How Much RAM Do I Need for Gaming?

RAM is one of those components people either ignore completely or worry about far more than they need to. It is also one of the few upgrades where buying more than you need does absolutely nothing, which makes getting the number right worth a few minutes of your time.

The short answer is 16GB for most people. The longer answer is that a handful of games genuinely need 32GB, and knowing which ones they are is the difference between a sensible upgrade and wasted money.

What RAM actually does

RAM is short-term memory. When you launch a game, the assets it needs right now, textures, models, the map you are standing on, get loaded from your drive into RAM so the processor can reach them instantly.

Run out of it and your PC starts moving data back and forth from your storage drive instead. That is when you get stutter, long pauses when you turn a corner, and the sensation that the game is thinking about something else.

The important thing to understand is that RAM is a ceiling, not an accelerator. If you have enough, adding more changes nothing at all. If you do not have enough, the effect is immediate and obvious. There is no gradual improvement in between.

8GB: no longer enough

8GB was the standard for years and it is now the bare minimum. Plenty of current games list it as their minimum requirement, and plenty of them will stutter with it.

The problem is not the game on its own. It is the game plus Windows, plus a browser, plus Discord, plus whatever your graphics card software is doing in the background. Windows alone will happily take 3 to 4GB before you have launched anything.

If you are on 8GB and getting stutter in newer titles, that is almost certainly the cause, and it is the cheapest fix available to you.

16GB: the right answer for most people

16GB is where the vast majority of gamers should be. It runs every current game comfortably, leaves room for Discord and a browser, and it is what most game developers now target with their recommended specifications.

It also means you are not thinking about memory at all, which is the point. A machine with 16GB and a decent graphics card will outperform a machine with 32GB and a weaker one in almost every game.

If you are building or buying and you are unsure, 16GB is the safe answer.

32GB: when it actually matters

This is where most advice goes vague and tells you it is for "future-proofing", which is not a reason. Here is when 32GB genuinely earns its place.

Simulation and strategy games

These are the clearest case. A city builder or a grand strategy game holds the entire state of the world in memory, and that world grows the longer you play.

Cities: Skylines II is the obvious example. A small town runs on 16GB without complaint. A city of 200,000 people with mods installed does not. The same applies to large Total War campaigns late on, and to Microsoft Flight Simulator, which streams real-world scenery continuously and will use everything you give it.

Survival games with large persistent worlds

Rust asks for 10GB as a bare minimum, which is higher than almost any other game. On a full server with a big base, 16GB is tight.

Escape from Tarkov is the other one. The newer maps load a great deal of data at once, and 32GB has become the standard among serious players rather than a luxury.

A few specific big-budget titles

Starfield is unusually hungry for memory, and Hogwarts Legacy asks for 16GB at its minimum specification, which means its ultra settings want more.

Heavily modded games

Mods are memory. A modded Skyrim, a Minecraft install with shader packs, or a Sims 4 save with a folder full of custom content will all use considerably more than the base game does.

Streaming or recording

If you run OBS alongside the game, that is a second demanding application competing for the same memory. 32GB stops that being a compromise.

MMOs with addons

World of Warcraft is fine on 16GB until you install a full raiding addon setup, at which point it is not.

When 16GB is genuinely plenty

Worth stating the other side, because the games most people actually play do not need more.

Every competitive shooter falls here. Valorant officially asks for 4GB. Fortnite, Apex Legends and Rocket League are all comfortable well within 16GB.

So are most single-player games. Elden Ring, Forza Horizon 5 and Helldivers 2 all list 16GB as their recommendation and mean it.

If this is what you play, spend the money on a better graphics card instead. It will do more.

64GB: almost certainly not

64GB has no gaming benefit whatsoever. No game uses it and none is likely to for years.

It makes sense if you do serious video editing, 3D rendering or run virtual machines, and in that case you are buying it for work rather than for games. For gaming alone, the money is far better spent elsewhere.

Two things that matter more than capacity

Run it in dual channel

This one is free and people get it wrong constantly. Two sticks of 8GB will noticeably outperform a single stick of 16GB, because two sticks let the memory controller talk on two channels at once.

Single-channel memory can cost you a meaningful chunk of performance, particularly on systems using integrated graphics. If you are buying, buy a matched pair. We have covered this in detail in our guide to single, dual and quad channel RAM.

Turn on your memory profile

Memory does not run at its advertised speed out of the box. You have to enable the profile in the BIOS, called XMP on Intel systems and EXPO on AMD.

Plenty of people run for years at a slower speed than they paid for without realising. It takes one setting and a restart. If you bought your PC from us, it is already done.

RAM is not the same as VRAM

Worth clearing up because it causes a lot of confusion. System RAM is the memory your processor uses. VRAM is separate memory built into your graphics card, and it handles textures and everything else the GPU works on.

When a game lists 8GB VRAM in its requirements, that is the graphics card, not the sticks on your motherboard. Adding more system RAM will not help a game that is running out of video memory. We have explained the difference properly in our guide to what VRAM is.

How to check what you have

Press Ctrl, Shift and Escape to open Task Manager, click Performance, then Memory. It shows your total capacity, how much is in use, the speed it is running at, and how many slots are occupied.

That last one matters. If it says 16GB across one slot, you are running single channel and adding a second matched stick will improve things immediately.

DDR4 or DDR5?

They are not interchangeable. Your motherboard takes one or the other, so if you are upgrading an existing machine, check which before you buy anything. New builds should be DDR5. We have compared the two in our guide to DDR4 versus DDR5.

Final Thoughts

16GB for most people, in two matched sticks, with the memory profile enabled. That covers every competitive shooter and the large majority of single-player games.

32GB if you play simulation or strategy games seriously, if you are into Rust or Tarkov, if you mod heavily, or if you stream while you play. Those are real reasons. "Future-proofing" is not.

And if your machine is stuttering and you already have 16GB, memory is not your problem. Look at your graphics card and your processor instead.

All our machines ship with the memory configured properly. Browse the gaming PC range, or build your own with our online configurator.