Why would anyone need 16 gb of ram?

[nissangtr786]

windows added this superfetch on windows vista and windows 7 which uses the memory and basically uses it by cache stuff on it so things load much faster. You can disable it and have it like windows xp free ram but if you have 8gb then I believe you don't need to disable it to have free ram left.

Anyway I personally think 4gb is still enough but 8gb is future proof. I know video editing especially high res can eat up ram.

[tijo]

There is absolutely no need to disable superfetch, the RAM might be taken with pre-loaded programs, but if you need it for something running, windows will use it exactly like it would use free RAM. Free RAM serves no purpose, i'd rather have superfetch use it since it won't pose a problem if i need the RAM taken by it, windows will treat it like free RAM and put whatever is needed there when needed.

[invisible]

Most applications and games I play don't go over 4 gb. Why would anyone need 16 gb?

Why would anyone need 32MB RAM? Because as software and operating systems evolve, so do system requirements.

[masterchef341]

Reasons that people might need 16GB (or more) RAM include: not wanting to worry about memory ever again

lol. obviously, there's a distinct lack of understanding of the progression of computer technology among such people.

[naton]

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Ah. I see that everybody differs. I use photoshop too. Do you reccomemd I upgrade to 8 gb of ram?

I've read most of the posts in this thread and the information provided is not specific enough to help the OP decide if 4GB is or is not enough.

I do use 3D software and do use Photoshop. I also do video editing every now and then and I'm fin with anywhere between 1 and 2GB under both Windows XP and 7. In my case the bottleneck is the CPU and the GPU.

To help you understand if you need to upgrade I'll explain why at the moment 2GB is more than enough for me. When I work in Photoshop CS5 I don't open more than 10 files in one go and these files are taken with a digital camera at a resolution of 6MP. If I use these photos for a photo montage, my final file has a max resolution of 3000x3000 pixels. I don't go over this size because I print on A4 with a resolution of 300dpi.

So based on the above, as long as I use relatively small photos (2MB each saved by the camera as JPEG files) and work with a relatively small number of files at the time I don't need more than 2GB.

What I explained above is also true for 3D applications. The more faces and vertices you have on a files the more RAM you need.

Video editing is slightly different as different software have different memory requirements. For instance, while Windows Movie Maker needs a lot of RAM, virtualDub doesn't need a lot. While Windows Movies Maker needs to load an uncompressed version of the video file during the manipulation, VirtualDub uncompress and processes the files by chunks; one chunk at the time, and thus needs less RAM.

Now, how do you know if you need more RAM?
Check the LED light of your hard drive. If it is constantly ON when you're working with Photoshop it means that you don't have enough RAM.

P.S.
Photoshop is set by default to use 50% of the available RAM. If you are only working in Photoshop and have nothing else open, you can increase this percentage to 75%. This means that Photoshop can access up to 3GB of RAM and Windows, drivers, antivirus and else the remaining 1GB.

[jclausius]

Why would anyone need 32MB RAM? Because as software and operating systems evolve, so do system requirements.

Most apps today will chew threw 32MB in a matter of a mouse click.

Don't worry, Talin. We know it was a typo... In any case, using up 32GB, it would depend on what the end user runs.

[baiii]

because MMO tend to memory leak.

[Syberia]

You guys are all wrong. Doesn't everyone know a modern PC will never make use of more than 64kb of RAM? Bill Gates said so!

If you can afford the extra $35 over 8gb and have the free RAM slots, is there any reason not to max out the system? I think I've gone over 10gb usage maybe once, but I never have to worry about how many things I have open.

[pitz]

5 years ago, the question asked was, "why would anyone need 8gb of RAM". My laptops (Dell Latitude D630/D830's) support 8gb, but if I was buying a new laptop today, I'd at least want some upgrade room for the future. The components happen to be available at such economical prices that in many environments, going to 16gb right out of the box makes sense immediately.

[Sectorz]

Most applications and games I play don't go over 4 gb. Why would anyone need 16 gb?

p.s. sorry for my speling. I'm on a ipad.

Exemple me when I start my laptop and IE 9 I am at 3GB used , when you have SSD too you need more ram for take full advantage.