How much RAM Do I Need?

June 23, 2014

How much RAM do I needRAM is now as relatively cheap as it has ever been. But how much Memory do you actually need for your specific applications? What’s enough and what’s overkill? Let’s go over some of the major customer categories with our recommendations for them.

Home Office Users – For most home office users, 8GB of 1600MHz RAM is more than enough to surf the web, run Microsoft Office applications like Word and Excel, and do a little light photo editing. Light video editing or users of the type that leave dozens of windows open at a time may prefer to upgrade to 16GB just to be safe.

Gamers – Most gamers will be well served to go with a 16GB configuration, assuming their budget allows it. Most current games are not heavily RAM intensive enough to require more than 8GB, but that extra muscle will certainly come in handy to future proof you for that next must-have hardware intensive game that’s likely just around the corner.

Media Creators – For CAD designers, 3D animators, and professional video editors, we typically recommend at least 32GB where at all possible. In this instance, the more RAM, the better. That extra memory does not speed up render times, but it does help in the visualization and previewing of complex content, which obviously makes for smoother overall operation. Remember though that Windows 7 Home Premium will not utilize more than 16GB, so in this case, make sure you go with either Windows 7 Professional, or Windows 8.

HPC Applications – For customers looking to improve their workflow in scientific calculations and extreme rendering via NVIDIA Maximus through the use of a Tesla GPU, the sky is the limit in terms of RAM. 32GB is the absolute minimum that we ship with these systems, with current offerings maxing out at a massive 384GB. Yes, that’s a crazy amount of memory, but these dual Xeon CPU systems are able to utilize it.

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Josh Covington

Josh has been with Velocity Micro since 2007 in various Marketing, PR, and Sales related roles. As the Director of Sales & Marketing, he is responsible for all Direct and Retail sales as well as Marketing activities. He enjoys Seinfeld reruns, the Atlanta Braves, and Beatles songs written by John, Paul, or George. Sorry, Ringo.

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