I also have 64, but I’ve seen up to 34 in use a couple times. I could have stayed with 48gb, but the timings/cas latency was much better on the 64gb kit, than running mismatched sizes across 4 slots
Unused RAM is wasted RAM. If you’ve got 64GB of RAM but your system never uses more than 8GB of RAM, you don’t need 64GB of RAM and you’re not getting any benefit from it.
How does it follow then that one should use nearly all of it at all times? Sometimes I need all the memory, sometimes I don’t. Sure, I don’t get the benefit all the time. Same as I don’t have four passengers in my car at all times.
I regularly use over 16-24GB of my 32 GB, and considering I just had to replace 4 8s with 2 16s, I’m honestly kinda tempted to get another pair just to have knowing the shit that’s coming down the pipe.
Yeah, by the time it becomes an issue you’ll be ready to upgrade anyway. There are few use cases for as much RAM as I have. I only bought it to fuck around with VM’s. I’m probably skipping ddr5 and am5 so you’re in good company.
16 is minimum and 32 is recommended if you do much pc gaming, browsing, or torrenting. Things with multiple programs. A single browser and steam open. I regularly hit 16 to 20gb on mint and librewolf. I rarely never see a use past 32gb. I find that to be the sweet spot right now. Anything higher than 32 is better spent on ddr5 upgrade. Caveat being if you run some serious programs but that’s overly rare even by today’s software.
I have 8GB in my laptop running mint, its used for browsing, office work, 3D print slicing, and occasionally I torrent a file from it…it is absolutely no issue whatsoever and it never even breaks 4GB use unless it’s actively slicing a 3D model. 16GB minimum I can agree with for gaming, but for desktop use as mentioned above you can easily get by with less.
I could cut your desk helf in half.
Sure you can fit your keyboard and maybe your mouse on it but how about any additional documents?
Might be a bit annoying to work with?
That doesn’t make sense to me. If I have my keyboard and mouse comfortably on half a desk and still have room on the other half for all my little projects, why do I need more desk space?
In the example there is 8GB installed and usage is normally under 4GB. You said “doesn’t mean you won’t benefit from more”. Unless you use that unused 4GB, installing additional RAM is not very useful.
So, to push the metaphor, if my keyboard and mouse fit fine on the 4GB half of the desk and the other 4GB is enough for the other things I want to do, then 8GB is enough and I won’t benefit from more. When 4GB is not enough, then more RAM makes sense.
for desktop use as mentioned above you can easily get by with less.
Sure, as long as you’re willing to deal with the performance hit of constantly swapping to disk.
Even SSD drives are a magnitude slower that any modern RAM stick, so you’re adding TONS of processing time by running that little memory. And gods help you if your swap is on spinning rust…
SSDs are fast enough as swap to be imperceptible to the untrained eye. A good test is to disable swap for a while. You can bet they will see their system grind its gears at some point.
Operating systems are designed with the assumption that swap will be used. 32GB is roughly the waterline where you can forgo it all together while avoiding consequenecs of the code freaking out when it needs it and doesn’t have any.
I hope 16 gigs is good for a while.
I have 64 and I have rarely ever used as much as 16.
you must have correctly moved on from Chrome
Haven’t used Chrome since the Windows 7 days.
I also have 64, but I’ve seen up to 34 in use a couple times. I could have stayed with 48gb, but the timings/cas latency was much better on the 64gb kit, than running mismatched sizes across 4 slots
I just remembered I did use up to 63GB once. Thanks memory leak.
How is it 2025 and people still don’t understand how RAM works?
If you’ve got 64GB of RAM, ideally you want to be using nearly all of that 64GB at all times.
Explain why.
Unused RAM is wasted RAM. If you’ve got 64GB of RAM but your system never uses more than 8GB of RAM, you don’t need 64GB of RAM and you’re not getting any benefit from it.
How does it follow then that one should use nearly all of it at all times? Sometimes I need all the memory, sometimes I don’t. Sure, I don’t get the benefit all the time. Same as I don’t have four passengers in my car at all times.
I think the point is, if you’re not carrying 4 passengers all the time, why the fuck did you buy a car when you could have bought a unicycle instead?
Silly me, I should buy a car each time I have four passengers and sell it afterwards, to avoid any wasted space.
It’s not like I’m manually clearing things out of the ram. And before the power outage last weekend I had an up-time over 2 months.
Is there a way to have the OS utilize more?
I regularly use over 16-24GB of my 32 GB, and considering I just had to replace 4 8s with 2 16s, I’m honestly kinda tempted to get another pair just to have knowing the shit that’s coming down the pipe.
That’s reassuring, gotta make sure I take care of mine. The pc market has been too messy the last few years.
Yeah, by the time it becomes an issue you’ll be ready to upgrade anyway. There are few use cases for as much RAM as I have. I only bought it to fuck around with VM’s. I’m probably skipping ddr5 and am5 so you’re in good company.
16 is minimum and 32 is recommended if you do much pc gaming, browsing, or torrenting. Things with multiple programs. A single browser and steam open. I regularly hit 16 to 20gb on mint and librewolf. I rarely never see a use past 32gb. I find that to be the sweet spot right now. Anything higher than 32 is better spent on ddr5 upgrade. Caveat being if you run some serious programs but that’s overly rare even by today’s software.
I have 8GB in my laptop running mint, its used for browsing, office work, 3D print slicing, and occasionally I torrent a file from it…it is absolutely no issue whatsoever and it never even breaks 4GB use unless it’s actively slicing a 3D model. 16GB minimum I can agree with for gaming, but for desktop use as mentioned above you can easily get by with less.
You can run it on 8GB. Doesnt mean you won’t benefit from more.
Your system outsources the memory to swap space or is memory starved and needs to unload programs.
It might mean you won’t benefit from more. If it’s got 4GB of headroom, why would adding more help?
I could cut your desk helf in half.
Sure you can fit your keyboard and maybe your mouse on it but how about any additional documents?
Might be a bit annoying to work with?
That doesn’t make sense to me. If I have my keyboard and mouse comfortably on half a desk and still have room on the other half for all my little projects, why do I need more desk space?
You don’t have the other half anymore.
You said you are very comfortable with 8GB.
Why you need 8 more?
In the example there is 8GB installed and usage is normally under 4GB. You said “doesn’t mean you won’t benefit from more”. Unless you use that unused 4GB, installing additional RAM is not very useful.
So, to push the metaphor, if my keyboard and mouse fit fine on the 4GB half of the desk and the other 4GB is enough for the other things I want to do, then 8GB is enough and I won’t benefit from more. When 4GB is not enough, then more RAM makes sense.
Sure, as long as you’re willing to deal with the performance hit of constantly swapping to disk.
Even SSD drives are a magnitude slower that any modern RAM stick, so you’re adding TONS of processing time by running that little memory. And gods help you if your swap is on spinning rust…
SSDs are fast enough as swap to be imperceptible to the untrained eye. A good test is to disable swap for a while. You can bet they will see their system grind its gears at some point.
Operating systems are designed with the assumption that swap will be used. 32GB is roughly the waterline where you can forgo it all together while avoiding consequenecs of the code freaking out when it needs it and doesn’t have any.
If that was the case I wouldn’t have 4GB of idle ram just sitting in my PC. There is no unloading to swap when 50% of available ram is unused.
you did notice the person youeare replaying to is using linux, right?
they are correct, 16gb goes a loooooong way in linux. I know begause I too have 16 on m* work and gaming rig and ram has never been a bottleneck
your comments sound like typical windows experience
Because windows caches aggressively.