How much RAM do gamers need? It's a question we get asked a lot, and it's one we used to answer yearly with a good old-fashioned benchmark review. The problem is, the last time we did this was in 2018 , and we've been told that was a long time ago. So here we are with an updated review.
In the past, we spent weeks benchmarking to answer the age-old question, "How much RAM do gamers need?" but this time we're approaching it differently for a few reasons. First and foremost, testing RAM capacities can be tricky. Like VRAM testing, a lack of memory doesn't always manifest in the same way.
In the case of VRAM, fps performance might drop significantly, which is the most obvious sign of trouble. However, it can also be more subtle, with occasional frame time spikes, or it might not impact performance at all and instead just reduce textures for a lower quality presentation. With system memory or RAM, testing to see if an increased capacity improves performance is equally tricky.
Going from, say, 16 GB to 32 GB is often more than just a capacity increase. Factors like operating frequency and timings are relatively easy to account for, but things like memory ranks can be difficult and, in some configurations, impossible to account for. It's a bit like when someone upgrades from a 6-core Core i7-8700K to the 8-core Core i9-9900K and claims the extra 2 cores really boosted their gaming performance, when in reality, the 33% increase in L3 cache likely played a bigger role .
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