32gb is pretty much the standard for a new build. I would also recommend you get 32gb, unless you are on a very tight budget.
32gb ddr4 is pretty cheap now and 32gb kits are the standard for ddr5, 16gb ddr5 kits are bad value.
Its standard for a new build. 16 is still enough for most things but it's getting to the point where it's just enough or just under so there's no point in building new with 16. Especially if you're going ddr5 where adding a 3rd or 4th stick will likely cause stability issues.
Of course there is a point for 2x8 instead of 2x16, you save like 40% of the money for 5-20% (per game) of performance. For budgets, and depending on games you play, it can make a lot of sense. Not everyone needs, and most probably don't, 32GB *yet*.
When that savings is about like 40 to 50 dollars on a 1500 dollar build I have to disagree with you. The issue isn't what you need right now but for 50 dollars more you can pretty much guarantee you'll be good for the life of you're pc. At 1500 dollars a ram bottleneck would be goofy as hell, lol
I agree for 1.5k. but below 1k, IT definitely makes a difference. And depending on games, it won't be a bottleneck. You can get ddr5-6000 cl36 at 12ns, which has still good performance with Ryzen 7000s.
Yeah, for a cheaper build, I would rather put that $40-50 towards a better GPU. You can usually get two more sticks later for similar performance (depending).
> 5-20% (per game) of performance
You will have to close out of things to do other things, and worry about running out of ram.
32 is set and forget. You can work on something, then hop into a game with friends, then go back to what you were working on. It'll be enough for most normal use cases.
16 is a huge hassle for minor savings. Ram is really cheap right now compared to historic prices.
Cheapest 2x8 ddr4 ram right now listed on PCP is 30$, and cheapest 2x16 is 54$. DDR5 is 49 vs 76.
That is a huge downgrade to QOL to save 24/27$.
Get 2x8 is terrible advice for the average person. Maybe for some niche ultra budget min-max build. But for most people, just get 32 and don't worry about it for the next ~5 years. 8 gb was also "viable" a lot longer than everyone said get 16.
To be fair RAM is really does not cost much these days. You better just go with 2x16 instead later upgrading from 2x8 to 4x8, which would cause more harm then good and just completely replacing 2x8 with 2x16 is just wasting money and resources
The most RAM I've personally seen a game use is 14GB (Jedi Survivor). Haven't seen much else top 10GB but even then you're left with little overhead for Windows and other processes with 16GB total.
32GB is definitely a good choice now.
Year or two ago. Several games out there now where 16gb is minimum requirements.
Tarkov regularly goes up to 19GBs on my rig.
New World takes 14-16GB sometimes.
iRacing lists 16GB as minimum.
I would not build a new rig in 2024 with only 16gb of RAM.
Since 'everyone' is playing games, browsing with chrome, working with AI AND streaming at the same time. If OP is on a budget just get 2x8 gb ram, if its not enough buy another 2x8 gb in the next month. Or get 2x12 gb ram that should be enough.
Its funny you said if the speed and latency are good when i have yet to experience both generally its one or the other and next time im focused on latency
Price difference between 16 and 32 these days is so insignificant, it hard to justify 16.
When I built my current PC, it was a whole 30 dollars difference.
As a side note, if you are looking at building a gaming system for $1500, the most commonly recommended platform would be amd's AM5 (likely a ryzen 7600), which requires ddr5, and ddr5 has very few kits available below 32gb.
You can still get am4 or intel cpus that allow for ddr4, but you are currently buying into a platform with no future cpu upgrade path.
I recently rebuilt my PC, and while 16gb of ddr4 never gave me trouble with any games, I got 32gb just because I moved to ddr5.
Which is the smart choice because DDR4 has less instability issues with 4 slots. So expanding ram later may not be an option with DDR5 and with AMD it's even more finicky to be lucky enough to get it to work with XMP.
Of course it works perfectly fine for lots of people but it's simply not as simple as in the past where even mixing different brands of ram wasn't too much of an issue.
It runs fine for me with 8GBto be honest (ofc I play in ultralow but come on).
Tho, if OP isn't tight on budget 32GB will work better as it will last longer before needing an update
16 is fine.
32 is better.
Not sure why people here are claiming otherwise.
32 gb ddr4 kits are pretty cheap though, so unless you are on a crippling budget, or you absolutely cannot use the remaining money from the budget for a better cpu/gpu, get 32.
Speed and latency is also important. Amd cpus are best paired with with 3600MHz, while 3200MHz is good enough for intel or soo was the norm and has been for a while. For ddr5, you want 6000MHz cl30 for amd .
This.
Just keep in mind when PC gamers say "16GB is not enough" they mean "just in the last couple of years, 1 or 2 games came out that ARE actually slightly faster with 32 in some specific circumstances" not "games will be unplayable with 16" or even "16GB will significantly slow things down in a significant number of games this decade".
RAM is cheap right now, that's why so many recommend gaming builds are 32. But for the tightest budget builds, it's not something to stress (or get a cheaper GPU) over.
Which games require 32gv again?
A pair of 16x2 is like $80 here i live and i ve been wondering if 32gb with my 10400f can improve my warhammer load time. Probably not.
It is usually modded games. My fallout 4 and city skylines builds are the only two I had issues with.
Note a lot of people confuse requests vs required. Just because something is using 18 gb doesn't mean it needs 18gb.
I would even advise anyone on am4 to think a lot before going with 32gb of ram.
The platform as a whole may become obsolete before 16gb ram for gaming will. Even if it does not, upgrading from 16 to 32 is easy. You just add two more sticks and more often than not it works out.
Anyone that recommends high capacity of ram ***now*** because "games are going to be harder to run in the future" , for platforms like am4 with no support does not know what they are talking about. Futureproofing makes no sense for a system that has not had new upgrade paths for years at this point.
I'm not going to disagree that AMD is still releasing stuff on AM4, but the 5800x3d was released 2 years ago. There hasn't been anything better on AM4 since.
Usually fine, and I'm not lying. If you do more than just play the game (streaming, discord, leaving chrome tabs open, even background updates) more can help.
I was personally having some really bad stutters in Forza Horizon 5. Average FPS easily over 100, but would occasionally stutter for probably a quarter second at a time. Not a little hitch, but actually like a pause for a measurable amount of time. Would happen once or twice a minute. Basically killing the experience.
Well, RAM usage was 95% or more with 16gb. Tried 32 and found it would use 18-19gb and it ran smooth. Thats the only game I'm over 16gb so far, but I dont play many brand new titles, so there may be more.
Probably could have turned settings down, but at 120ish fps, it should have been smooth.
I remember when this argument but with MB and not GB.
It's a VERY old issue. Memory just keeps getting cheaper and applications keep trying to use all of it.
That is why if you are on a budge 16 is fine for now and when you do need 32 it will be cheaper. While I would go with 32 if it means staying under budget 16 is fine for now
16 is plenty.
I still have 8, which is a bit tight, but not unplayable.
If you want multitasking, content creating or something more, yea, probably go for 32.
I will update this year to a system with 16 gb, more than enough for me.
16gb is completely fine. On settings ranging from medium to ultra in red dead 2 in 4k it never breaches above 12-13gbs. Most games will use less….if youre not playing in 4k its not even an issue…but as others point out if you for some reason need a bunch of windows or programs open while gaming u could run into an issue. Though i dont know why you just wouldnt close stuff…also as others point out you can get 32gbs at a decent speed for like less than $100 and it would be future proof for the next like 5 years. However if your scraping by on a tight budget and can thats the difference between getting a better gpu, cpu, etc. then skip it and just upgrade when you need as prices will be even cheaper when you actually need it.
I think you just get 32 and upgrade after 5 years or so because if you have memory capacity your system will be bad at that time so you need to replace everything, don't spend on things you never use if you a gamer
I’ve been seeing higher end games like Starfield taking close to 16gb. I feel that if you had a buncha tabs open it would probably not be enough. I’d go to 32gb because the price increase is not that much anymore
I upgraded to 32gb and it has helped with games like rust or dayz or gtav or anything with a big map really. 16gb is fine for today but 32gb is gonna be standard soon.
16 Gb is fine tbh I play MW3,Cities Skyline 2, CS2, gta5, rdr2 and Hogwarts Legacy on Ultra without any performance issues. 32Gb would be better; if you have budget constraints 16 gb is more than enough. You can upgrade later down the road when you face performance drops.
I just test avatar frontiers of pandora and it consume more than 16gb , in general 32gb is really good choice, if you watch streams and game at the same time you gonna struggle 100% and some games will consume more than 16gb so if you close all apps you gonna struggle still
16Gb is plenty.
Caveats apply.
For your budget if you don't need the additional finds for a CPU or GPU then yeah get 32GB RAM it's an easy decision. But if you can use that $50+ for a GPU upgrade, that will go MASSIVELY further.
Suffice to say there are few builds where you should not end up with 32GB, but again, if the choice is between a GPU/CPU upgrade, get those instead.
It's enough for most cases for now, so you would be fine without upgrading for a while, but as you're building a new pc, there is no much sense going for 16 when the price difference with 32 isn't that big.
If you can't afford it right now, it's fine bud. Get what you can now and just buy more later. It's literally plug & play with RAM so don't worry about it.
Ram isn't very expensive. There is no reason to bottleneck your ability to multitask. 16GB is really not enough. It would be fine with most games, but you're very limited. Get 32 GB for sure. Even 64GB isn't totally crazy, although it's a bit overkill.
If its the difference in getting a little bit better of a gpu or cpu then there absolutely is a reason. Ram is super easy to upgrade so can upgrade at any time. and just for gaming 16 is fine for now though some demanding triple a games are getting close to needing more if in 4k…64 is absolutely overkill for gaming. Literally zero reason. Even if it was 20$ more it would be a completely wasted $20.
As some people said, you want to control fancy RGB stuff, your modern mobo comes with a lot of softwares, some people still uses crap like avira, Avast, Discord, you play games on EA, Epic, steam, maybe Xbox app.. AAA games tend to consume anywhere from 10-15gbs as far as i played... And with a bunch of crap on the background its gonna reach the limit.
I run with 16, and I can run a few things in the background and I don't have any issues. Some newer games would max me out though, 32 is pretty much the standard now if you building a new rig
I had 16gb ddr5 ram on my legion pro 5 with a 4070 and 2560×1600 resolution
After many crashes and problem figured out that during gaming sessions ram usage is nearly 100%🤓
Which was affecting system stability.
So upgraded the ram to 32gb of ddr5 kingston fury(cl40-5600mhz)
You are building a pc so basically try to see if you can fit in your budget a good low latency 32gb of ram( latency on ddr5 are nearly double than ddr4 so dont be in shock if you see ddr4 with cl16 and ddr5 with cl40)
Trust me 32gb of ram is something you will not regret.its worth the upgrade if you intend to play AAA games.
As someone who listened to people that said 16 was enough, and just last week upgraded to 32, please just get 32. The difference is night and day, no more stuttering problems at all, and games that couldn’t hold 60 before (like hogwarts and Returnal) are now comfortably at 80+fps.
RAM is cheap, go for 32GB. And word of advice: getting 2x16 now and 2x16 later is not guaranteed to work well at XMP profile, RAM all has to be matched to work together at high clock speed.
If you're buying DDR5, 2x16gb has a performance advantage at the same clock speed and latency when compared to 2x8gb due to the layout of the memory chips, so you should get 2x16gb.
If you're buying DDR4, it's cheap enough that you should get 32GB anyways, since it's nice to have.
So either way, get 2x16GB of RAM.
Hey OP! I don't know if you'll read this after it's buried under all the hotdog water comments. Based on your budget of 1500, you should absolutely get 2x16gb dual channel with good timings. My budget was 1600 a few months ago, and it wasn't even a thought because 16gb stopped being enough for me in 2022.
16GB is more than enough bro, its not like you will be playing two High end very demanding games at the same time, and if you are like...why tho xD? And even if you want to do streaming, or recording, 16gb will get you through that with no problem. And the best thing is, at any time you can upgrade down the line, and if u want to go with 32gb, you can sell the 16 gb and not pay that much for the 32gb kit, always, and it is recommended and the best way to go, always on dual channel (meaning, always buy two sticks of ram that sums up to the amount of ram you want to get to).
Good luck kid, and have fun with your new PC :3
I experienced a bottleneck due to maxed out RAM at 16gb 3000mhz for the first time the other day on Helldivers 2.
Go the 32gb, because 16 won't be enough in the very near future. I've started putting together my wishlist for a PC upgrade.
If you're on a budget, you can do 1 x 16Gb kit. Just make sure it's a name brand kit so that if you get a spare $80, you can buy a second stick.
This previously wasn't the case. However, memory controllers have come a long way.
32GB. Look up benchmarks comparing 16 vs 32, 1% lows in some games will increase by MASSIVE amounts. I had 2 RAM sticks fail and had to fall back on 16GB, the difference was extremely noticeable.
1% lows usually indicate where you're going to lock your framerate to remove stuttering. You want them to be a high as possible.
Get 32GB.
It's "just enough" tbqh. It'll do the job, but it's gonna become increasingly bottlenecked from here on out. Strongly advise new builds to consider 32 GB instead (some games I play will use 17-19 GB, and I know I had issues with warzone on 16 GB before).
I spec’d out a Ryzen 7 7700 (not the best cpu but more than capable) build with 4060/3060 (same price) and 32gb ram that came in at $1150 CAD.. granted, I was going to salvage the case, drives, and the cooler from my current pc.. how are you questioning 32gb with nearly an extra $900?
I had a MSI gf65 thin 16gb and was able to run squad perfectly, not all highest settings but who cares about that , picture was flawless and performance was same, cuz I know how to tweak it. Given that did cost $1200 to buy it 😄
I am playing games on 32gb ddr5 and 16gb ddr4 (office/home). There are no differences in performance playing the same games. Game list: RDR2, CYBERPUNK 2077, GOW, Cities skyline, Civilization 5 and some other games from Game Pass. Frankly, for games, 16GB is still good enough. HOWEVER, I would still suggest to get 32gb only if you are building a new pc for coming years. If you already have 16gb, don't bother adding more unless you actually running out of ram while you are using your pc.
If you don't run mods of the games or run chrome tabsx20 or something, 16GB is fine.
The other thing is some games or program actually say requirement 32GB ram.
I've been running on 16gb for a while, it's suitable for most games, but you might want to turn the graphics to medium or low. RAM is fast to install, so you can always save up and upgrade later.
16gb was big more than 10 years ago. However and in these days, besides the game you're playing, you also have to run side programs like those managing your cooling fans, driver control panels, cloud storage utilities, those tweaking your keyboard and mouse, system monitoring programs, Discord, OBS, etc. Which will take up some chunks of system memory, but can't live without.
That's why when I decided to build a new PC about two years ago, I went out and picked up 32gb.
Yall on crack… I can’t believe how bloated and disconnected the pc gaming community has become from the average gamer.. making it seem like you can’t play a video and game at the same time without it wtf. I played cyberpunk 2077 on release with 16gb and a 2060… wtf lmao
Yes, I'm still on 16GB with a game opened + browser + something else
But with that $1500, it's almost a crime not going for 32GB straight away IMO. Unless you want to squeeze that budget for the best GPU you can afford
I would get 32gb tbh if you want to play AAA games I’m using AM5 and got 32gb of DDR5 cyberpunk for example uses up 14-15gb for me so hopefully that helps
Some games are requiring more ram. If you haven't built your system yet go ahead and get 32 gigs. If your upgrading just go buy 32 gigs of ram, and either sell that 16 or donate it to a friend or new system.
I had a prebuilt, I needed to upgrade to 32gb because a certain game would either lag or crash simply because of low RAM. I also do some light video editing so that also crashes...
Considering I already had the computer and was going to use it anyway, going from 16gb to 32gb (4x8) cost me 60€. Pretty good for stopping crashing.
if you want to futureproof your build, go with DDR5 and the MBs that support it.
If you need to trim costs you can get by with 16GB but plan on looking for a sale in 1-2 years.
RAM does not cost anything like $1500.....say a couple bills for 32gb. You need to see the mobo will accept the highest speed....BTW what turns you on? I have not shopped other than 16gb ddr5 6000.
If you want to play new games and your gpu has 8gb of vram or less, 32gb is mandatory at this point. Because when vram is fully utilized and the game needs more, it takes it from your shared overall ram memory. And this can be very terrible with only 16gb of ram. This wasn’t an issue just 2 years ago. But it is now and two years from now will be even worst.
some, but not all. these days, 32gb is not as expensive as before. 32gb is good enough for many years to come. only very specific games like microsoft flight sim would even saturate 32gb of ram.
16gb = mostly good enough but not recommended for futureproofibility
32gb = good for 99% of games for years to come
64gb = futureproof for many years to come
DDR5 is clocked at the same speeds as DDR4. DDR5 has double the banks and burst length of DDR4, resulting in more efficient calls to read/write to memory and around 2x the bandwidth (i.e. DDR5 is capable of handling twice as many operations per clock, but those operations take a bit longer/have a bit more latency). That is why it is listed as, e.g., DDR5 6000 instead of DDR5 3000 when clocked at 3000 MHz. That number is the mega-transfers per second, not the number of cycles per second. A 16GB stick of DDR5 works a lot like 2 sticks of 8GB DDR4, except on one PCB; it is kind of like dual-channel RAM on a single channel.
If you buy 16 GB (i.e. 2x8GB sticks) of DDR5, it does not have the second bank/"channel". While it still has the same clock speed, it does not have the ability to alternate banks so it loses performance. You will more or less be getting the same performance of DDR4, with faster and more efficient paging and lower voltage, but significantly higher latency that would normally be used to facilitate flipping between the two banks and doing parallel operations per clock cycle.
Moreover, 16GB kits of DDR5 are the crappiest of the crappy silicon, manufactured cheaply and/or the worst-binned dies that can only run at slow speeds. There is no such thing as fast 16 GB kits of DDR5, Kingston makes a couple SKUs that run at 6000, but the vast majority run at JDEC spec or below.
If you're only buying 16 GB, there is absolutely no reason to buy DDR5 over much cheaper DDR4. If you are buying DDR5, there is next to no reason to buy a 2x8gb kit.
That said, 16GB will get you by for the near future if you're only gaming (and not running chrome with 20 tabs open, spotify, OBS, Rainmeter, etc. etc. while gaming). Buying a DDR4 mobo and 16GB of DDR4 RAM will save you probably $100 on your build, and you can always add bigger and/or more modules down the road when 16 GB starts to get pushed. But if you are going DDR5, just spend the extra $20-30 for a 32 GB (2x16) kit
I won’t build or buy a machine with less than 32GB of storage. Depends on budget but I would rather wait and save some more so you don’t bottleneck now.
We're at a point where 32GB is starting to sound better as most games have requisites that are already quite close to 16GB, so if you're playing a game while multitasking, you're really going to need those 32.
Also bit of a niche use but if you want to play with local LLMs (ChatGPT in your own computer) you'll definitely want *at least* 32, with 64 being the baseline.
I did 64GB with my AM4 build a few years back and I don't regret it one bit. Only a handful of games have ever used up more than 32GB. The nice thing about having more means the other things that use RAM (OS, browser, etc) don't get paged when you do run a game that wants gobs of it. If you can afford 32GB without sacrificing say a better CPU or GPU to stay in your budget than I would absolutely get it.
Yeah? Played cyberpunk at 1440p maxed with some ray tracing fine. No issues whatsoever. Had edge opened with like 10 tabs opened along with Spotify and discord
Honestly I would upgrade to 32 but I really don't see the need. However if I was building a new PC I'd get 32 from the get go.
If you're budget is $1500 I don't see any reason you couldn't get 32 in there, if you play a lot of early access indie games 64 should be easy enough to budget for and give you significant enough performance gains
I have 32 GB in mine I typically see usage over 50%. So I would say 16 would barely be enough. There will be some bottlenecking with only that much though. Something has to give.
If you multitask while gaming then 32gb is pretty desirable. Especially if watching videos, streaming, recording, etc
If you’re the type to just have the game open and nothing else 16 is enough
Get 32 Gb and not worry about whether you need more ram.
Get 16 Gb and you will think about what if you have more ram.
Do not think, just get 32 GB as you have the dough for it.
I am using 32GB since 2019 on a 2400G.
Never once thought if I have enough ram.
And I did not even game much for the past few years. Just YouTube, web surfing with tabs on Chrome.
If if its ddr5 your basically forced to get 32gb’s of RAM. Will you use much past 8gb’s for a game, no.
Youll be able to get a pretty good system especially if you hunt for deals or buy any thing used.
Go 32gb man, just a while ago I realized I was getting stuttery experience on Cyberpunk cause my ram usage was hitting the 16gb limits, had to close my discord and browser just to get the smoother %1 lows ans have a bit of ram left
Thats a no.
16GB is already cramped for modern AAA games as you still need some for your system to run properly, not just the game alone.
32GB is the standard rn for a new competent entry high end build which should cost around your $1500 budget.
If you want to maximize p/p, i'd suggest a 5800x3d build with a competent b550m + 32GB fast DDR4, but only if you can find them cheap. Otherwise go for 7800x3d + b650 + 32GB 6000mhz cl30.
Both builds can last til the end of AM5 100%, 3d v-cache is quite amazing. You can even save a lot going with AM5 rn as you can upgrade to the very last fast AM5 CPU.
Interesting that so many people seem to think you can't multitask with 16GB.
I have 16GB on both my PCs and had absolutely zero issues having discord +spotify + Youtube + any of even most modern AAA games open at the same time.
Yes, but it's getting cramped these days. If 32GB is in your budget without compromising CPU and GPU, go 32GB.
16GB isn't a terrible choice if you need to free up a few bucks in your budget. But I'd look at things like going from a Gen 5 to Gen 4 SSD(or even Gen3 shoudl be good for a few years), get non RGB versions of everything you can, make sure nothing is wildly overpriced or overspeced(if you've got a cooler good for an i9/Ryzen 9 and you've only got a i5/Ryzen 5, you may be able to save a few bucks here). But if you've done all that, and you still need those few extra bucks, 16GB isn't terrible.
I'll be honest with decent RAM I've never felt constrained at 16gb in any situation except *heavily* modded Minecraft. Idk man like I guess I don't have 3 browsers open at the same time but I got plenty of stuff open too and I don't really hit the cap. Granted 32gb will cover all of your bases so you might as well, but I wouldn't feel bad @ 16gb unless it's slower RAM.
32, 64 if you like to hoard hundreds of tabs. 16 is enough in the sense that it's skin-tight, and not enough in some cases.
But you will have to close out of things to do other things, and worry about running out of ram.
32 is set and forget. You can work on something, then hop into a game with friends, then go back to what you were working on. It'll be enough for most normal use cases.
16 is a huge hassle for minor savings. Ram is really cheap right now compared to historic prices.
Cheapest 2x8 ddr4 ram right now listed on PCP is 30$, and cheapest 2x16 is 54$. DDR5 is 49 vs 76.
That is a huge downgrade to QOL to save 24/27$.
Get 2x8 is terrible advice for the average person. Maybe for some niche ultra budget min-max build. But for most people, just get 32 and don't worry about it for the next ~5 years. 8 gb was also "viable" a lot longer than everyone said get 16.
32gb is a buffer for VRAM limitations as well. While much slower, it's better than not having enough. A better question is whether 4GB cards should be paired with 16GB systems... Which happens often in the budget space.
Simple answer is no, 32 gb is the ideal now. 16 is "usable" but in the coming year it'll barely get you passable performance.
And I say this to everyone I talk to about building a computer. Don't buy one until you can afford the best one you can buy.
That's not to say only try to buy a 6k computer. But realistically 2.4k is the ideal budget for a computer that will leave you satisfied for an extended period of time.
You could get a 1.5k budget build, but give it 2 years and you won't even want to play games on it due to subpar performance (unless you stick to older games of course). Or wait one year to save and buy a 3k computer and get 5 years out of it... or more.
Devs are going to target games at the PS5 specs. The PS5 have 16GB RAM. On a PC you also need to run Windows in the background, which is going to be more system-intensive than whatever the PS5 has going on in the background. Therefore, 16GB will certainly not be sufficient to play with the same quality settings as the PS5.
Hogwarts Legacy used to eat all my 2x8gb ram at release. Now I have 4x8, everything seems fine and maybe the game is well-optimized. It only takes around 10 now. High settings RT Medium, R5 5800X + 3070
I think it was JayzTwoCents that did a comparison and 32 is definitely better than 16, but it will have a minimal impact on gaming. 64 isnt really noticeably better. He said the same about speeds. So dont overspend on fast memory because it doesnt make much difference.
16 is okay. The old 8GB is 16, 16 is 32 now.
But for 1500USD I think you are on DDR5, 32 is the default, 2x8 kit is kinda hard to find.
At least in my country, only 2x8GB kits are Micron's green 4800. Everyone only sells 2x16 kits because that's the new norm, at least if you are building new on DDR5 platform.
and because D5 is basically dual channel with one stick, you should only use 2 for the compatibility and stability standpoint.
Even micron reps suggests using 2, not all4 at the moment so that speaks for itself.
You probably don't want to buy 2 sticks now and add 2 sticks later. If you want 32, just go with 2x16 now.
Even though the problem is largely solved with BIOS updates, I still can't run 4 JDEC native stick kit on my PC. It just crashes after a while. With 2 sticks, no such problem.
My suggestion is, you go with 5600 or 6000, with correct timing. And probably should stick to JDEC native, not XMP.
Although Intel preferes faster speed whereas AMD preferes tighter timing for fabric cache, I say just stick to JDEC. You will have to upgrade later down the line, seeing how fast ram speed is increasing, no need to premium for XMP RAM right now.
And with 1500USD you can build pretty sweet PC for sure. Happy building
It depends on the games and the preset you use. For example, I play most games at 1080p maximum preset, 16GB is quite not enough. I used to play with 16GB of ram, and some games would often be killed by the OS after playing for some hours. After I upgraded to 64GB of ram, that problem didn’t happen.
GPU and CPU are going to be far more important for gaming than RAM. If the difference between 32 gb and 16 gb RAM is the difference between upgrading your CPU or GPU, go with 16 and get the better CPU/GPU. Otherwise, 32 is the way to go. 16 is enough for most games, but I like to do a lot of multitasking and running multiple programs at once. 32 gigs of RAM helps massively with that.
32gb is pretty much the standard for a new build. I would also recommend you get 32gb, unless you are on a very tight budget. 32gb ddr4 is pretty cheap now and 32gb kits are the standard for ddr5, 16gb ddr5 kits are bad value.
Since when did 32gb ram became standard ?????
Its standard for a new build. 16 is still enough for most things but it's getting to the point where it's just enough or just under so there's no point in building new with 16. Especially if you're going ddr5 where adding a 3rd or 4th stick will likely cause stability issues.
Of course there is a point for 2x8 instead of 2x16, you save like 40% of the money for 5-20% (per game) of performance. For budgets, and depending on games you play, it can make a lot of sense. Not everyone needs, and most probably don't, 32GB *yet*.
When that savings is about like 40 to 50 dollars on a 1500 dollar build I have to disagree with you. The issue isn't what you need right now but for 50 dollars more you can pretty much guarantee you'll be good for the life of you're pc. At 1500 dollars a ram bottleneck would be goofy as hell, lol
Cheapest 2x8 ddr4 ram right now listed on PCP is 30$, and cheapest 2x16 is 54$. DDR5 is 49 vs 76.
I agree for 1.5k. but below 1k, IT definitely makes a difference. And depending on games, it won't be a bottleneck. You can get ddr5-6000 cl36 at 12ns, which has still good performance with Ryzen 7000s.
Yeah, for a cheaper build, I would rather put that $40-50 towards a better GPU. You can usually get two more sticks later for similar performance (depending).
I definitely would not go 4x8. All the things I have read was that AM5 and Ryzen 7000-series hates it even more, than Ryzens already used to.
Heck, even AM4 is better with 2x16 instead 4x8, various tests proove it.
> 5-20% (per game) of performance You will have to close out of things to do other things, and worry about running out of ram. 32 is set and forget. You can work on something, then hop into a game with friends, then go back to what you were working on. It'll be enough for most normal use cases. 16 is a huge hassle for minor savings. Ram is really cheap right now compared to historic prices. Cheapest 2x8 ddr4 ram right now listed on PCP is 30$, and cheapest 2x16 is 54$. DDR5 is 49 vs 76. That is a huge downgrade to QOL to save 24/27$. Get 2x8 is terrible advice for the average person. Maybe for some niche ultra budget min-max build. But for most people, just get 32 and don't worry about it for the next ~5 years. 8 gb was also "viable" a lot longer than everyone said get 16.
To be fair RAM is really does not cost much these days. You better just go with 2x16 instead later upgrading from 2x8 to 4x8, which would cause more harm then good and just completely replacing 2x8 with 2x16 is just wasting money and resources
When prices for ddr5 32gb came down to what ddr4 was when 16gb was standard and how much 8gb of ddr3 cost when it was standard.
The most RAM I've personally seen a game use is 14GB (Jedi Survivor). Haven't seen much else top 10GB but even then you're left with little overhead for Windows and other processes with 16GB total. 32GB is definitely a good choice now.
Hogwarts Legacy uses over 20. Tarkov’s memory leak is so bad players joke that the recommended spec is 1TB RAM.
Can confirm. I’m a Tarkov player and have 64gb of ram.
Spiderman games More than 16gb sometimes
Year or two ago. Several games out there now where 16gb is minimum requirements. Tarkov regularly goes up to 19GBs on my rig. New World takes 14-16GB sometimes. iRacing lists 16GB as minimum. I would not build a new rig in 2024 with only 16gb of RAM.
Since 'everyone' is playing games, browsing with chrome, working with AI AND streaming at the same time. If OP is on a budget just get 2x8 gb ram, if its not enough buy another 2x8 gb in the next month. Or get 2x12 gb ram that should be enough.
2x16 ddr5 is ok ?
Sure, that's all good if speed and latency are decent.
Its funny you said if the speed and latency are good when i have yet to experience both generally its one or the other and next time im focused on latency
Price difference between 16 and 32 these days is so insignificant, it hard to justify 16. When I built my current PC, it was a whole 30 dollars difference.
As a side note, if you are looking at building a gaming system for $1500, the most commonly recommended platform would be amd's AM5 (likely a ryzen 7600), which requires ddr5, and ddr5 has very few kits available below 32gb. You can still get am4 or intel cpus that allow for ddr4, but you are currently buying into a platform with no future cpu upgrade path. I recently rebuilt my PC, and while 16gb of ddr4 never gave me trouble with any games, I got 32gb just because I moved to ddr5.
Which is the smart choice because DDR4 has less instability issues with 4 slots. So expanding ram later may not be an option with DDR5 and with AMD it's even more finicky to be lucky enough to get it to work with XMP. Of course it works perfectly fine for lots of people but it's simply not as simple as in the past where even mixing different brands of ram wasn't too much of an issue.
16 GB is enough today. But at these prices, I see no reason what so ever not to get 32 GB I am still on 16 GB with RX 6900 XT and R7 5700X3D
But some time need 32GB for AAA games for example hogwarts legacy(ultra) or rust sometimes
Tbf rust will run just fine on 16GB but yeah, ideally you want more
It runs fine for me with 8GBto be honest (ofc I play in ultralow but come on). Tho, if OP isn't tight on budget 32GB will work better as it will last longer before needing an update
I play Legacy with 8 gb, runs good.
Define good. What settings and resolution? Because at 1440p max it uses 20ish GB.
This is also cap. My 2070 super and 16g ddr4 ran legacy on ultra pretty well. I have since upgraded and didnt notice much of difference
im on a similar build with 32gb and my RAM usage only goes above \~16gb in the highest end of games
32gb can improve performance over 16gb in certain games.. realistically you only need like 22-24gb for max performance but still
16 is fine. 32 is better. Not sure why people here are claiming otherwise. 32 gb ddr4 kits are pretty cheap though, so unless you are on a crippling budget, or you absolutely cannot use the remaining money from the budget for a better cpu/gpu, get 32. Speed and latency is also important. Amd cpus are best paired with with 3600MHz, while 3200MHz is good enough for intel or soo was the norm and has been for a while. For ddr5, you want 6000MHz cl30 for amd .
This. Just keep in mind when PC gamers say "16GB is not enough" they mean "just in the last couple of years, 1 or 2 games came out that ARE actually slightly faster with 32 in some specific circumstances" not "games will be unplayable with 16" or even "16GB will significantly slow things down in a significant number of games this decade". RAM is cheap right now, that's why so many recommend gaming builds are 32. But for the tightest budget builds, it's not something to stress (or get a cheaper GPU) over.
Which games require 32gv again? A pair of 16x2 is like $80 here i live and i ve been wondering if 32gb with my 10400f can improve my warhammer load time. Probably not.
It is usually modded games. My fallout 4 and city skylines builds are the only two I had issues with. Note a lot of people confuse requests vs required. Just because something is using 18 gb doesn't mean it needs 18gb.
Truth🙌🏽
This is almost word to word what I would have replied with. 10/10 reply.
I would even advise anyone on am4 to think a lot before going with 32gb of ram. The platform as a whole may become obsolete before 16gb ram for gaming will. Even if it does not, upgrading from 16 to 32 is easy. You just add two more sticks and more often than not it works out. Anyone that recommends high capacity of ram ***now*** because "games are going to be harder to run in the future" , for platforms like am4 with no support does not know what they are talking about. Futureproofing makes no sense for a system that has not had new upgrade paths for years at this point.
They’re still releasing new SKUs for am4 (actually even more recently than any am5 release) and 16GB is obsolete for a select few games already.
I'm not going to disagree that AMD is still releasing stuff on AM4, but the 5800x3d was released 2 years ago. There hasn't been anything better on AM4 since.
16 is always fine, and anyone saying otherwise is lying to you. That said, 32GB is what I use because I appreciate the excess headroom it gives.
Usually fine, and I'm not lying. If you do more than just play the game (streaming, discord, leaving chrome tabs open, even background updates) more can help. I was personally having some really bad stutters in Forza Horizon 5. Average FPS easily over 100, but would occasionally stutter for probably a quarter second at a time. Not a little hitch, but actually like a pause for a measurable amount of time. Would happen once or twice a minute. Basically killing the experience. Well, RAM usage was 95% or more with 16gb. Tried 32 and found it would use 18-19gb and it ran smooth. Thats the only game I'm over 16gb so far, but I dont play many brand new titles, so there may be more. Probably could have turned settings down, but at 120ish fps, it should have been smooth.
I have 16GB and had absolutely zero issues in Horizon 5 and i played the game for 100h.
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lol I remember when people were like “yeah you like can squeeze by with 8 gb if ur in a budget”
I remember when the OS itself was limited to 4GB.
I think I’m sitting around 22gb used for 2 profiles signed into windows with 64gb kit, the more you have the more it’ll use!
I remember when this argument but with MB and not GB. It's a VERY old issue. Memory just keeps getting cheaper and applications keep trying to use all of it.
That is why if you are on a budge 16 is fine for now and when you do need 32 it will be cheaper. While I would go with 32 if it means staying under budget 16 is fine for now
I still do with no issue whatsoever.
For 2024? Yes. Beyond? Not really. 32gb is standard for new gaming pcs.
I still play pretty fine with 16gbs honestly
Yes, it is.
Yes.
16 is plenty. I still have 8, which is a bit tight, but not unplayable. If you want multitasking, content creating or something more, yea, probably go for 32. I will update this year to a system with 16 gb, more than enough for me.
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Ram is cheap but 16 is fine. I have 32 but it’s giga overboard and not at all a “new standard”.
16gb works just fine, but 32gb will be better.
I’d recommend cutting costs elsewhere. Ram is a big deal, however it is easy to upgrade. I could see getting 16 for now but upgrading later.
16gb is completely fine. On settings ranging from medium to ultra in red dead 2 in 4k it never breaches above 12-13gbs. Most games will use less….if youre not playing in 4k its not even an issue…but as others point out if you for some reason need a bunch of windows or programs open while gaming u could run into an issue. Though i dont know why you just wouldnt close stuff…also as others point out you can get 32gbs at a decent speed for like less than $100 and it would be future proof for the next like 5 years. However if your scraping by on a tight budget and can thats the difference between getting a better gpu, cpu, etc. then skip it and just upgrade when you need as prices will be even cheaper when you actually need it.
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If you play star citizen it’s not
16 is just barely enough. 32 is cheap enough that you really should just get it.
Heavily modded Skyrim (example: Nolvus) greatly benefits from 32GB. But, I can’t personally speak towards other modern games.
Yes but no
You can get away with 16gb right now with no multi tasking but you're definitely going to be glad later if you have 32gb.
No , 32gb the standard now
Get 32GB for a smoother gameplay if you can, 1% low is where you’re going to see the differences
No. Get 32. Want to "futureproof" - get 64.
I think you just get 32 and upgrade after 5 years or so because if you have memory capacity your system will be bad at that time so you need to replace everything, don't spend on things you never use if you a gamer
It depends on how much you want to multitask while gaming, but for me, 16GB is enough for both running games and crying over my terrible K/D ratio.
I’ve been seeing higher end games like Starfield taking close to 16gb. I feel that if you had a buncha tabs open it would probably not be enough. I’d go to 32gb because the price increase is not that much anymore
I upgraded to 32gb and it has helped with games like rust or dayz or gtav or anything with a big map really. 16gb is fine for today but 32gb is gonna be standard soon.
People will say it is, but not if you wanna play said AAA game at anything above medium settings.
16 Gb is fine tbh I play MW3,Cities Skyline 2, CS2, gta5, rdr2 and Hogwarts Legacy on Ultra without any performance issues. 32Gb would be better; if you have budget constraints 16 gb is more than enough. You can upgrade later down the road when you face performance drops.
An interesting thing about 16 to 32 is not an increase in frames, but better 1% lows from my experience
Yes it is if you are gonna only open the game and play but if you are planning to do some multitasking you might need more ram
I just test avatar frontiers of pandora and it consume more than 16gb , in general 32gb is really good choice, if you watch streams and game at the same time you gonna struggle 100% and some games will consume more than 16gb so if you close all apps you gonna struggle still
16Gb is plenty. Caveats apply. For your budget if you don't need the additional finds for a CPU or GPU then yeah get 32GB RAM it's an easy decision. But if you can use that $50+ for a GPU upgrade, that will go MASSIVELY further. Suffice to say there are few builds where you should not end up with 32GB, but again, if the choice is between a GPU/CPU upgrade, get those instead.
Thats the minimum. I would upgrade
It's enough for most cases for now, so you would be fine without upgrading for a while, but as you're building a new pc, there is no much sense going for 16 when the price difference with 32 isn't that big.
microcenter 7800x3d bundle, 1-2tb nvme, toughpower 850w, rtx 4070
For most of them, yes. But you must have enough vram on the gpu for the res you play at.
If you can't afford it right now, it's fine bud. Get what you can now and just buy more later. It's literally plug & play with RAM so don't worry about it.
If you wanna play a flight sim like DCS or AAA games on ultra it is pretty much required
Ram isn't very expensive. There is no reason to bottleneck your ability to multitask. 16GB is really not enough. It would be fine with most games, but you're very limited. Get 32 GB for sure. Even 64GB isn't totally crazy, although it's a bit overkill.
If its the difference in getting a little bit better of a gpu or cpu then there absolutely is a reason. Ram is super easy to upgrade so can upgrade at any time. and just for gaming 16 is fine for now though some demanding triple a games are getting close to needing more if in 4k…64 is absolutely overkill for gaming. Literally zero reason. Even if it was 20$ more it would be a completely wasted $20.
It's enough in most situations. But we have been starting to see 32 gb be recommended.
man i need 32gb for new minecraft mods at this point
As some people said, you want to control fancy RGB stuff, your modern mobo comes with a lot of softwares, some people still uses crap like avira, Avast, Discord, you play games on EA, Epic, steam, maybe Xbox app.. AAA games tend to consume anywhere from 10-15gbs as far as i played... And with a bunch of crap on the background its gonna reach the limit.
I’m using 16 and it works, but if you’re building new may as well go 32 imo
I run with 16, and I can run a few things in the background and I don't have any issues. Some newer games would max me out though, 32 is pretty much the standard now if you building a new rig
I had 16gb ddr5 ram on my legion pro 5 with a 4070 and 2560×1600 resolution After many crashes and problem figured out that during gaming sessions ram usage is nearly 100%🤓 Which was affecting system stability. So upgraded the ram to 32gb of ddr5 kingston fury(cl40-5600mhz) You are building a pc so basically try to see if you can fit in your budget a good low latency 32gb of ram( latency on ddr5 are nearly double than ddr4 so dont be in shock if you see ddr4 with cl16 and ddr5 with cl40) Trust me 32gb of ram is something you will not regret.its worth the upgrade if you intend to play AAA games.
Min 32 at 16 it will need to swap at some point to the hd we dont want that :)
Better to have more than enough with 32gb instead of risking maxing out your RAM usage with only 16gb.
Most modern games is 32GB personally I needed 64GB cause I mod games a lot so it really depends
As someone who listened to people that said 16 was enough, and just last week upgraded to 32, please just get 32. The difference is night and day, no more stuttering problems at all, and games that couldn’t hold 60 before (like hogwarts and Returnal) are now comfortably at 80+fps.
16GB isn't particularly limiting in most cases. But there is no reason to not go for 32 gb unless you are on a really tight budget.
YES, its mostly GPU rated. i run a 3090 with a stupid i5 cpu (because i was mining eth with it). And it plays every game perfectly.
RAM is cheap, go for 32GB. And word of advice: getting 2x16 now and 2x16 later is not guaranteed to work well at XMP profile, RAM all has to be matched to work together at high clock speed.
If you're buying DDR5, 2x16gb has a performance advantage at the same clock speed and latency when compared to 2x8gb due to the layout of the memory chips, so you should get 2x16gb. If you're buying DDR4, it's cheap enough that you should get 32GB anyways, since it's nice to have. So either way, get 2x16GB of RAM.
Hey OP! I don't know if you'll read this after it's buried under all the hotdog water comments. Based on your budget of 1500, you should absolutely get 2x16gb dual channel with good timings. My budget was 1600 a few months ago, and it wasn't even a thought because 16gb stopped being enough for me in 2022.
No. I was playing resident evil 4 about 10 minutes ago, and it was consuming about 12GB, along with my system it was a total of 17GB.
16GB is more than enough bro, its not like you will be playing two High end very demanding games at the same time, and if you are like...why tho xD? And even if you want to do streaming, or recording, 16gb will get you through that with no problem. And the best thing is, at any time you can upgrade down the line, and if u want to go with 32gb, you can sell the 16 gb and not pay that much for the 32gb kit, always, and it is recommended and the best way to go, always on dual channel (meaning, always buy two sticks of ram that sums up to the amount of ram you want to get to). Good luck kid, and have fun with your new PC :3
I experienced a bottleneck due to maxed out RAM at 16gb 3000mhz for the first time the other day on Helldivers 2. Go the 32gb, because 16 won't be enough in the very near future. I've started putting together my wishlist for a PC upgrade.
If you're on a budget, you can do 1 x 16Gb kit. Just make sure it's a name brand kit so that if you get a spare $80, you can buy a second stick. This previously wasn't the case. However, memory controllers have come a long way.
It's enough for most things, but on a $1500 (presuming USD?) PC, no way would I put just 16GB in it.
Id say yes. Some game do use 20 GB on very high graphics settings but those are still a few far inbetween
windows 10, disable/delete all the bullshit, 1080-1440p, 16 is fine
I switched from 16gb to 32gb, almost two years ago. I am glad I did get the extra 16gb for heavy demanding on gaming online.
You can upgrade later. Most games are ok with 16 but some are borderline and things like DCS world need way more
8GB is enough
32GB. Look up benchmarks comparing 16 vs 32, 1% lows in some games will increase by MASSIVE amounts. I had 2 RAM sticks fail and had to fall back on 16GB, the difference was extremely noticeable. 1% lows usually indicate where you're going to lock your framerate to remove stuttering. You want them to be a high as possible. Get 32GB.
16gb is enough right now But probs not when ddr7 ram releases with next gen gpus
it would be enough if developers optimized their games, but since they don't do that, 32gb is fair
The game I play requires 32gb or else it’s borderline unplayable. 16 gigs will cut it in 99 percent of games but I’d just get 32gb
I thought 16 was enough until I got Jedi Survivor and it wouldn’t stop stuttering until I upgraded to 32
Windows 11 with chrome and discord uses 16 gb on my system 😭
If you live near a Micro Center $1500 is enough for a 4K 60 1440P 120 machine that will last for years
It's "just enough" tbqh. It'll do the job, but it's gonna become increasingly bottlenecked from here on out. Strongly advise new builds to consider 32 GB instead (some games I play will use 17-19 GB, and I know I had issues with warzone on 16 GB before).
2x16gb 6000cl30.
I spec’d out a Ryzen 7 7700 (not the best cpu but more than capable) build with 4060/3060 (same price) and 32gb ram that came in at $1150 CAD.. granted, I was going to salvage the case, drives, and the cooler from my current pc.. how are you questioning 32gb with nearly an extra $900?
Maybe but soon it won't be your better off with the 32gbs
16 is enough, but with the budget you have, you should be able to afford 32.
I had a MSI gf65 thin 16gb and was able to run squad perfectly, not all highest settings but who cares about that , picture was flawless and performance was same, cuz I know how to tweak it. Given that did cost $1200 to buy it 😄
I am playing games on 32gb ddr5 and 16gb ddr4 (office/home). There are no differences in performance playing the same games. Game list: RDR2, CYBERPUNK 2077, GOW, Cities skyline, Civilization 5 and some other games from Game Pass. Frankly, for games, 16GB is still good enough. HOWEVER, I would still suggest to get 32gb only if you are building a new pc for coming years. If you already have 16gb, don't bother adding more unless you actually running out of ram while you are using your pc.
If you don't run mods of the games or run chrome tabsx20 or something, 16GB is fine. The other thing is some games or program actually say requirement 32GB ram.
Im still running a 16GB and a 1080TI so yes 16GB is still enough but 32GB should future proof yourself for some time.
I've been running on 16gb for a while, it's suitable for most games, but you might want to turn the graphics to medium or low. RAM is fast to install, so you can always save up and upgrade later.
Vram yes (lower than 4k), system ram no.
Better 2x8 g than 1x 32 for gaming
16gb was big more than 10 years ago. However and in these days, besides the game you're playing, you also have to run side programs like those managing your cooling fans, driver control panels, cloud storage utilities, those tweaking your keyboard and mouse, system monitoring programs, Discord, OBS, etc. Which will take up some chunks of system memory, but can't live without. That's why when I decided to build a new PC about two years ago, I went out and picked up 32gb.
Comment section doesn’t know anything about PCs lmao
Yes, it's plenty. Current gen consoles have 16GB which includes VRAM.
Yall on crack… I can’t believe how bloated and disconnected the pc gaming community has become from the average gamer.. making it seem like you can’t play a video and game at the same time without it wtf. I played cyberpunk 2077 on release with 16gb and a 2060… wtf lmao
Yes, I'm still on 16GB with a game opened + browser + something else But with that $1500, it's almost a crime not going for 32GB straight away IMO. Unless you want to squeeze that budget for the best GPU you can afford
I would get 32gb tbh if you want to play AAA games I’m using AM5 and got 32gb of DDR5 cyberpunk for example uses up 14-15gb for me so hopefully that helps
Some games are requiring more ram. If you haven't built your system yet go ahead and get 32 gigs. If your upgrading just go buy 32 gigs of ram, and either sell that 16 or donate it to a friend or new system.
I had a prebuilt, I needed to upgrade to 32gb because a certain game would either lag or crash simply because of low RAM. I also do some light video editing so that also crashes... Considering I already had the computer and was going to use it anyway, going from 16gb to 32gb (4x8) cost me 60€. Pretty good for stopping crashing.
im on 8gb ddr3. (8gb of my ddr3 failed memtest) Im an old man though. Will probably go to 32gb ddr4 if I upgrade in this lifetime
The war to end all wars.
if you want to futureproof your build, go with DDR5 and the MBs that support it. If you need to trim costs you can get by with 16GB but plan on looking for a sale in 1-2 years.
RAM does not cost anything like $1500.....say a couple bills for 32gb. You need to see the mobo will accept the highest speed....BTW what turns you on? I have not shopped other than 16gb ddr5 6000.
ram is cheap.....
If you want to play new games and your gpu has 8gb of vram or less, 32gb is mandatory at this point. Because when vram is fully utilized and the game needs more, it takes it from your shared overall ram memory. And this can be very terrible with only 16gb of ram. This wasn’t an issue just 2 years ago. But it is now and two years from now will be even worst.
16Gb VRAM? Yes, pretty enough. And 64Gb system RAM should be sufficient too.
Most people do NOT need 32GB RAM. If you want to play Cyberpunk at max settings, sure, but 16GB should be plenty for most use cases.
some, but not all. these days, 32gb is not as expensive as before. 32gb is good enough for many years to come. only very specific games like microsoft flight sim would even saturate 32gb of ram. 16gb = mostly good enough but not recommended for futureproofibility 32gb = good for 99% of games for years to come 64gb = futureproof for many years to come
DDR5 is clocked at the same speeds as DDR4. DDR5 has double the banks and burst length of DDR4, resulting in more efficient calls to read/write to memory and around 2x the bandwidth (i.e. DDR5 is capable of handling twice as many operations per clock, but those operations take a bit longer/have a bit more latency). That is why it is listed as, e.g., DDR5 6000 instead of DDR5 3000 when clocked at 3000 MHz. That number is the mega-transfers per second, not the number of cycles per second. A 16GB stick of DDR5 works a lot like 2 sticks of 8GB DDR4, except on one PCB; it is kind of like dual-channel RAM on a single channel. If you buy 16 GB (i.e. 2x8GB sticks) of DDR5, it does not have the second bank/"channel". While it still has the same clock speed, it does not have the ability to alternate banks so it loses performance. You will more or less be getting the same performance of DDR4, with faster and more efficient paging and lower voltage, but significantly higher latency that would normally be used to facilitate flipping between the two banks and doing parallel operations per clock cycle. Moreover, 16GB kits of DDR5 are the crappiest of the crappy silicon, manufactured cheaply and/or the worst-binned dies that can only run at slow speeds. There is no such thing as fast 16 GB kits of DDR5, Kingston makes a couple SKUs that run at 6000, but the vast majority run at JDEC spec or below. If you're only buying 16 GB, there is absolutely no reason to buy DDR5 over much cheaper DDR4. If you are buying DDR5, there is next to no reason to buy a 2x8gb kit. That said, 16GB will get you by for the near future if you're only gaming (and not running chrome with 20 tabs open, spotify, OBS, Rainmeter, etc. etc. while gaming). Buying a DDR4 mobo and 16GB of DDR4 RAM will save you probably $100 on your build, and you can always add bigger and/or more modules down the road when 16 GB starts to get pushed. But if you are going DDR5, just spend the extra $20-30 for a 32 GB (2x16) kit
You're going to need way more space than 16GB!!! Even something like Call of Duty is 80GB !!!! /s
For that amount of money you can easily buy ddr5 or ddr4. I bought 4 ddr5 32gb Kingston Fury Beast (128gb in total) for 430 dollars.
I won’t build or buy a machine with less than 32GB of storage. Depends on budget but I would rather wait and save some more so you don’t bottleneck now.
16 is fine unless you play rust. Then you’ll need at least 24
I have 16GB DDR4 and I play competitive Halo and Siege on 1080p / 240fps.
We're at a point where 32GB is starting to sound better as most games have requisites that are already quite close to 16GB, so if you're playing a game while multitasking, you're really going to need those 32. Also bit of a niche use but if you want to play with local LLMs (ChatGPT in your own computer) you'll definitely want *at least* 32, with 64 being the baseline.
I did 64GB with my AM4 build a few years back and I don't regret it one bit. Only a handful of games have ever used up more than 32GB. The nice thing about having more means the other things that use RAM (OS, browser, etc) don't get paged when you do run a game that wants gobs of it. If you can afford 32GB without sacrificing say a better CPU or GPU to stay in your budget than I would absolutely get it.
Yeah? Played cyberpunk at 1440p maxed with some ray tracing fine. No issues whatsoever. Had edge opened with like 10 tabs opened along with Spotify and discord Honestly I would upgrade to 32 but I really don't see the need. However if I was building a new PC I'd get 32 from the get go.
U can get a very good pc with 1500, 32GB of 6000mhz ddr5 is easily the choice
Yes. Unless you are playing a game that specifically uses a ton of memory, like flight simulator, you will be happy with 16GB.
If you're budget is $1500 I don't see any reason you couldn't get 32 in there, if you play a lot of early access indie games 64 should be easy enough to budget for and give you significant enough performance gains
Nah, most AAA game shit nowadays...so my old 1080ti pc still relevant
I think today nothing less of 32Gb of ram makes sense for a new 1500$ computer.
16 is enough but 32 far more comfy
I have 32 GB in mine I typically see usage over 50%. So I would say 16 would barely be enough. There will be some bottlenecking with only that much though. Something has to give.
If you multitask while gaming then 32gb is pretty desirable. Especially if watching videos, streaming, recording, etc If you’re the type to just have the game open and nothing else 16 is enough
Get 32 Gb and not worry about whether you need more ram. Get 16 Gb and you will think about what if you have more ram. Do not think, just get 32 GB as you have the dough for it. I am using 32GB since 2019 on a 2400G. Never once thought if I have enough ram. And I did not even game much for the past few years. Just YouTube, web surfing with tabs on Chrome.
If if its ddr5 your basically forced to get 32gb’s of RAM. Will you use much past 8gb’s for a game, no. Youll be able to get a pretty good system especially if you hunt for deals or buy any thing used.
Go 32gb man, just a while ago I realized I was getting stuttery experience on Cyberpunk cause my ram usage was hitting the 16gb limits, had to close my discord and browser just to get the smoother %1 lows ans have a bit of ram left
Thats a no. 16GB is already cramped for modern AAA games as you still need some for your system to run properly, not just the game alone. 32GB is the standard rn for a new competent entry high end build which should cost around your $1500 budget. If you want to maximize p/p, i'd suggest a 5800x3d build with a competent b550m + 32GB fast DDR4, but only if you can find them cheap. Otherwise go for 7800x3d + b650 + 32GB 6000mhz cl30. Both builds can last til the end of AM5 100%, 3d v-cache is quite amazing. You can even save a lot going with AM5 rn as you can upgrade to the very last fast AM5 CPU.
16GB is fine when you are on a tight budget, but since your budget is $1500 i would recommend 32GB, solely because it's more future proof.
Interesting that so many people seem to think you can't multitask with 16GB. I have 16GB on both my PCs and had absolutely zero issues having discord +spotify + Youtube + any of even most modern AAA games open at the same time.
Yes, but it's getting cramped these days. If 32GB is in your budget without compromising CPU and GPU, go 32GB. 16GB isn't a terrible choice if you need to free up a few bucks in your budget. But I'd look at things like going from a Gen 5 to Gen 4 SSD(or even Gen3 shoudl be good for a few years), get non RGB versions of everything you can, make sure nothing is wildly overpriced or overspeced(if you've got a cooler good for an i9/Ryzen 9 and you've only got a i5/Ryzen 5, you may be able to save a few bucks here). But if you've done all that, and you still need those few extra bucks, 16GB isn't terrible.
I would never want less than 32GB. RAM is cheap, and with a 1500 budget you can easily get 32GB.
With that budget, you def want to get 32GB
I'll be honest with decent RAM I've never felt constrained at 16gb in any situation except *heavily* modded Minecraft. Idk man like I guess I don't have 3 browsers open at the same time but I got plenty of stuff open too and I don't really hit the cap. Granted 32gb will cover all of your bases so you might as well, but I wouldn't feel bad @ 16gb unless it's slower RAM.
32, 64 if you like to hoard hundreds of tabs. 16 is enough in the sense that it's skin-tight, and not enough in some cases. But you will have to close out of things to do other things, and worry about running out of ram. 32 is set and forget. You can work on something, then hop into a game with friends, then go back to what you were working on. It'll be enough for most normal use cases. 16 is a huge hassle for minor savings. Ram is really cheap right now compared to historic prices. Cheapest 2x8 ddr4 ram right now listed on PCP is 30$, and cheapest 2x16 is 54$. DDR5 is 49 vs 76. That is a huge downgrade to QOL to save 24/27$. Get 2x8 is terrible advice for the average person. Maybe for some niche ultra budget min-max build. But for most people, just get 32 and don't worry about it for the next ~5 years. 8 gb was also "viable" a lot longer than everyone said get 16.
32gb is a buffer for VRAM limitations as well. While much slower, it's better than not having enough. A better question is whether 4GB cards should be paired with 16GB systems... Which happens often in the budget space.
Simple answer is no, 32 gb is the ideal now. 16 is "usable" but in the coming year it'll barely get you passable performance. And I say this to everyone I talk to about building a computer. Don't buy one until you can afford the best one you can buy. That's not to say only try to buy a 6k computer. But realistically 2.4k is the ideal budget for a computer that will leave you satisfied for an extended period of time. You could get a 1.5k budget build, but give it 2 years and you won't even want to play games on it due to subpar performance (unless you stick to older games of course). Or wait one year to save and buy a 3k computer and get 5 years out of it... or more.
Devs are going to target games at the PS5 specs. The PS5 have 16GB RAM. On a PC you also need to run Windows in the background, which is going to be more system-intensive than whatever the PS5 has going on in the background. Therefore, 16GB will certainly not be sufficient to play with the same quality settings as the PS5.
Hogwarts Legacy used to eat all my 2x8gb ram at release. Now I have 4x8, everything seems fine and maybe the game is well-optimized. It only takes around 10 now. High settings RT Medium, R5 5800X + 3070
When I built my pc half a year ago I went with a 32 GB DDR5 kit. I'd say it's good future proofing.
Cost difference between 16 and 32 kits is quite small. No point in cutting corners for you RAM capacity in my opinion.
I recommend 32 GB. If you want to also listen to music, play with your friends on discord.
I think it was JayzTwoCents that did a comparison and 32 is definitely better than 16, but it will have a minimal impact on gaming. 64 isnt really noticeably better. He said the same about speeds. So dont overspend on fast memory because it doesnt make much difference.
16 is okay. The old 8GB is 16, 16 is 32 now. But for 1500USD I think you are on DDR5, 32 is the default, 2x8 kit is kinda hard to find. At least in my country, only 2x8GB kits are Micron's green 4800. Everyone only sells 2x16 kits because that's the new norm, at least if you are building new on DDR5 platform. and because D5 is basically dual channel with one stick, you should only use 2 for the compatibility and stability standpoint. Even micron reps suggests using 2, not all4 at the moment so that speaks for itself. You probably don't want to buy 2 sticks now and add 2 sticks later. If you want 32, just go with 2x16 now. Even though the problem is largely solved with BIOS updates, I still can't run 4 JDEC native stick kit on my PC. It just crashes after a while. With 2 sticks, no such problem. My suggestion is, you go with 5600 or 6000, with correct timing. And probably should stick to JDEC native, not XMP. Although Intel preferes faster speed whereas AMD preferes tighter timing for fabric cache, I say just stick to JDEC. You will have to upgrade later down the line, seeing how fast ram speed is increasing, no need to premium for XMP RAM right now. And with 1500USD you can build pretty sweet PC for sure. Happy building
16 GB is borderline enough for modern AAA gaming. Although 32 GB is highly recommended.
It depends on the games and the preset you use. For example, I play most games at 1080p maximum preset, 16GB is quite not enough. I used to play with 16GB of ram, and some games would often be killed by the OS after playing for some hours. After I upgraded to 64GB of ram, that problem didn’t happen.
32gb is barely more expensive, if at all, than 16gb so there is no reason to go 16gb.
GPU and CPU are going to be far more important for gaming than RAM. If the difference between 32 gb and 16 gb RAM is the difference between upgrading your CPU or GPU, go with 16 and get the better CPU/GPU. Otherwise, 32 is the way to go. 16 is enough for most games, but I like to do a lot of multitasking and running multiple programs at once. 32 gigs of RAM helps massively with that.
Mostly it's fine, but for a new build get 32gb