Will 8 Gigs Last?

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8GB will be enough for most gaming needs in the foreseeable future but 16GB should be enough for the system's whole useful life unless you are like me and have tons of often large programs open all the time.

So, 8GB is an amount you might be able to get away with while 16GB is an amount you most likely will never have to worry about.

Personally, I hate worrying about RAM and since RAM was only $90/16GB when I put my current system together, I went for 32GB.
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Titan
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May 18, 2007
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8GB will be enough for most gaming needs in the foreseeable future but 16GB should be enough for the system's whole useful life unless you are like me and have tons of often large programs open all the time.

So, 8GB is an amount you might be able to get away with while 16GB is an amount you most likely will never have to worry about.

Personally, I hate worrying about RAM and since RAM was only $90/16GB when I put my current system together, I went for 32GB.
 
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Eximo

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Most games don't use anywhere near 8GB, still the best amount to buy. 12GB doesn't make much sense from a dual channel perspective, next logical jump is to 16GB.

And really that is maybe 2-3GB for a game and 1-2 GB for everything else. Still leaving you plenty of room for programs that take more memory.

But keep in mind that optimization is the key to game development. They want their game to run on the lowest common denominator to increase their number of potential customers. PS4 and XBone have 8GB of ram, expect that to be standardized on for the next 7-10 years.
 
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Eximo

Eximo

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Ram prices don't drop when a new technology comes out, they start to go up as suppliers switch to making the new stuff. The only cheap memory is for desktop OEMs and it is the cheapest of the cheap, and small capacities usually.

Go look at a 2x4GB of DDR2.
 
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NBSN

NBSN

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Yes, 16 GB is better and a much better choice...and the only reason I said 12 GB is because more than likely you would already have some RAM...and it is not worth replacing RAM you already have when you could just add a bit of RAM for a much smaller cost.
 
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Tradesman1

Tradesman1

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I'd go 16GB, wasn't that long ago everyone said 4GB is more than you'll ever use, a couple years before that they said the same about 2 GB. Pre-builts are stingy with DRAM and already most have 6-8GB, plus there's already games calling for 8 and the developers are using DRAM better/more
 
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chris_shadez

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Assuming your motherboard most likely has 4 RAM slots, go for 8GB (2x4GB) then upgrade to 16gb later when you think you need it, maybe in 2-5years? will have dropped in price by then too.
This way you can save money to invest in better of other components for your current budget.
 
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Titan
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DDR2 prices peaked at 3-4X the cost of DDR3 memory after DDR3 became the de-facto standard (when I built my current PC, 16GB new DDR2 cost $330 vs $90 for DDR3) before crashing back down to similar prices to DDR3.

I would not count on DDR4 making DDR3 cheaper; it will most likely become more expensive for a couple of years as most production shifts to DDR4 and companies that depend on DDR3 for long-term support devices gobble up most of the remaining DDR3 production.
 
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Tradesman1

Tradesman1

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