At my workplace, some people have 8 GB laptops and they absolutely chug because the system is bogged down by all kinds of corporate security software etc. They also don't have fast current SSDs in them.
My wife works from home through what _should_ be an easy suite of a basic spreadsheet that only has a couple hundred products, a pretty basic database of customers, running through a VPN. That's it. You should be fine with an i3 on 4-8gb of ram. But something in their software suite, VPN, and/or security suite is so archaic and inefficient held together with duct tape and bubble gum it takes her 10600 4-5 _minutes_ just to boot up. There's SO many "non-tech" companies that are scared of replacing anything that might break in the process.
i'm dealing with pcs for the last 30 years, and it never occurred to me to benchmark two systems at the same time with the same input. It's a very clever idea for this kind of video. Otherwise you could record a macro of opening different stuff, and make it into your own benchmark.
I think a lot of this has to do with a 1/2 decent HMB gen 4 drive. If this was the days of gen3 dram-less drives w/ no HMB I believe the swapping would be much worse. Much laggier.
I always tell people that the extra RAM is more for increased overhead and longevity. Applications are never going to get less demanding, so going with the extra RAM is always a wise choice. As your video proved, having less RAM offloads a lot of the workload to the swap file, which increases the workload on the SSD and processor.
I often suggest that if you're unsure whether 8 GB or 16 GB of RAM is better, try running design software like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, and InDesign simultaneously. You'll quickly see the difference.
Agreed, as that's going to wear out the SSD faster, and with many people not knowing any better, and buying laptops with soldered onboard SSD, and even Soldered RAM it's going to lead to the death of the laptop even faster if they don't have enough RAM.
@@mariopenulli1395 Not always if it's one with bad quality NAND cells, one that's DRAMless that hits the cells harder, or ones with bad controller chips like ADATA had a couple of years ago with scores of drives drying at random(I had a few die on me), or if it's a very low end laptop(looking at the Walmart Gateway junk), or say a tablet with EMMC storage instead of a normal SSD, which is slower, and has a shorter lifespan in general.
As someone else mentioned the difference from years back is the harddrive since with both laptops it is having to move things in and out of memory. Back in the day with old hard drives you would feel that a lot more.
I think the issue isn’t 8GB vs 16GB but more so soldered memory. PC manufacturers not allowing users to upgrade after they hit the maximum of their 8GB and charging a premium for 16GB is the disappointing part that has to change.
@@seitenryu6844 Soldered memory is also a speed issue. Need fast memory for good CPU and integrated GPU performance. SODIMM has unfortunately hit the limit at ddr5-5300 or so whereas soldered you can do ddr5-8600 and more. CAMM2 is a solution to this problem - if only manufacturers would start using it.
@@seitenryu6844Not that I defend manufacturers, God forbid. The truth is we need to see wider adoption of CAMM2 standard, because SO-DIMM has too large footprint and it struggles with DDR5 integrity wise.
Hi Gordon, great piece, however I have had 16GB & 32GB of RAM in 2 of my 3 laptops since 2009 & 2012, so I would say that 32GB to even 64GB would be helpful in the realworld.
Another thing you could look at is the battery levels after a few hours of using both laptops. All that swapping and memory (de)compression isn't free!
Although not a laptop, my PC has 256 GB of RAM because reasons. Whenever I have to work on huge files (e.g. video), the Linux kernel and mounted ramdisks takes SSD/HDD/Flash drive slowdowns after initial project importing out of the picture until I need to export output files to permanent storage. I absolutely would refuse to get a machine with “normal” amounts of RAM because I expect to be able to swing around hundreds of gigabytes per second instead of waiting for an SSD's mere hundreds of megabytes per second.
Damn Gordon, we done got old.. I miss MPC Magazine so much.. For a web and MS Office only machine I would think 8GB would be plenty.. For gaming on intel integrated graphics you’re going to want at least 24gb and 32GB would be preferred. These Integrated graphics aren’t like the old days a modern Intel chip can play some modern games with respectable frame rates. Of course nothing beats an Nvidia GPU even the RTX4060 are really good at pushing modern games in HD at high frame rates.
@@auturgicflosculator2183 actually a new RTX4060 sells for what a 1060, 2060 and 3060 cost when they were new even less if you know to buy referbs or open box items. I paid $700 for 17” 144hz 1440P laptop with a Core i7 13700, 32gigs DDR5 and a 6gb RTX4060 1TB SSD at Micro Center in Houston Texas.
Did you test light gaming on integrated graphics? I think that matters, I have an xps13 with 8GB , I use it for productivity and some light gaming(old games mainly), It is running slow and I have always regretted not getting the 16Gig version.
A budy of mine had a windows 11 machine with 4 gigs of ram in single channel with a tiny sata m.2 drive. I upgraded him to 8 gigs duel channel just for my own sanity.
This has been my viewpoint as well. But with something like a mac where the SSD is not upgradeable or replaceable I would opt for the the extra RAM since writes do decrease the life of the SSD. the question is how bad is the RAM being hit. Some applications like web browsing not at all but others it can be significant.
Adding case to test suit with paging file disabled would be really educational. I know it's not a default setting but right now we really are looking at both laptops heavily relying on SSD most of the time.
Disable paging is bad idea in window. 1. Memory compression will not work if paging file disabled.. 2. Out of memory error will occur which u will not be able to start a new program and some running program will un-responding and U will be prompted to force close some program. 3. Some app crashes will not be able to troubleshoot because of the crash logging also make use of paging file. 4. Window automatically managed paging file is set by default. The only useful setting that u may able to use is utilising paging on ur 2nd ssd as well if ur is equipped with. Also the option that set u initial and max size of paging file
Windows can't overcommit without a page file. If you disable it you get OOM errors very frequently, because a lot of apps are written in languages with runtimes that assume virtual address space is free as long as they don't actually *use* it.
@@SyrFloraWell, I disabled my paging file since I got plenty of RAM for my usecase (32gb for gaming, browsing etc). And it works great. Why would stupid Windows place ca. 4gb of data on my ssd when usually there is more than 10gb available in the RAM. Is my logic flawed? Are there any drawbacks I'm not aware of?
@@andyH_EnglandTo check if 8gb is trully enough... There was no criteria declared to measure whether 8gb is enough (maybe it should be time to load a demanding site? I don't know). In my opinion checking if Windows breaks because of OOM error, while doing normal normal stuff, would be a good way to answer the question. With paging file every ram size seems to be enough as long as you can boot.
I use a 16GB Windows 11 Thinkpad and a 4GB Samsung 2-in-1 tablet, running Windows 11, although its intel core m3-6Y30 processor isn't even eligible for it. It's not 8 vs 16, it's 16 vs 4. I even have almost identical software installed on both machines. I also use an 8GB Windows 11 Ryzen machine in office. When it came to really heavy job, the 16GB on the laptop make difference. But 90% of the time, using browser, MS Office, VS Code, 4GB and 16GB machines behave almost identical. When travel I usually only carry the tablet, which is very tin and lite. The only app I have on the laptop, but not on the tablet is DaVinci Resolve.
I only buy a laptop if it has a least one slot for RAM, and upgradable storage, like my Lenovo IdeaPad 3 15IAU7 came with 8GB soldered, then I put in a 16GB stick of DDR4 3200Mhz RAM, and got 24GB which is more than I'll personally need for a long time since I don't really game much on this machine, but it was super cheap for the upgrade(I have 32GB in my main desktop, and looking at 64GB when I can catch a deal).
For gaming laptop or ultrabook with reasonable powerful gpu, when on gaming scenarios, 8GB pretty hit and miss. U will occasionally get stuttering if paging occur on game asset aka texture. Avoid 8GB especially if it non upgradeable. For normal casual use.. 8GB still decent thou it may choke harder if ur storage slow.
8gb and 16gb for NONE GAME environment is perfect, but i already have tested with a game environment and im getting 32gb or even 64gb to assist the IGPu in helping work load
Good video. I would have liked to see you actually browse the web though by clicking stuff and opening new web addresses rather than scrolling up and down the same cached tabs.
2:00 I'm getting strong "1 mouse 2 laps" vibes here. Jokes aside, I wish there was a macbook in the mix too. To see how they manage the memory, if the limits are the same.
Fast SSD and fast ram were working overtime on the 8 gb model. The drive will wear out faster because of the swapping. It's just not as optimal, but not the end of the world. Having said that, if the apps make you wait, then it's time to upgrade
The statement is incorrect. When swap is used, it utilizes the DRAM of the SSD module, which is around 2-3GB of DDR4 RAM. This RAM is used for transfers before the data is assigned to the drive. Therefore, when not in use for large transfers, this DRAM is utilized for swap. As a result, you can use around 4GB of swap before accessing the SSD storage.
@@ricsip Testing reveals that swap performs as quickly as RAM for 2-4GB, but beyond that, it relies on the slower SSD instead of disk RAM, leading to noticeable slowdowns. MaxTech demonstrated this in a video comparing swap performance on an external drive to internal disk RAM, showing significant slowdowns when AI didn't utilise the disk RAM on the external SSD.
I mean for me 16GB isnt enough. My regular work load is 20GB. Until I got an upgrade those 4GB swapping in and out page file was really doing a number on my SSD.
12GB was cutting edge not long ago. Ha. I remember when I was 11, I was soo excited to get my TRS-80 home computer RAM increased....from 2k to 8k, I think? Didn't make any difference then either. lol But yah, once relatively recent games or animation is involved, that's a whole different world.
This comparison would become much more stark after a couple of hours of use. Every computer I've worked on loses usable RAM as the hours go on which slows everything down..
Very nice video!👏 The answer: Well, it depends, but even Apple thinks you need 16 Gb😉 I use Linux on a 2012 Macbook Air, dual core, 4 Gb Ram. Light office and internet/multimedia use. No prob whatsoever. 8 Gb is for most users comfortable. 16 Gb is cheap and gives kinda future proof config...
@doomtomb3 I have not tested it, but my feeling is it "will work" for the average person who grows to expect that responsiveness. Maybe 8GB vs 4GB should be the next test.
Be careful what laptop you choose then, I think it will be difficult to find a 4 GB new laptop without soldered or otherwise upgradable memory. And other specs on these are usually poor.
I bought an HP15 with 8gb ram and am happy with it. It is faster then my desktop so I use it most. My desktop is a 4 core and has 16 gb, which runs at around 10% cpu. I still love my HP15, I run Linux Mint 22 on both !
@tomasvolpe got it. I have toyed with methods to limit ram before. One used creating a 4GB ram drive. The other is a Microsoft app they have to occupy RAM for testing. My problem is I'm afraid that doing it artificially may alter the OS behavior. The OS knows it has, say, 16GB of RAM when booted and may configure around that. So even if we limit it to 8GB, is the behavior the same as 8GB physical? I don't have answer to that so I prefer to physically limit it to prevent it from polluting the test. Hope this helps.
For office work and light photoshopping, illustrator and indesign, and heck, even a bit of autocad, 8 GB has been more than enough for me. I’m running an Asus vivobook x512da from 2019 with a ryzen 3 and integrated vega graphics.
@@mindblockandroid well I wonder if I get one of those 8 GB ram, will it be able to run karspersky while I work in office. Pfff.... Hard choice tbh, idk what to do
@@bambihasantlers4744 depends I guess. In my case, my laptop is an asus vivobook from 2019. After seeing this video, I went online and checked for ram for this model. A 16gb kit, which is the maximum it supports, was going for around 35 bucks, so it was a no brainer. If your upgrade costs like 100 usd or so, well maybe there’s a bit more to think about.
Thank you very much for this test!! Excellent information where 8GB will get you in 2024. This is something to show to people who say that 8GB is unusable and useless and every machine must have 16GB.
Dual Channel and the 4th gen SSD are masking a lot of the latency-related issues with the 8 GB system. Go single stick and downgrade the storage device like an actual budget system and you'll start seeing real lag.
@vcjester There were definitely many times the 8GB was pushed very hard and I still recommend 16GB, but gotta admit, 8GB with Win 11 does surprisingly well.
@FakeGordonMahUng Yar, and full disclosure, I had more RAW files open at once than any sane person would. Glad you used the IDG sites for ram usage. I've given Adam so much grief about how much ram they take. Look at the stats given by uBlock sometime while browsing them, and even you will get on an outrage pony.
This comparision is tottaly shallow & hedging the actual work behind SSD performance, If you'd have measured energy usage & CPU activity, you'd see that 8Gig one has to do more house keeping to remain responsive, & on battery power, it'd make a difference.
Looking at this video, I think 8GB is definitely not enough anymore. The 16GB upgrade is massive. The speed difference is insane in those Photoshop tasks!
There will be the usual crowd that says 8GB is not enough. They are just flexing, as with most things, the answer is "it depends." I have a light use case of office work and browsing and have used 8GB or less for 30-40 years with no issues. On my current MB Air 8GB M2, I have 2-2.5GB available even when using all my daily software. So, anyone saying otherwise is wrong. But...if you are a semi-pro or pro user, 16GB or more is recommended, as many RAM-intensive apps, like video editing, only work at their best with loads of RAM. If you have loads of money, then buy what you like. If you play AAA games, 16GB or more is the call. I want Apple to start at 12GB, as that would maybe stop the daft comments we see in YT video comment sections. But I do not think it is essential. "LoverOfTech" did an S24U versus iPhone 15PM RAM test, and 15PM 8GB held every app in RAM, but the S24U kicked out several even though it has 12GB. He had to use 8GB of swap (RAM+) to save the S24U. This proves that Apple RAM optimisation is worth more than 1:1 versus rivals.
using 8GB for 30-40 years? Maybe a typo Also if you are using the MB Air M2 with MacOS the comparison is invalid for people on windows. Apple is very aggressive with swapping, I often see 10+GB of swapped stuff on a macbook with 16gb RAM. They are decent at hiding it from the user, so the system is still relatively fluid even when it's swapping heavily
@@marcogenovesi8570I've been using 8GB or less since my teenage years, which date back to when Alan Sugar released the first mainstream PC-no typo there! Regarding swap, its primary function is for algorithms to determine what's inactive and move it to swap space, rather than occupying system RAM that's needed for active applications and providing headroom for opening additional apps. It's a smart, sophisticated, and highly practical system.
For someone who just uses a laptop for casual use such as web browsing 8 gb is enough. You only really need 16 if you run intensive applications or games.
8GB RAM is absolutely fine…until it isn’t. And at that point, there’s no quick fix even if your laptop has upgradeable slots - which fewer and fewer do, especially now RAM on package is flavour of the month. That’s why buyers have to be *very* aware of all of their needs as well as their budget. The other issue is longevity. Will 8GB be sufficient in 4 or 5 years’ time once the next generations of Windows OS, bloatware & AI nonsense are forced upgrades? Almost certainly not. So you gotta budget for more budget now or more budget later. 😆
One day there may not be a such a thing as RAM. Imagine just being able to access from onboard storage immediately with no delay or compromises. Maybe even one day lanes can be end to end from input level to storage bit level with full entire storage access simultaneously without caching. For gaming or VR worlds a system like that could make experiences almost inconceivable from the real world. A chipset that could do that would be the holy grail of compute.
With nvme SSDs we have already reached the "lanes can be end to end from input level to storage bit level with full entire storage access simultaneously without caching". The disk writes faster than any incoming write so there is no real write cache
@@marcogenovesi8570 You misunderstand. RAM is still used and just by looking at the lane width on the motherboard it's easy to tell you can't extract all data simultaneously as you can't extract all of the data from an SSD simultaneously as there is wait time from seconds to minutes still. I'm talking about the entire storage completely accessible at the same time making complete data transfer in around 1 second.
What this test is telling me, with the memory usage, is that people would be better off with at least 16 GB of RAM when they are actually doing something. And 8 GB is fine if they are doing nothing. Work wise, I'm recommending a minimum of 32GB for Excel centric work with actual data models, with 64GB a reasonable overhead included.
Both of my parents use around 4-5GB of memory even when they have multiple applications open. It seems your perspective might be subjective, considering the reality that billions of laptop users have a light workflow. It's not that 8GB is sufficient for everyone, but the assertion that 16GB is the minimum requirement is often disproven, as this video and others have repeatedly shown.
@@andyH_England oh you can use stuff at 4GB too but it will lag and sometimes slow down to a crawl when doing updates. It's really a matter of what you are used to, people used to old tower desktops on XP will be fine on a laggy slow PC
How relevant will these DDR4 tests be in the near future where new Laptops will require DDR5 which can only satisfy all 2x2 channels with 2 16GB SODIMMs or more?
As with everything, context matters, it depends on what you are doing, if you laptop is an over glorified media player, you just might be able to get by with 4GB of RAM, I have seen people who use their laptops to only watch movies or listen to music and they can get by with 4GB, the problem start when they want to be productive.
16gb dimms are 'cheap'. Problem with 8gb is when you eventually need 32gb(16*16) after many years, you will end up with may be two extra 8gb dimms whereas if you start with single 16gb dimm you can avoid that.
The insulting part isn't that too many laptops still offer 8gb, it's that it's often single channel, but even worse the upcharge for 16gb is literally more than buying the memory yourself and throwing the 8gb in the garbage. I saved over $100 by choosing 8gb ram with a 256gb NVME, then buying 16gb/1T myself and swapping them in. The upcharges for even small memory and storage bumps is ridiculous, and just generates E-waste from people like me that didn't fail elementary math.
The upgrade price being "ridiculous" is not the reality. Instead, imagine if that 8GB variant did not exist; the prices of the 16GB version would still be what they are now. OEMs make a business decision to try to make a margin in a very competitive and low-margin business.
@@andyH_England OEMs are _not_ a low margin business. You might be thinking of system integrators like Maingear and Ibuypower that aren't big enough to manufacture every part internally. And even they do fine because they upcharge for it and a lot of people will pay that extra just to NOT have a Dell or HP. But DELL, HP, and the like make plenty. Just because a company doesn't have Apple level cultist followers that will spend 5X a product's worth, doesn't mean they're "low margin." AMD has great margins and they still profit less than Dell. Dell just suffers from the same issue as Intel, where they make a lot of revenue, but the companies are too bloated so even good margins on the actual products can't make up for money that's wasted left and right elsewhere. Doesn't help that it's rough right now for everyone except Nvidia.
@@zodwraith5745 Dell's net profit margin is currently 4%. Lenovo is only 1.8%. These are low-margin. So, it will only take small changes in sales or consumer demand to cause significant damage to the bottom line.
@@andyH_England If you make $250k a year, and have 150k a year in bills, but your wife spends $95k a year, do you have a margin problem or spending problem? There's a _REASON_ investors and speculators report margins and net profits completely separately but you don't seem to know the difference. Margins do NOT automatically = profits. Like I said AMD has great margins, but profits are sucking right now. Let me make it easier to understand. If you're selling a $500 PC for $1000 that's a solid margin right? But if your R&D, expansion, investments in new facilities, etc, eats 90% of your profit leaving you only 10%, that didn't magically make your margins disappear, and you'll still be viewed as a safe investment. That's _EXACTLY_ why all of these are reported separately. But if you're selling $500 PCs for $550 and getting that same 10% while doing zero R&D? THAT'S when you're viewed as not being a safe investment. Then you also account for hard assets, which Dell, Lenovo, HP and Intel have in spades.
@@InTheCircl Not when increasing RAM size helps with program bandwidth. Also, Gordon was testing Intel laptops; this test should be repeated again with AMD CPUs.
The price is obviously a factor, but if you can get a deal on an 8GB model that is $200 less than the same laptop with 16GB, then I would save that $200, as 8GB is all I need.
8gb ram is absolutely enough , depending on your use case. Even for some light older gaming, indie games. But if you do any modern gaming, 16gb is almost necessary - a friend with i5 9400f + 1650 + 8gb ram, i ordered another 8gb stick for her and it made a night/day difference to her gaming experience. Diablo IV was unplayable before, but now smooth as butter. World of Warcraft was also now much smoother - but was playable before, it uses hardly any ram. Any sort of game like Fortnite, Pubg, Apex, 16gb would most likely benefit the performance at least in parts majorly.
Even GTA:V, published in 2013, will use around 7-8GB of memory together with the OS. Buying 8GB today is basically a coin toss whether it will struggle with your game/application or if it will need future upgrades. Most people will not be able to diagnose that the issue is due to low RAM capacity, it’s likely they’ll purchase a new computer instead. Recommending 16GB basically nullifies the problem.
@Rotwold Yep take the chance of it ever being an issue away hahah - why I normally recommend a little higher specs than what would be "fine" for family / friends use case. (Such as 8 vs 16gb, ssd space etc - modern cpus are all basically more than powerful enough for non gaming family)
@Takashita_Sukakoki It totally could be the case - i mean at least partially it would have improved things, either way putting in the extra stick made unplayable "skipping" like it was paging to disk performance turn to butter smooth game play with D iv.
I find that in the ancient historical artifact laptop with an i5-2410U that I have running Arch, 8gb appears to be enough. But, i don't think there is any good excuse for laptops made after like 2015 to have less than 16gb of vram.
No and it hasn't been for many years now. Windows and MacOS like around 6GB to use on their own and most of the applications even casual users run require more than 2GB of RAM, web browsers in particular. 16GB is the minimum and has been for some time.
Need to run this test again on a SATA/III SSD laptop as many "average" people would still have; PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD really hides the bottleneck. Just remember that NAND has limited writes, so the 8GB model is being silently worn down more quickly. As others said though, some applications are more sensitive to filled up physical RAM, plus security and other software adds to the baseline overhead.
Aggressive swap use will kill the ssd faster. Then there is soldered ram on new laptops. Most people don’t need more than 8gb right now but what about 3 years from now? 5 years from now? Different people have different upgrade cycles.
It isn't. Newer operating systems handle more complex data types and need to be modernized to use different instruction sets, security features, graphics stacks, etc. More pixels per screen, more RAM needed. Happens on Windows, Mac and Linux.
@@PurpleWarlock that's bs, you are technobabbling. Even on Windows once you purge the bloat AI, Apps and the tracking you end with the same actual RAM use of Windows 7. On Linux the RAM usage hasn't changed significantly in a decade, unless we are talking of embedded devices where RAM is measured in MegaBytes. There yeah the kernel is too big to properly fit an OS in 32MB of RAM, but it's not a big deal as they don't make so small RAM chips anymore anyway
[Title] Is 8GB Enough For Laptops? Depends: Websites will continue to bloat their pages??? If the trend continues, soon one single video in RUclips will consume 8Gb Ram ...
At my workplace, some people have 8 GB laptops and they absolutely chug because the system is bogged down by all kinds of corporate security software etc.
They also don't have fast current SSDs in them.
16gb isn't enough for endpoint security, vpn clients etc
This video is not about enterprise devices. But it is correct that your employer should provide a PC with sufficient headroom for their protocols.
My wife works from home through what _should_ be an easy suite of a basic spreadsheet that only has a couple hundred products, a pretty basic database of customers, running through a VPN. That's it. You should be fine with an i3 on 4-8gb of ram. But something in their software suite, VPN, and/or security suite is so archaic and inefficient held together with duct tape and bubble gum it takes her 10600 4-5 _minutes_ just to boot up.
There's SO many "non-tech" companies that are scared of replacing anything that might break in the process.
DLP software completely kills performance, in my company it checks every single line of a copy paste in a excel spreadsheet.
i'm dealing with pcs for the last 30 years, and it never occurred to me to benchmark two systems at the same time with the same input. It's a very clever idea for this kind of video.
Otherwise you could record a macro of opening different stuff, and make it into your own benchmark.
The problem with automating it is he won't "feel" the slowness of 8GB. Yes, he can see it is slow, but it's better to feel it with each click.
Welcome back Gordon... 😁👍
I think a lot of this has to do with a 1/2 decent HMB gen 4 drive. If this was the days of gen3 dram-less drives w/ no HMB I believe the swapping would be much worse. Much laggier.
ssd speeds are still much worse than RAM, in optimal conditions you don't want to swap at all
I always tell people that the extra RAM is more for increased overhead and longevity. Applications are never going to get less demanding, so going with the extra RAM is always a wise choice. As your video proved, having less RAM offloads a lot of the workload to the swap file, which increases the workload on the SSD and processor.
It is 2024. The SSD and processors are overkill for most now, so it is great that they are being used.
Good to see you in action, Gordon!
I often suggest that if you're unsure whether 8 GB or 16 GB of RAM is better, try running design software like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, and InDesign simultaneously. You'll quickly see the difference.
Would be interesting to monitor the cache activity and temps on the SSD while doing this test.
Agreed, as that's going to wear out the SSD faster, and with many people not knowing any better, and buying laptops with soldered onboard SSD, and even Soldered RAM it's going to lead to the death of the laptop even faster if they don't have enough RAM.
@@CommodoreFan64 You have to do a lot of swapping until that will wear out your SSD.
@@mariopenulli1395 Not always if it's one with bad quality NAND cells, one that's DRAMless that hits the cells harder, or ones with bad controller chips like ADATA had a couple of years ago with scores of drives drying at random(I had a few die on me), or if it's a very low end laptop(looking at the Walmart Gateway junk), or say a tablet with EMMC storage instead of a normal SSD, which is slower, and has a shorter lifespan in general.
@@mariopenulli1395 Many years before that would happen unless you have a very junk SSD.
@@robertlawrence9000 People are still scared of SSDs today lol. And some of these people are "tech enthusiasts".
As someone else mentioned the difference from years back is the harddrive since with both laptops it is having to move things in and out of memory. Back in the day with old hard drives you would feel that a lot more.
I think the issue isn’t 8GB vs 16GB but more so soldered memory. PC manufacturers not allowing users to upgrade after they hit the maximum of their 8GB and charging a premium for 16GB is the disappointing part that has to change.
That's mostly a symptom of market pressures and design trends. People want cheaper, so they get soldered memory.
@@seitenryu6844and thinner designs. Makers responded to market demand for thin and lights.
@@seitenryu6844 it's not, soldered memory is most common in macbooks and ultrabooks where "cheaper" isn't really a thing
@@seitenryu6844 Soldered memory is also a speed issue. Need fast memory for good CPU and integrated GPU performance. SODIMM has unfortunately hit the limit at ddr5-5300 or so whereas soldered you can do ddr5-8600 and more. CAMM2 is a solution to this problem - if only manufacturers would start using it.
@@seitenryu6844Not that I defend manufacturers, God forbid. The truth is we need to see wider adoption of CAMM2 standard, because SO-DIMM has too large footprint and it struggles with DDR5 integrity wise.
That 8 is pretty fast. The same processor? I like that one mouse and keyboard setup for both laptops. I have to try that.
me watching this with 8GB DDR4-3200 laptop with 6.9GB used ram
Hi Gordon, great piece, however I have had 16GB & 32GB of RAM in 2 of my 3 laptops since 2009 & 2012, so I would say that 32GB to even 64GB would be helpful in the realworld.
This is a fantastic reality check. Thanks for doing this.
Another thing you could look at is the battery levels after a few hours of using both laptops. All that swapping and memory (de)compression isn't free!
My laptop had one 4GB soldered stick and one non soldered. Upgraded the one stick now have 12GB which is the max supported on this laptop.
I love this test. Would be interesting to see how RAM timings/speed affect the responsiveness.
It is always great seeing testing that has surprising results.
Although not a laptop, my PC has 256 GB of RAM because reasons. Whenever I have to work on huge files (e.g. video), the Linux kernel and mounted ramdisks takes SSD/HDD/Flash drive slowdowns after initial project importing out of the picture until I need to export output files to permanent storage.
I absolutely would refuse to get a machine with “normal” amounts of RAM because I expect to be able to swing around hundreds of gigabytes per second instead of waiting for an SSD's mere hundreds of megabytes per second.
Excellent way to do this comparison.
Damn Gordon, we done got old.. I miss MPC Magazine so much.. For a web and MS Office only machine I would think 8GB would be plenty.. For gaming on intel integrated graphics you’re going to want at least 24gb and 32GB would be preferred. These Integrated graphics aren’t like the old days a modern Intel chip can play some modern games with respectable frame rates. Of course nothing beats an Nvidia GPU even the RTX4060 are really good at pushing modern games in HD at high frame rates.
I miss those days too man!
@@auturgicflosculator2183 actually a new RTX4060 sells for what a 1060, 2060 and 3060 cost when they were new even less if you know to buy referbs or open box items. I paid $700 for 17” 144hz 1440P laptop with a Core i7 13700, 32gigs DDR5 and a 6gb RTX4060 1TB SSD at Micro Center in Houston Texas.
My laptop with 8GB of RAM was slow on Windows updates, and increasing to 16 GB of RAM improved this quite a bit.
Did you test light gaming on integrated graphics? I think that matters, I have an xps13 with 8GB , I use it for productivity and some light gaming(old games mainly), It is running slow and I have always regretted not getting the 16Gig version.
Do I spy a LTT noctua edition screwdriver?
A budy of mine had a windows 11 machine with 4 gigs of ram in single channel with a tiny sata m.2 drive. I upgraded him to 8 gigs duel channel just for my own sanity.
You need to have a super hero costume when you pop in and do that upgrade. SHAZAM!
Is 8 gigs enough to run windows 11 and karspersky antivirus on it ?
Excelent video. Thank you! Greatings from Argentina!
This has been my viewpoint as well. But with something like a mac where the SSD is not upgradeable or replaceable I would opt for the the extra RAM since writes do decrease the life of the SSD. the question is how bad is the RAM being hit. Some applications like web browsing not at all but others it can be significant.
I put a 32GB SODIMM in my laptop, and life is good.
Adding case to test suit with paging file disabled would be really educational. I know it's not a default setting but right now we really are looking at both laptops heavily relying on SSD most of the time.
Disable paging is bad idea in window.
1. Memory compression will not work if paging file disabled..
2. Out of memory error will occur which u will not be able to start a new program and some running program will un-responding and U will be prompted to force close some program.
3. Some app crashes will not be able to troubleshoot because of the crash logging also make use of paging file.
4. Window automatically managed paging file is set by default. The only useful setting that u may able to use is utilising paging on ur 2nd ssd as well if ur is equipped with. Also the option that set u initial and max size of paging file
Windows can't overcommit without a page file. If you disable it you get OOM errors very frequently, because a lot of apps are written in languages with runtimes that assume virtual address space is free as long as they don't actually *use* it.
Using a swap or a page file is standard practice in PCs. I have no idea why that would be a useful test.
@@SyrFloraWell, I disabled my paging file since I got plenty of RAM for my usecase (32gb for gaming, browsing etc). And it works great. Why would stupid Windows place ca. 4gb of data on my ssd when usually there is more than 10gb available in the RAM. Is my logic flawed? Are there any drawbacks I'm not aware of?
@@andyH_EnglandTo check if 8gb is trully enough... There was no criteria declared to measure whether 8gb is enough (maybe it should be time to load a demanding site? I don't know). In my opinion checking if Windows breaks because of OOM error, while doing normal normal stuff, would be a good way to answer the question. With paging file every ram size seems to be enough as long as you can boot.
I use a 16GB Windows 11 Thinkpad and a 4GB Samsung 2-in-1 tablet, running Windows 11, although its intel core m3-6Y30 processor isn't even eligible for it. It's not 8 vs 16, it's 16 vs 4. I even have almost identical software installed on both machines. I also use an 8GB Windows 11 Ryzen machine in office. When it came to really heavy job, the 16GB on the laptop make difference. But 90% of the time, using browser, MS Office, VS Code, 4GB and 16GB machines behave almost identical. When travel I usually only carry the tablet, which is very tin and lite. The only app I have on the laptop, but not on the tablet is DaVinci Resolve.
Here I am, browsing RUclips on a 4GB laptop without problems.
I always get the 8G variant and then upgrade it.. so much cheaper this way.
Lenovo G3 IAP i5 1235U, now with 16G RAM.
I only buy a laptop if it has a least one slot for RAM, and upgradable storage, like my Lenovo IdeaPad 3 15IAU7 came with 8GB soldered, then I put in a 16GB stick of DDR4 3200Mhz RAM, and got 24GB which is more than I'll personally need for a long time since I don't really game much on this machine, but it was super cheap for the upgrade(I have 32GB in my main desktop, and looking at 64GB when I can catch a deal).
@@CommodoreFan64 same here, it has to be ram upgradable
Now how the swap files going what ssd is in the pc ?
For gaming laptop or ultrabook with reasonable powerful gpu, when on gaming scenarios, 8GB pretty hit and miss. U will occasionally get stuttering if paging occur on game asset aka texture. Avoid 8GB especially if it non upgradeable.
For normal casual use.. 8GB still decent thou it may choke harder if ur storage slow.
8gb and 16gb for NONE GAME environment is perfect, but i already have tested with a game environment and im getting 32gb or even 64gb to assist the IGPu in helping work load
Good video. I would have liked to see you actually browse the web though by clicking stuff and opening new web addresses rather than scrolling up and down the same cached tabs.
2:00 I'm getting strong "1 mouse 2 laps" vibes here.
Jokes aside, I wish there was a macbook in the mix too. To see how they manage the memory, if the limits are the same.
Fast SSD and fast ram were working overtime on the 8 gb model. The drive will wear out faster because of the swapping. It's just not as optimal, but not the end of the world. Having said that, if the apps make you wait, then it's time to upgrade
The statement is incorrect. When swap is used, it utilizes the DRAM of the SSD module, which is around 2-3GB of DDR4 RAM. This RAM is used for transfers before the data is assigned to the drive. Therefore, when not in use for large transfers, this DRAM is utilized for swap. As a result, you can use around 4GB of swap before accessing the SSD storage.
@@andyH_England Thats a very misleading and false description of howvDRAM cache in a SSD works. Dont spread false info.
@@ricsip Testing reveals that swap performs as quickly as RAM for 2-4GB, but beyond that, it relies on the slower SSD instead of disk RAM, leading to noticeable slowdowns. MaxTech demonstrated this in a video comparing swap performance on an external drive to internal disk RAM, showing significant slowdowns when AI didn't utilise the disk RAM on the external SSD.
I mean for me 16GB isnt enough. My regular work load is 20GB. Until I got an upgrade those 4GB swapping in and out page file was really doing a number on my SSD.
12GB was cutting edge not long ago. Ha. I remember when I was 11, I was soo excited to get my TRS-80 home computer RAM increased....from 2k to 8k, I think? Didn't make any difference then either. lol But yah, once relatively recent games or animation is involved, that's a whole different world.
Do we expect CAMM2 memory on laptops. I do want an upgradable laptop
Only on pro and gaming laptops. Unlikely to ever come to ultrabooks.
👍 Cool test, thanks Gordon. MVP
This comparison would become much more stark after a couple of hours of use. Every computer I've worked on loses usable RAM as the hours go on which slows everything down..
Very nice video!👏 The answer: Well, it depends, but even Apple thinks you need 16 Gb😉 I use Linux on a 2012 Macbook Air, dual core, 4 Gb Ram. Light office and internet/multimedia use. No prob whatsoever. 8 Gb is for most users comfortable. 16 Gb is cheap and gives kinda future proof config...
@@sheldonkupa9120 100%
Gordon so far based on this test, I wanna do one better and get a 4GB laptop to save a bunch of money. Would you recommend?
@doomtomb3 I have not tested it, but my feeling is it "will work" for the average person who grows to expect that responsiveness. Maybe 8GB vs 4GB should be the next test.
Be careful what laptop you choose then, I think it will be difficult to find a 4 GB new laptop without soldered or otherwise upgradable memory. And other specs on these are usually poor.
You won't save a lot of money by buying a 4GB laptop. If you can find one.
if a laptop has 4gb is old so you are probably getting ripped off
I bought an HP15 with 8gb ram and am happy with it. It is faster then my desktop so I use it most. My desktop is a 4 core and has 16 gb, which runs at around 10% cpu. I still love my HP15, I run Linux Mint 22 on both !
That's an insane amount of logs on the fire. I'm surprised the 8GB system could keep up!
Is it possible to do the same test with only a 16gb pc and limiting the ram usage to simmulate an 8gb pc?
@tomasvolpe yes, but we're using physical 8 and 16 here. Question, why simulate it?
Yes I wonder same thing why.
@@FakeGordonMahUng I was just wondering. Thanks
@tomasvolpe got it. I have toyed with methods to limit ram before. One used creating a 4GB ram drive. The other is a Microsoft app they have to occupy RAM for testing.
My problem is I'm afraid that doing it artificially may alter the OS behavior. The OS knows it has, say, 16GB of RAM when booted and may configure around that. So even if we limit it to 8GB, is the behavior the same as 8GB physical?
I don't have answer to that so I prefer to physically limit it to prevent it from polluting the test.
Hope this helps.
If you told me 8GB laptop has 16 I would've believed it
For office work and light photoshopping, illustrator and indesign, and heck, even a bit of autocad, 8 GB has been more than enough for me. I’m running an Asus vivobook x512da from 2019 with a ryzen 3 and integrated vega graphics.
Yes but do you have an active antivirus on it ? Like karspersky or ESET ?
@ naaah just windows defender and I dont go to porn or pirate sites. But anyways, I just bought 16 GBs of ram, they were dirt cheap, so why not?
@@mindblockandroid well I wonder if I get one of those 8 GB ram, will it be able to run karspersky while I work in office. Pfff.... Hard choice tbh, idk what to do
@@bambihasantlers4744 depends I guess. In my case, my laptop is an asus vivobook from 2019. After seeing this video, I went online and checked for ram for this model. A 16gb kit, which is the maximum it supports, was going for around 35 bucks, so it was a no brainer. If your upgrade costs like 100 usd or so, well maybe there’s a bit more to think about.
Mah!!!
Love you Gordon ❤🫂
Thank you very much for this test!! Excellent information where 8GB will get you in 2024. This is something to show to people who say that 8GB is unusable and useless and every machine must have 16GB.
Dual Channel and the 4th gen SSD are masking a lot of the latency-related issues with the 8 GB system. Go single stick and downgrade the storage device like an actual budget system and you'll start seeing real lag.
Chrome says No
Eh I have 8gb soldered. Open outlook chrome and excel and I'm at 8gb as soon as I fire up anything more like teams it's a shitshow.
Now open up a dozen RAW photos. :p
I can't remember how many I opened that one time, but I totally crashed my laptop.
@vcjester There were definitely many times the 8GB was pushed very hard and I still recommend 16GB, but gotta admit, 8GB with Win 11 does surprisingly well.
@FakeGordonMahUng Yar, and full disclosure, I had more RAW files open at once than any sane person would. Glad you used the IDG sites for ram usage. I've given Adam so much grief about how much ram they take. Look at the stats given by uBlock sometime while browsing them, and even you will get on an outrage pony.
Shout out to Framework. I love my 13 inch
This comparision is tottaly shallow & hedging the actual work behind SSD performance,
If you'd have measured energy usage & CPU activity, you'd see that 8Gig one has to do more house keeping to remain responsive,
& on battery power, it'd make a difference.
Looking at this video, I think 8GB is definitely not enough anymore. The 16GB upgrade is massive. The speed difference is insane in those Photoshop tasks!
He did say that if you use RAM-intensive apps, then 16GB+ is needed--but how many people use Photoshop in the real world...1-5%?
There will be the usual crowd that says 8GB is not enough. They are just flexing, as with most things, the answer is "it depends."
I have a light use case of office work and browsing and have used 8GB or less for 30-40 years with no issues. On my current MB Air 8GB M2, I have 2-2.5GB available even when using all my daily software. So, anyone saying otherwise is wrong.
But...if you are a semi-pro or pro user, 16GB or more is recommended, as many RAM-intensive apps, like video editing, only work at their best with loads of RAM.
If you have loads of money, then buy what you like.
If you play AAA games, 16GB or more is the call.
I want Apple to start at 12GB, as that would maybe stop the daft comments we see in YT video comment sections. But I do not think it is essential. "LoverOfTech" did an S24U versus iPhone 15PM RAM test, and 15PM 8GB held every app in RAM, but the S24U kicked out several even though it has 12GB. He had to use 8GB of swap (RAM+) to save the S24U. This proves that Apple RAM optimisation is worth more than 1:1 versus rivals.
using 8GB for 30-40 years? Maybe a typo
Also if you are using the MB Air M2 with MacOS the comparison is invalid for people on windows.
Apple is very aggressive with swapping, I often see 10+GB of swapped stuff on a macbook with 16gb RAM. They are decent at hiding it from the user, so the system is still relatively fluid even when it's swapping heavily
@@marcogenovesi8570I've been using 8GB or less since my teenage years, which date back to when Alan Sugar released the first mainstream PC-no typo there! Regarding swap, its primary function is for algorithms to determine what's inactive and move it to swap space, rather than occupying system RAM that's needed for active applications and providing headroom for opening additional apps. It's a smart, sophisticated, and highly practical system.
I'm doing 16...when 32gb goes on sale I'm jumping on it....
For someone who just uses a laptop for casual use such as web browsing 8 gb is enough. You only really need 16 if you run intensive applications or games.
8GB RAM is absolutely fine…until it isn’t. And at that point, there’s no quick fix even if your laptop has upgradeable slots - which fewer and fewer do, especially now RAM on package is flavour of the month. That’s why buyers have to be *very* aware of all of their needs as well as their budget.
The other issue is longevity. Will 8GB be sufficient in 4 or 5 years’ time once the next generations of Windows OS, bloatware & AI nonsense are forced upgrades? Almost certainly not. So you gotta budget for more budget now or more budget later. 😆
One day there may not be a such a thing as RAM. Imagine just being able to access from onboard storage immediately with no delay or compromises. Maybe even one day lanes can be end to end from input level to storage bit level with full entire storage access simultaneously without caching. For gaming or VR worlds a system like that could make experiences almost inconceivable from the real world. A chipset that could do that would be the holy grail of compute.
With nvme SSDs we have already reached the "lanes can be end to end from input level to storage bit level with full entire storage access simultaneously without caching". The disk writes faster than any incoming write so there is no real write cache
@@marcogenovesi8570 You misunderstand. RAM is still used and just by looking at the lane width on the motherboard it's easy to tell you can't extract all data simultaneously as you can't extract all of the data from an SSD simultaneously as there is wait time from seconds to minutes still. I'm talking about the entire storage completely accessible at the same time making complete data transfer in around 1 second.
Watching this on a 8GB machine ;=) (2GB for the iGPU)
We Keep You Playing
What this test is telling me, with the memory usage, is that people would be better off with at least 16 GB of RAM when they are actually doing something. And 8 GB is fine if they are doing nothing. Work wise, I'm recommending a minimum of 32GB for Excel centric work with actual data models, with 64GB a reasonable overhead included.
Well kinda. One person's nothing is another person's something, but yes, I still recommend 16GB for those who can afford it.
Both of my parents use around 4-5GB of memory even when they have multiple applications open. It seems your perspective might be subjective, considering the reality that billions of laptop users have a light workflow. It's not that 8GB is sufficient for everyone, but the assertion that 16GB is the minimum requirement is often disproven, as this video and others have repeatedly shown.
@@andyH_England oh you can use stuff at 4GB too but it will lag and sometimes slow down to a crawl when doing updates. It's really a matter of what you are used to, people used to old tower desktops on XP will be fine on a laggy slow PC
How relevant will these DDR4 tests be in the near future where new Laptops will require DDR5 which can only satisfy all 2x2 channels with 2 16GB SODIMMs or more?
Apple has been using LPDDR5 for a few years with 8GB, and it makes no difference-8GB is still enough for light, casual, and office use.
Depends on the application. Sometimes 640KB is enough.
Haven't asked myself this in 10 years or so, now more like 32 or 64 GB of mem hell is cheaper then windows in some cases lol.
Even 16 gb is bare minimum nowadays.
Most of the new Snapdragon processor PCs being released seem to start at 16GB.
Especially, when iGPU eats at least 2 gigs
Hi Gordon, would have been funnier if you did this with 2 MacBooks seeing as 8GB of Apple Unified Memory is equivalent to 16GB of the competition.
As with everything, context matters, it depends on what you are doing, if you laptop is an over glorified media player, you just might be able to get by with 4GB of RAM, I have seen people who use their laptops to only watch movies or listen to music and they can get by with 4GB, the problem start when they want to be productive.
Linux don't use that much of memory... The problem is the os like windows 11 .
16gb dimms are 'cheap'. Problem with 8gb is when you eventually need 32gb(16*16) after many years, you will end up with may be two extra 8gb dimms whereas if you start with single 16gb dimm you can avoid that.
A dual channel is recommended, so I would not recommend using a single 16GB DIMM on some PCs.
As usual if the title is a question the answer is NO. Always download more RAM
Not enought at all, typing it using a Lenovo 11th gen i5 with only 8GB wich is really slow at day by day work basis
That is Lenovo and probably an older laptop. The Framework he used was fast.
The insulting part isn't that too many laptops still offer 8gb, it's that it's often single channel, but even worse the upcharge for 16gb is literally more than buying the memory yourself and throwing the 8gb in the garbage. I saved over $100 by choosing 8gb ram with a 256gb NVME, then buying 16gb/1T myself and swapping them in.
The upcharges for even small memory and storage bumps is ridiculous, and just generates E-waste from people like me that didn't fail elementary math.
The upgrade price being "ridiculous" is not the reality. Instead, imagine if that 8GB variant did not exist; the prices of the 16GB version would still be what they are now. OEMs make a business decision to try to make a margin in a very competitive and low-margin business.
@@andyH_England OEMs are _not_ a low margin business. You might be thinking of system integrators like Maingear and Ibuypower that aren't big enough to manufacture every part internally. And even they do fine because they upcharge for it and a lot of people will pay that extra just to NOT have a Dell or HP. But DELL, HP, and the like make plenty. Just because a company doesn't have Apple level cultist followers that will spend 5X a product's worth, doesn't mean they're "low margin." AMD has great margins and they still profit less than Dell.
Dell just suffers from the same issue as Intel, where they make a lot of revenue, but the companies are too bloated so even good margins on the actual products can't make up for money that's wasted left and right elsewhere. Doesn't help that it's rough right now for everyone except Nvidia.
@@zodwraith5745 Dell's net profit margin is currently 4%. Lenovo is only 1.8%. These are low-margin. So, it will only take small changes in sales or consumer demand to cause significant damage to the bottom line.
@@andyH_England If you make $250k a year, and have 150k a year in bills, but your wife spends $95k a year, do you have a margin problem or spending problem? There's a _REASON_ investors and speculators report margins and net profits completely separately but you don't seem to know the difference. Margins do NOT automatically = profits. Like I said AMD has great margins, but profits are sucking right now.
Let me make it easier to understand. If you're selling a $500 PC for $1000 that's a solid margin right? But if your R&D, expansion, investments in new facilities, etc, eats 90% of your profit leaving you only 10%, that didn't magically make your margins disappear, and you'll still be viewed as a safe investment. That's _EXACTLY_ why all of these are reported separately. But if you're selling $500 PCs for $550 and getting that same 10% while doing zero R&D? THAT'S when you're viewed as not being a safe investment. Then you also account for hard assets, which Dell, Lenovo, HP and Intel have in spades.
This should be tested again, with AMD CPUs, and compare 16 vs 32 vs 64 vs 96 vs 128 GB of RAM at its max stock speed.
Why? It's going to be literally the same with the same with matching config.
@@InTheCircl Not when increasing RAM size helps with program bandwidth. Also, Gordon was testing Intel laptops; this test should be repeated again with AMD CPUs.
Short answer no.
The actual price difference makes it criminal to stay at 8gb when you could go 16/32/64. It's like buying a truck with a tiny bed
The price is obviously a factor, but if you can get a deal on an 8GB model that is $200 less than the same laptop with 16GB, then I would save that $200, as 8GB is all I need.
8gb ram is absolutely enough , depending on your use case. Even for some light older gaming, indie games.
But if you do any modern gaming, 16gb is almost necessary - a friend with i5 9400f + 1650 + 8gb ram, i ordered another 8gb stick for her and it made a night/day difference to her gaming experience. Diablo IV was unplayable before, but now smooth as butter. World of Warcraft was also now much smoother - but was playable before, it uses hardly any ram.
Any sort of game like Fortnite, Pubg, Apex, 16gb would most likely benefit the performance at least in parts majorly.
Even GTA:V, published in 2013, will use around 7-8GB of memory together with the OS. Buying 8GB today is basically a coin toss whether it will struggle with your game/application or if it will need future upgrades.
Most people will not be able to diagnose that the issue is due to low RAM capacity, it’s likely they’ll purchase a new computer instead.
Recommending 16GB basically nullifies the problem.
@Rotwold Yep take the chance of it ever being an issue away hahah - why I normally recommend a little higher specs than what would be "fine" for family / friends use case.
(Such as 8 vs 16gb, ssd space etc - modern cpus are all basically more than powerful enough for non gaming family)
The ram upgrade had more to do with it now having dual channel ram available. Most games tend to be sensitive to single channel ram.
@Takashita_Sukakoki It totally could be the case - i mean at least partially it would have improved things, either way putting in the extra stick made unplayable "skipping" like it was paging to disk performance turn to butter smooth game play with D iv.
@@Alakazam551 yeah single channel ram is brutal for game frametimes (stutters).
640 Gigabyte ought to be enough for everyone.
I think 16 is low!
Interesting test thanks Gordon.
Who's a higher ranking officer on the USS Enterprise, Geordi or Gordon? 🖖🤓
@@robertlawrence9000 hehe well I'm retired, Gordon's still going strong!
@@GeordiLaForgery Ha Ha!
16GB should be minimum. If you're a software dev, using containers and VMs, go for 32GB.
All I can say is, not enough for work involving VMs. Browser #1 + Browser #2 + VM on 8 GB DDR3 results in force reboot sometimes (Linux Mint).
8gb is more than enough for mac
I find that in the ancient historical artifact laptop with an i5-2410U that I have running Arch, 8gb appears to be enough. But, i don't think there is any good excuse for laptops made after like 2015 to have less than 16gb of vram.
This should be obsolete now. In an ideal world the question should be 32 or 64GB, with 16 as the bare minimum.
For importing, editing and exporting large 120 to 200 MB RAW photo files, I will not go under 32 GB !!! noob
Wears out your drive...
No and it hasn't been for many years now.
Windows and MacOS like around 6GB to use on their own and most of the applications even casual users run require more than 2GB of RAM, web browsers in particular.
16GB is the minimum and has been for some time.
Need to run this test again on a SATA/III SSD laptop as many "average" people would still have; PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD really hides the bottleneck. Just remember that NAND has limited writes, so the 8GB model is being silently worn down more quickly.
As others said though, some applications are more sensitive to filled up physical RAM, plus security and other software adds to the baseline overhead.
Aggressive swap use will kill the ssd faster. Then there is soldered ram on new laptops. Most people don’t need more than 8gb right now but what about 3 years from now? 5 years from now? Different people have different upgrade cycles.
Hint: even 4gb is enough
Lee Carol Rodriguez Lisa Perez Linda
8GB is enough, it's the operating system that got more and more bloated over time.
It isn't. Newer operating systems handle more complex data types and need to be modernized to use different instruction sets, security features, graphics stacks, etc.
More pixels per screen, more RAM needed.
Happens on Windows, Mac and Linux.
@@PurpleWarlock that's bs, you are technobabbling. Even on Windows once you purge the bloat AI, Apps and the tracking you end with the same actual RAM use of Windows 7. On Linux the RAM usage hasn't changed significantly in a decade, unless we are talking of embedded devices where RAM is measured in MegaBytes. There yeah the kernel is too big to properly fit an OS in 32MB of RAM, but it's not a big deal as they don't make so small RAM chips anymore anyway
[Title] Is 8GB Enough For Laptops?
Depends: Websites will continue to bloat their pages???
If the trend continues, soon one single video in RUclips will consume 8Gb Ram ...
16 is not enough. 32 is the new base level.
Conclusion:
8GB: good for actual people
16GB: if you work at NASA or making CGI for movies
NASA and CGI for movies need a lot more. 16GB isn't enough for "real work" on excel