When will 32GB RAM become mainstream?

Not anytime this decade.

It already is since 16GB dimms are out and cheaper than 8gb. It just takes time for companies to order these new stocks. I give it 2 years.

32GB costs under $100 now. I remember paying $400 for 12GB a few years ago and than $500 for 64GB. Now i can get 128GB for under $500 also.

Unlikely that the masses will "need" 32 GB RAM anytime soon. For most people these days, 12-16 GB RAM is a lot, and more than enough if you're mainly gaming. It will probably be more than a good 5 years before anyone "needs" 32 GB RAM.

On the flip side, given how inexpensive RAM is these days, if you have the extra cash kicking around to add an extra 16 GB, go for it.

Games coming out this summer just started requiring 16gb of ram. I give it another years before you "need" 32gb for max settings.

In 2010.... tests had shown that having more than 8 GB didn't bring anything to the table for gaming, which, i assume, is the area of interest here. Today that doesn't hold true. If I was throwing money into the "pick a year" pool, I'd lean to 2022. The problem however if that GFX technology is far outpacing CPU technology and while most of the memory needed for that is 'on the card", we do see impacts, especially in the ever more noticeable minimum fps category when system RAM is either too slow or inadequate. If you asked "before 2022" or after "2022", I'd lean to "before".

It's unlikely that RAM requirements would double from 16 to 32 GB in a year. If RAM requirements doubled that quickly that often, you wouldn't have desktop platforms capable of that amount of RAM and most of today's motherboards would be obsolete within 2 years if that was the case.

32GB will be no time soon is because it is mostly for those that are doing video editing or something major. Ram is needed more on the GPU than on the motherboard. I have 16GB of ram and when I game it hardly passes 8GB and this is with a 2GB video card installed.

To be honest only a very few games will need that must ram.

The actual answer depends on what you mean by "mainstream"

Hardcore gamers with a big budget?
Business?
Your parents?

Contrary to what we see in here, "Hardcore gamers with a big budget" is a small percentage of parts (and RAM) sales.

2010 was 6 years ago lol. Games have drastically changed this than.

Such as?

Yes, they have changed "since then". But not as much to have made a difference. I have several problems with the way RAM testing is done.

a) testers rarely include all the situations where RAM impacts can be seen... most RAM reviews are "avg fps => I'm done".

b) Where RAM speed and amount do have an impact is when other bottlenecks are removed. For example, go from 1 GFX card to 2, and the impact from having faster RAM that didn't show up with just 1 card now shows up on 2.

c) Where RAM speed and amount do have an impact will vary on what game is tested. For example, go from a game like Metro 2033 which is GFX limited and there's no difference, but try a game that is RAM speed limited like F1 and then it does show a significant difference. That's when you see the typical forum posts linking a metro 2033 test and ending with "... proves RAM speed has no impact, Period !"

6 years ago, we didn't have 4 GB and more GFX cards ... 6 years ago, peeps weren't moving to 1440p or even 4 k. ... 6 years ago, games weren't showing signs of being CPU limited.... 6 years ago SLI performance brought a lot to the table (70% scaling).

The reason i used 6 years ago was 6 years ago THG did a reasonably good article on " Is It Time To Add More RAM?"

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ram-memory-upgrade,2778-8.html

Pay particular attention to that last graphic.... for most games having 4 GB didn't bring much to the table....except Half Life did ... so yes, things have changed in the last 6 years ago, but 6 years ago, 4 GB was just fine with a few exceptions. 6 months a ago, the "8 GB is more than enough" was still the prominent position in these forums.
And it is for most games.... but:

a) Some games do show an advantage and with GTAV and Witcher 3 being two of the most popular games being affected by RAM amount, minds have slowly been changing.

b) If most web sites went beyond avg fps for all their testing ... and testing included min. fps and min, fps in SLI / CF, then I think more folks would be recognizing the impact of more and faster RAM.

c) If more web sites went beyond 3 - 4 games for all their testing ... and made an effort to identify games which are impacted by RAM vs CPU vs RAM, etc, then I think more folks would be recognizing that different games present widely varying loads on the PC's subsystems.



that's where we are now .... in most games, having more than 8 GB isn't bringing much to the table.... but in Witcher 3 and GTAV, it is.

Game design has drastically changed now now that the PS4 and Xbox One use AMD APU chips with 8GB of ram. That is the baseline now, Companies can use higher textures and push more data. 16GB is necessary for any PC AAA 2016 game and that will continue to be until the new consoles come out focusing on 4k. Which once again will push the baseline up future.

16GB is mainstream now and 32gb is future proofing. It will be another 2-3 years before 32GB is just norm.

Of all the PC's (not servers) across the planet, how many have 16GB RAM?
Of all the 'gaming PC's' across the planet, how many have more than 8GB RAM?

You state 'mainstream'....show us the numbers.

There's no information which even remotely supports your hypothesis. If you have references showing otherwise, please. provide.

1st off, console ports are an embarrassment to PC gaming. For the most part, they are not worth playing.

2nd, 32 GB is a complete waste of money for a gaming box.

3rd, I assume that you aware that 4 x 8GB results in a performance penalty as memory controller has more difficulty maintaining CPU OCs with 4 sticks. .... so you are also going to pay the premium for 16GB sticks ?

By the time gaming needs 32 GB, the RAM it's likely we'll be using will be a different form factor.

Only 19.4% of boxes hitting steam servers have more than 8 GB... in other words, 4 outta 5 have 8 GB or less

No real way to predict it. I'd guess it will become more 'mainstream' with business and non-gamers before it will with gamers and if prices remain low as people build new rigs (it's already picking up) we'll see gamers jump in also. 16GB is the most suggested today even for gaming rigs on new builds. Many factors will play in, developers continue to utilize DRAM more and more, both in speed and quantity. We're seeing the VDRAM in GPUs going up and to fully utilize that, you will need an equal or greater amount of system DRAM to feed it.

Depends where you are on how much it costs. It maybe cheap in the us / anywhere else. But it's not exactly cheap here

Altho I dont play games on this anyway. Thats what the Xbox is for

For us the PlayStation was to keep the kids off grown-ups PC's.... that lasted till they were about 11 or 12 years old .... well Jr. High anyway. Since then they been buying and building their own .... tho, I matched them dollar for dollar. Seems fair is it kept them off the PS that I no longer had to buy, I didn't have to listen to the 3 of them argue who's turn it was and hence the TV was no free fro grownups also.