Is 16gb of ram overkill?

[Adaman]

When I see 16gb of ram I think that's pretty ridiculous, but technology changes pretty fast like that. Is it overkill or can computers today easily make use of 16gb of ram? Trying to figure out if I should get 8gb or 16gb of ram (ddr3 pc312800), so any insight would help, thanks

 

[trekky]

overkill thats varys for games yes for thing that can use 16gb+ no
reason i got 16gb over 8gb is the price was not too much more so why not
but if dont want to spend the extra 30-40 tthen get 8gb

 

[ssjwizard]

8GB is pretty hard to fully utilize outside of specialized workloads. Will it be common to use 8GB in the near future? Possibly, but 16GB you would know if you actually needed this much RAM. I imagine that by the time 16GB is useful the systems were building today wont be so meh.

 

[Ajay57]

8GB is the norm i have 16GB in mine as the price was cheap on sale like SSJ said if your OS and PC can use 16GB then get it! Otherwise just the 8GB will do.

 

[skidawgz]

Depends on what you do with the PC.
I plan to run some programs needed for Engineering classes I have so I went 16GB, or else 8 would be just perfect.

 

[Boulard83]

its better to aim at very good 8gb ram set if your a gamer. 16gb is useless as most told. I have 16 cause on X79 its 4 chanel, so 4x4 2133mhz !

get at least a 2x4 2133mhz set.

 

[moz_21]

I got 16GB because like others, the price was negligible from 8-->16gGB and at the time i was planning on running some VMs.

 

[petteyg359]

16 GiB won't hurt you, and at current prices, it's silly to restrict yourself, unless you really want to keep a budget. Even if you never use Linux, current versions of Windows will appropriately cache stuff. I have 16 GiB in my laptop right now, and Windows is using 9 GiB for caching and 4 GiB for active processes (Steam, Desura, two tabs in conemu, Pandora, Quassel, and Chrome at the moment). Ignore all these silly people saying it's useless and hard to utilize. You don't have to figure out how to utilize it. Your OS will do that for you.

 

[Adaman]

Ok thanks.

The price between the two isn't negligible, but usually more like double the price of the 8gb minus $5 or so. Being on a budget I think I'll stick to 8gb for now, thanks again!

 

[freeagent]

To be honest, Im still perfectly content with 6gb (3x2gb) I added another 2x2gb so Im running 10 right now because I was playing with VM

Still triple channel to boot = woot

 

[Niku-Sama]

when i got 16gigs it wasnt cheap but i utilized more than 8 so it was the most logical route in terms of keeping speed and not mismatching sticks

 

[Raffobaghdo]

I guess it just depends on the person.. I myself have 4GB of ram on my main rig and it's perfectly fine for me. When I first started building my PC I wanted to get 16GB of ram just "because" and most people advised me to not do it since today's "norm" is 8GB. It's your choice though. If price isn't an issue then you can go with 16GB.

 

[EarthDog]

8GB is pretty hard to fully utilize outside of specialized workloads. Will it be common to use 8GB in the near future? Possibly, but 16GB you would know if you actually needed this much RAM. I imagine that by the time 16GB is useful the systems were building today wont be so meh.

this!

 

[smoth]

It's one of those things that wont hurt, but if you don't know that you need it, you don't need it.

 

[wagex]

only time i could use that much is when working with dual layer dvd iso files, and encoding blurays can use alot of ram depending on the software your using.

 

[kmo_9000]

8gb is enough but 16gb is not useless. There are lots of things you can do with the extra 8gb of ram if you have a proper ramdisk program, and if you ever want to do video editing or photoshop you will have the required memory. People never only use a computer for gaming and nothing else.

With my Sig rig I will soon have 3 monitors hooked up to it as soon as I get around to buying a proper third monitor. That is a lot of screen space to fill with programs. It really isn't that much of a stretch to make use of 16gb with this kind of a setup.

I've said this before but with ImDisk I regularly mount ISO files to a ramdisk. Not only is it faster but I also don't have to have Deamon tools installed anymore.

 

[EarthDog]

Its useless UNLESS you can use it, right.

 

[wagex]

+1 earthdog

2gb is even useless unless you can use it

my server never even uses 1 gb and it has 2

 

[Nebulous]

I'm a true believer of it's better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it

I remember when 700w psu was overkill for 775 systems. I went and got a 1200w unit which I still use to this day. Is it still overkill for my current system? Maybe..

 

[Anonaru]

Get RAM related to your workload:

I do light-duty compression, rendering, sequencing, and simulation work on my Dene--FX-8350 rig (Godspeed, my old 955BE), and therefore typically utilize up to 7.4~GB of RAM. I need the 8GB on that rig. Other than that, it is for panoramic (3-monitor) gaming and daily enertainment.

My wife's gaming computer is used for gaming, browsing, and some of her picture / video editing. She never uses more than 3-3.5GB of RAM, so we have no need to upgrade beyond 4 gigs of (very, very good) RAM.

My intel rig is used for benching, heavy-duty simulation, rendering, frame-by-frame render editing, and high-end gaming on a three-monitor configuration. I can utilize 12ish gigs on this rig without a RAMDisk, and can fully utilize it during simulation and frame-by-frame if I also use a RAMDisk for quicker program operation.

VERY task specefic. I'm a good example with such a varience in the amount of RAM each computer has-- Really, "future proofing" and the sort doesn't really see itself on the end-user level past 8gigs.. That being said, it makes for a very empowering experience to have a very large RAMDisk and be able to run a modern game from it (Requriing something like 32 gigs of RAM to accomplish in some scenarios).. SO FREAKING FAST haha

I'm a true believer of it's better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it

I remember when 700w psu was overkill for 775 systems. I went and got a 1200w unit which I still use to this day. Is it still overkill for my current system? Maybe..

I can relate, within reason. I always buy a spec higher than necessary if it also happens to be a good deal-- especially with PSUs. It looks like we're finally beginning to focus on lowering power usage on computers though, so I think needing 1,200w PSUs is going to be a thing of the past (I have a 1k on my 8350 rig, a 1.2k on my intel rig, and a 750 on the most power hungry rig, my wife's..works fine though haha)

RAM's so freaking cheap right now that dropping another few bucks nets you a couple more gigs.. I'm hard pressed to tell people not to over buy a little..