How much RAM is too much?
I'm buying 32GB DDR3 1866MHz RAM for the PC I'm building. I currently have an AMD A8 Black Edition 6600K 3.9 GHz base (4.2GHz max,) An ASUS A55BM-Plus Motherboard, AMD Radeon Video Card, and a Belkin Wireless N150 USB adapter. I know most people think that 32GB is overkill, but I know that 32GB will be good enough for 20 years or more. What do you think is too much?
Comments
Heck i'm still using 8GB of ram and at times I wish I had more for running VMs.
16GB: Heavy gaming and heavy work (like video editing).
32GB: Only if you're into VERY high-performance work like 4K video for example. It is future-proof though.
64GB: Don't bother, unless you just want the most powerful computer in existence.
I don't need that much.
This is pretty dumb. I doubt you can really see what will be needed in 20 years.
It's true that tech isn't advancing as much as it did ten years ago, but nevertheless, you don't know what will happen. Maybe the Windows OS in 2020 will require 8GB to function at all, who knows. It probably won't happen, but it's better not to thing "no worries, it'll last me 20ys". Keep in mind your processor and graphics card can also age and may end up outdated in the future, before your RAM does.
Most hardware you buy these days is pretty much going to be good for about 5-10 years. 10 is pushing it. 20? Definitely not.
Eh, I've programed on a computer with only 4K, uphill, both, ways, with blinkenlight, and a few devices with less. 32 gigs? meh.
My experience with machines is that they will last typically five to ten years before a general overhaul is needed. Since memory etc is dropping, i would not go above the sweet spot.
Look at the price per meg or whatever, and when the price goes up fairly steeply per meg, then you're buying outside the sweet spot.
Look at the versions of the OS you're running, most of these are quite happy with 500 MB of ram, probably even less. So 4 GB for a 32-bit OS and 8 or so for the 64-bit OS is probably more than enough.
Yes, i have programmed in boxes with 2k of memory of which the IO took up something like half of that. There was no OS or filing system or anything stupid like that. If you wanted a file system, you just wrote it yourself, like i did. If you wanted an underlying OS, then you wrote it yourself. k.
But i wrote a fairly fancy RPN calculator in less than 4K, which handles multiple bases, saved its data from use to use, and even wrote a screen.
I believe Bill Gates said that it was myth that he ever said it.
That is what he claims these days.
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/09/08/640k-enough/
Personally I remember quite a bit of discussion about it when Dos 5.0 and himem hit the scene. It is a shame much of early computer history has been lost to the crappy magnetic media of the time. One thing is sure. I will stand by my 20 year prediction.
Maybe he's confusing RAM and a SSD?
feel like in the future tablets will have taken over the home computer market completely (They already almost have), but businesses along with a small number of computer enthusiasts like us will still have regular laptops and desktops. Buuuut....people probably said this 20 years ago (Remember, 20 years ago the Apple Newton was a thing, so there was a such thing as a tablet).
I personally don't like touchscreens though, I like having a physical keyboard and mouse. This opinion may change though if touchscreen controls and keyboards get better.
Real work will always need something larger. I don't see anyone wanting to run AutoCAD, PhotoShop, software development systems, etc on a tiny little tablet. And when you are talking about big desktop displays, and doing data entry 10 hours a day, touch screens are useless. (And I don't want to have to read through gross finger grease!)
Also, keep in mind we are very near the limits of physics with how small we can make chips. I do expect some further refinements, but short of a massive breakthrough in physics they are not getting insanely smaller or faster. It's not like the 1980s or 90s where chips were halving in size and doubling in speed every couple years.
Hardly.
256 GB is becoming standard on servers these days and some are already getting up to 1 TB. It'll probably be within the next 5 years or so we start seeing 1 TB in servers being the new standard.
As far as desktop / laptop hardware goes, however, you're right. It's going to take a while to get to a point where 980 GB of RAM will be possible or even common place. I'd say at this rate, in 5 years we'll see 64-128 GB becoming more common for desktops, so it will likely be another 10-20 more years before we see desktop hardware that could support that much.
But unless there's some new killer app that eats memory like no tomorrow, I don't see 980 GB even being remotely necessary on desktops. 8 GB is still more than enough for most people games and VMs are the only things that really drive needing more.
Yep. A few of my laptops were "rescues" from people who went to tablets. They had been sitting for 2+ years (In fact, the Toshiba A665 I'm typing on right now is one of those laptop rescues.) despite being perfectly capable.
I actually tried out a bunch of tablets, an original Kindle Fire, an original Nexus 7, a 2013 Nexus 7, a Kindle Fire HDX, and a Galaxy Tab 4 before I realized that I really prefer keyboard and mouse controls. Another thing I didn't like about tablets was how they could break so easily...I've only ever broken one laptop screen (I stupidly put it on my lap with the extended battery that sticks out in it so of course it fell off my lap) but out of all of my tablets I've owned I believe I've cracked 3 of them, and they didn't really fall that far. And you know what I did once they broke? I recycled them. That's how disposable tablets are.
On RAM:
I have 16GB in my desktop, and 4GB in my laptop. My desktop rarely hits the limit of that, and neither does my laptop. I don't see myself having to upgrade my desktop anytime soon, but I may put 8 into my laptop if it ever becomes too little before I just upgrade. (Although, I usually use 5+ on my desktop as I use my desktop for things that need more powerful hardware)