. It regularly hits 100% when opening programs, but does so at full turboboost with 3x the power limit.

 

I guess that there are still many people that would find even 1GB RAM based Win10 platforms 'fast enough' and for some of these maybe it would still be 'too fast'.

That doesn't mean they wouldn't get any benefit from a 16GB+ setup.

If nothing else; just in the longevity of the device(s) they buy today and how relevant they will stay into the future.

With a $600 minimum price for an entry-level platform, adding 5% to 10% more in RAM is worth more than the throwaway extended 'protection' packages everyone seems to buy without thought these days.

@Che0063, your notebook CPU supports up to 16GB LPDDR3 (as I'm sure you know). What SSD are you using in it? With 16GB RAM and a 1TB or 2TB, Adata XPG SX8200 Pro M.2 installed, someone should be able to keep using this system almost into 2030.

I would have upgraded that system to those specs, 'yesterday'. Better to do it in the early days of ownership rather than at the end when you will eventually move on to something better, that way, you can get the full power and benefit of the platform you married into for the longest time possible.

When I make recommendations here, I am not troubled with the bottom 95% of users. I am talking to the top %age of people that want to get the maximum performance possible at the fairest $$$$ over the longest time period.

And don't forget that attempting to test a system/workflow with less than the maximum RAM capacity installed/supported on that platform is not a valid test (except for the simplest of scenarios). Windows works differently with 4/8/16/32/64+ GB's of RAM installed and available. I suggest you find a store with a good return policy and test 16GB for yourself and see if you don't find yourself more productive, and your platform more optimized in other ways too (i.e. battery life).

 

The 8250U was paired with the PM961 (OEM Evo 960). I'm inclined to think that your boost from battery life was an updated driver which enabled deeper C-states. I achieved well over 10hrs on that 60Whr battery.

My m3-7Y30 is paired with a 128gb Transcend 420S Dram- LESS SSD. It was 38AUD compared to at least 60AUD for the other 2242 m.2 drives (the only ones that would fit). The biggest factor now to improving my battery life is enabling DevSleep, which is impossible because my motherboard does not have the hardare wiring support for it. 9-10hrs on my 37Whr battery is good enough though.

Fears over these DRAM-less SSD are exaggerated. It keeps up with massive driver installs as well as archive extraction fine. It didn't slow down during the WIndows 10 install either. If you are the kind of person who is going to be doing massive file writes, you 1. should not be going for these TLC drives and 2. shouldn't be trying to save money on SSDs. DRAM-less SSDs are fine for 95% of the users.

Oh, and the RAM is soldered on... Yeah...

 

The image in the PDF is accurate, it's 2 Rows of chips.

 

Thank you. So because it's dual Rank RAM is why I saw a difference, even though the old and the new SODIMMs were both 16GB's.

The responsiveness increase is well worth it, IMO (even if switching 16GB single Rank for 16GB Dual Rank, Single Channel).

 

When I picked up this Clevo I knew it has a single 16GB stick of 2666. I purchased another 16GB 2666 and threw it in first thing. Both sticks are dual rank, although one is Hynix and one is Micron. I've been happy with 32GB but honestly for my use it is overkill.

Despite the chips not being matched they both overclocked to 3000MHz and took slightly tighter timings than factory. They've been solid for months, but will not go higher than 3000MHz.

I use my PC only 3-4 hours a day. Possibly more on my day off, especially if I am 3D printing.

 

32gb is nice and its what I use. I have said this before for ram and cpu performance in order of most important to least: Duel Channel>Duel rank> Lowest true latency value(highest frequency, lowest latency)> and finally ram size. Depending on what you do, having more ram over more performance may be ideal however, unless you want to save money and go for 16gb, which is more then enough for performance.

 

@Casowen, RAM capacity (size) should be first on your list. Having 32GB RAM has you spoiled...

16GB RAM wasn't enough for 'performance' (even mere multitasking for office-type workloads on a dual-monitor setup) from circa ~2010.

Anything related to 'editing', be it images, videos, audio or even PDF's needs much more than 16GB of RAM and depending on the type of files (i.e. 'raw' footage, etc.) even 32GB and 64GB RAM capacity limits what you can edit/output per hour. Multitasking is effectively the same, particularly with today's web-based workloads that needs multiple tabs open and (in my case) multiple browsers too.

Having the platform at the maximum capacity its capable of, first, and then updating the modules for further improvements (Dual Rank, etc.) as they can be cost-effectively purchased throughout the lifecycle of the platform is the ideal.

This will give you maximum performance from not only the O/S but also the CPU, GPU, SSD and all other ancillary components too. It is a synergistic effect and allows to fully employ the power of the components for the users' benefit, rather than for background/housekeeping tasks for the platform itself.

Saving $$ is relative when considering the increased performance over time (over the lifecycle of the platform you buy). You either spend it on hardware to save you time or increase your productivity or both, which are the important metrics to me or, keep it on deposit where it does no good except for the banks (assuming you have it to languish there and you haven't maxed out your platforms already).

When mere 'power' web-browsing can bring a 16GB system to its knees, 32GB is the new entry-level for any computer you want to keep using for the next half-decade or so.

It really is kinda sad to see the new Surface Laptop 3 13.5" limited to just 16GB and soldered on too! Especially with the new Intel 10th gen platform and that ideal 1, 2 Knockout punch from the fast IR cameras and the Instant-On tech. With ~9 hours battery life and being available instantly (no hibernation!), it is a great candidate for a 'digital notebook' that can be relied on day in and day out. Being able to upgrade the SSD inside is the icing on the cake.

Oh well, maybe SL4 will have what I require.

 

My personal minimum for main machine is 32GB of any DDR4 RAM, regardless of speed and number of channels. Usecase-specific secondary x86 machines are OK with as low as 4GB. I generally shun RAM older than DDR4 in my x86 machines for security reasons - less suspectible to Rowhammer attacks - although most of my ARM devices run LP/DDR3 happily, and Raspberry Pi Zero has ancient LPDDR2.

How did you enable DDR4-2666 for i5 8250u, via XMP? Did you verify that it is actually running at 2666 not 2400?

 

There must be a lot of chrome users in here, lol. I don't get anywhere near filling up 16GB of ram usage running multiple firefox windows with many tabs.

 

To quote me from the first post.

 

Personally i think 8GBs is more than enough for the average user. I had this laptop for almost 6 years and never had an issue with using just 8GBs of RAM besides playing certain games like GTA V that uses a lot of RAM. My next PC will have at least 16 GBs of RAM running on Dual channel mode and no more than that since to me 32GBs of RAM is a overkill unless you're running programs like photoshop or running high quality video editing programs that uses a ton of RAM.

 

@KING19, yup! 6 years of using an 8GB platform will do that to you.

I see you're still on Win8.1 too.

I can understand that some are not as sensitive as I am when it comes to having the lowest latency on my platforms, but that does not negate the facts. Spending a one time charge of ~$80 to get to 32GB vs. 16GB will be rewarded each time you use the new system in the next 6 years.

Of course; buy what you feel is right for your usage. But you're already bending; 'at least 16GB of RAM' slipped into your response above. The logical step above that '16GB' of RAM is 32GB to keep the Dual Channel gods happy.

At 32GB's and above is where Windows 10 v1909 starts to breathe easier when you're pushing the rest of the system hard.

If your next system will also be used for gaming, then be prepared to have greater than 16GB installed before the end of its lifecycle, that is, if you're still playing games by then.

 

What's wrong with overkill? I decided to get 32GB since I wanted to get faster RAM speed, and the pricing for 32GB kits are very nice right now. The DDR4-2933 hit the sweet spot for me, being only $4 more than 2666 at the time of purchase. Plus I'm sure this kit will bump up to 3200 if I cared to do it.

 

optane so-dimm is what we want @tilleroftheearth

 

I guess I need to read up on optane memory it's the second time I heard of it in the last hour.

 

@ole!!! Optane SODIMMs can't come fast enough!

What we have now are crude and rudimentary imitations of what RAM and it's weakling cousin, mass storage, should be doing for us going into 2020.

I don't want just fast mass storage, I want the storage in RAM already!

And I'm not talking about in supercomputers either. I want it all the way from my phone to my desktops too.

I can't wait to be talking on a thread about those capabilities (soon!).

 

Overkill is underrated!

While my systems all seem like overkill to many (okay; all) that see them, they were not just projects with $$$$$ thrown at them. Each piece, each component is there because it either makes workloads/workflows go by faster or, it makes the system more responsive to me when I'm at the controls. Anything that gives me more of either of those qualities is well worth throwing a few more paper notes at.

 

16 gigs as a minimum for any basic productive system that does more than just surf the web at less than 10 tabs, check email and do office stuff.

32 gigs minimum for any non-basic system.

Sent from my Xiaomi Mi Max 2 (Oxygen) using Tapatalk

 

@jaybee83 last week I visited a client's office and recommended the same for them.

While 64GB of RAM would be useful to them in one or two of their more heavily used workstations, it is still an option for them in the future. The 'office' machines connected with 10GB LAN and with current 4C/8T processors, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD's and dual (and triple) monitor setups as a minimum will not get me any friends there either (there is no excuse now to get an extra coffee break because the 'puters are slow).

And yet, I still have clients that are running decade-old hardware on Windows 7 Pro!

Each time I mention that the clock is ticking on those old systems, they gently but firmly show me the door.

 

A majority of all the laptops and sff desktops from Dell still all have 8gb for their systems sent to clients.

Though the 7820s I'm handling have 32GB of ram but I think those are for 3d rendering on MRI and other medical scanning techniques

 

@TheReciever I was reading your post earlier with my client reading it over my shoulder too.

His question? What is my stance over what Dell, Lenovo, HP, etc. silently say on this topic (e.g. for almost all their 'default' configs; 8GB RAM must be enough...)?

So I then asked him if there is a spare computer I could use, rebooted that system and then started 'Automatic Maintainance' manually and let it run while we talked for a few moments.

While Maintenance was still running, I then asked him to look up something on the web using that system and he was shocked how slow it was to load not only the browser but also the website I requested too.

He was assuming that the older QC (Core Gen3, i7) was the bottleneck. Actually, there was 16GB RAM installed (9.9GB in use, 2153MB Paged pool) and the bottleneck was the storage subsystem (1TB 850 EVO) that was at close to 100% Active time for over half an hour.

With more RAM, Windows wouldn't need to 'protect' the physical RAM it does have access to, and the load on the SSD would be lessened too (either in Active time, total duration or both).

He tried to state that this slowdown isn't seen in the normal workflows of that workstation, but when I asked him what he was comparing it to (hopefully an identical platform with 32GB RAM instead), he laughed.

I like how he declared the 'issue'; we're not the only ones using our systems, the systems are using themselves too.

 

Well I manage various configurations but it's not what dells deems necessary but the client.

For example I go through 1000s of wyse thin clients where I believe its literally use for onbaording patient information and that's it.

Then I have the sff desktops which have 8gb but run like crap, and may well just be the first boot kind of thing, but they use them as team workstations.

Then we go through quite a bit of mobile precision which have 16gb, fancy precision 5530, 7490s, 7200, various 2 in 1 as well. The precisions always come with 16GB while the others have 8gb generally.

I also have 3630 desktop precisions and the aforementioned 7820 which both have 32GB.

To answer your clients question, it has nothing to do with what they think is enough versus how much money it costs for them to assemble the machine. If it's cheaper for Dell or Lenovo to have 8GB minimums on their machines it's because 4GB dimms are no longer as cheaply supplied. You'll notice it's not 2x4GB in many cases its a single 8GB dimm which would actually hurt your performance versus 2x4GB. It all comes down to how cheap they can source everything. Why sell a Configuration like that? Because it's cheaper for then to assemble from sourcing the compoent to automated install. It's an economies of scale kind of scenario.

 

As years go by, I tend to agree with your approach more and more. Not sure if it is experience or wisdom. =p

 

Yea, just doing basic tasks like web browsing, watching youtube videos, Netflix and so on barely uses half of my RAM unless i have a lot tabs opened on Firefox. Even work applications performs very well, Upgrading to an SSD really revived this laptop.

Windows 8.1 works great on this system and i like to have more control of my PCs but obviously my new laptop will have Windows 10 since i've no choice in the matter but i'll tweak it as much as i can and using the guides here on NBR. Any OS will be fast using an SSD even on Windows 7 since HDDs was always the bottleneck in most systems. Over the years I helped family and friends that was thinking about buying a new PC because it was so slow even on Windows 10, so i told them to upgrade to an SSD and they was so happy about the performance gain and saved them so much money on buying a new system lol.

Personally the only reward i see about upgrading to 32GBs of RAM on a new system that i dont have to upgrade anything anytime soon. I rather spend extra money to futureproof the CPU and GPU since both components cant be upgraded on most laptops. Gaming will be one of my main tasks that i'll do on a new system and work related stuff and if 32GBs of RAM become the new standard in a few years from now then i'll gladly upgrade when the time comes!.

 

Halloween cringe horror time, I spent 400 on these a year ago : https://www.newegg.com/hyperx-32gb-260-pin-ddr4-so-dimm/p/N82E16820104720

It wasnt long after that various governments got fed up with the dram cartel that prices fell to nearly what they are now. To think I could have easily have 96gb of ram right now with that amount

 

I've been using a Dell Latitude E7440 for work (Core i7-4600U processor) for six years now. It always had 8GB of RAM (2x 4GB DDR3L-1600) and I upgraded it to Windows 10 Pro about two years ago. I generally haven't had issues with system responsiveness, although I always knew it probably should have more RAM for my workflow. (MS Outlook/OneNote always open, MS Teams running, MS Visual Studio, running four .NET-based websites locally (development - no outside access), and a local MS SQL Server instance with multiple databases for the websites.) RAM usage hovered around 4.5-5GB according to the Task Manager.

After reading this thread, I decided to max out the RAM to 16GB with a 2x 8GB kit.

Big difference. I didn't realize there was some delay even switching between browser tabs before, and opening minimized windows. RAM usage is now around 6.5-7GB. It's like Windows can breathe more freely now.

Given how cheap RAM has become, it's an easy decision to get as much RAM as you can. (It does make me slightly ill when I see computer makers/vendors charging hundreds of dollars for 16GB+, even more so for systems with soldered memory, forcing you to get a whole bunch of other upgrades when you really just want the RAM upgrade.)

Next system will have 32GB+ for sure.

Charles

 

someone just had a RAM epiphany it seems haha good call on the upgrade at this time with low RAM prices!

Sent from my Xiaomi Mi Max 2 (Oxygen) using Tapatalk

 

With my Acer Helios 500 I learned also that Windows tends to use about 8GB RAM easily especially with different tabs opened in Chrome... so having 16GB from the get go was good.
Now that that machine is no longer available to me, I have to use an old E5420 until I can get a new laptop.

I just installed SSD 500GB in it, CPU (2720QM) will come tomorrow or wednesday and I will of course upgrade the RAM too to 16GB (currently have 8GB in it as it came with 3GB originally and it struggled with that - so I pulled 8GB from a friends non functional laptop as a temporary use until I get 16GB).

8GB seems to be good for Windows 10 to get by as it should without hangups... but 16GB definitely gives it more breathing room.

 

My client (with the i5-8250 16GB system in the first post) came by late yesterday when I had a 32GB SoDIMM on my desk. He couldn't resist wanting to test it.

I disabled the hibernation file, shut down the system and swapped the 32GB SoDIMM for the 16GB that was installed. Note that on paper, the 32GB SoDIMM was 'slower'...

See (16GB SoDIMM):
https://www.amazon.com/HyperX-2666M...keywords=hx426s15ib2/16&qid=1573625215&sr=8-2

See (32GB SoDIMM):
https://www.newegg.com/corsair-32gb...2GB DDR&cm_re=32GB_DDR-_-20-236-594-_-Product

I reenabled the hibernation file for my client and then proceeded to update his installation to Windows 10 1909. After that finished, I ran Automatic Maintenance manually and then let him have his computer back after I had also defragged the 2TB drive (two partitions) using PerfectDisk Professional v14. All the above took less than 35 minutes with this system @ 32GB RAM, while we were shooting the breeze...

Using it initially, the client could not tell if the system was a more responsive, but he didn't think it was worth the $$$ for double the RAM. However, after using the computer for most of the evening, he later called me to let me know the RAM was 'his' now.

I was actually surprised that technically, single-channel RAM @ 32GB capacity made a difference over an already performant (and otherwise identical) 16GB set up.

When I was doing the Windows, Office and other updates simultaneously, I also launched every single program he has installed and noticed that the system did not lag at all. It also showed it had almost 5GB free RAM too after I had 4 browsers open and a dozen tabs in each too.

The M.2 Adata was working hard, but it too didn't fall apart in any noticeable way. Very impressed.

Especially after defragging the drive, the notebook went to sleep, hibernated and woke up very, very fast. When sleeping, you couldn't open the screen fast enough to see it 'sleeping' and from a hibernated 'off', it was at the desktop in less than 3 seconds. That is what 32GB RAM, a 2TB modern SSD OP'd by ~25%, and a clean Windows 10 install will get you.

This is definitely a system I could be productive with myself. Now, just give me one with a ThinkPad keyboard, a TrackPoint and Windows 10 Pro. And please don't let anything be soldered down!

 

@tilleroftheearth Imagine the performance boost if he had two and ran Dual Channel!

 

What browser uses extensive amounts of ram?

In regards to performance, one easy way to also bolster that is to disable memory compression. Here is an article on it, and here is how to disable it in powershell directly.

Disable-MMAgent -mc

Not recommended if you frequently use the maximum amount of ram you have. That doesnt matter though in regards to ram system cache, and generally wouldnt matter anyway since page file acts as ram.

 

I was taking a jab at chrome since it uses more resources than just about any browser I've ever used. I still don't see the specific need for 32gb in my use case (except for my server). I'm willing to bet most of these cases where typical users go from 16gb to 32gb and notice a huge difference is all placebo... I don't notice any difference and I went from 32gb down to 16gb.

 

I got over 16GB daily in my Ranger playing certain games. Typically hovering around 20-25GB depending on whats running in addition to it.

 

I wholeheartedly agree that if 32GB+ RAM capacity is really not put in use in specific workflows/workloads for an individual, it shouldn't be bought/installed. Even if the O/S (Win10x64Pro) can and does take advantage of it.

However, just like the 16GB RAM capacity minimum I was recommending a decade ago, it won't go to waste either if you keep your system long enough (and/or can move those SODIMMs to a new system too).

My client called back this morning and told me that his battery life was ~15 to 30 minutes shorter on each charge. But the amount of work (productivity) he can do with the 32GB vs. the 16GB RAM previously more than makes up for few minutes less. What he was really excited about was having all his programs and browser/tabs open and the platform was using less power than when with 16GB RAM he would just be using the browser and 1 or 2 tabs at a time (to max out the battery).

We have come around full circle again with the SSD capacity and the RAM capacity allowing us to use Hibernate on our systems once more. ~3 to 5 seconds to full productivity is real progress. And the measly 13.7GB needed for the hiberfil.sys, pagefile.sys and the swapfile.sys be damned on a 2TB SSD!

For the small %age in additional cost over what a complete platform costs, maxing out the RAM and putting in the biggest SSD you can afford is an easy way to future-proof your system and allow you to be very selective when it is time to upgrade in 4 to 7 years down the road.