16GB or 32GB DDR4 ram?

[baydude]

Is there any performance difference between 32GB and 16GB for software dev, VMware, gaming, photo editing, and video editing?

 

[Gt403cyl]

In video editing there may be some benefit, for software dev and gaming not really, for VMware if you are running multiple instances and/or heavy loads requiring a lot of ram yeah.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

You can never have too much RAM. 16GB is plenty for normal usage, but if you run a lot of VMs at the same time 32GB isn't wasted.

For gaming (I assume Windows), its pretty nice to be able to cache an entire game* to memory.

*older titles. Newer ones are simply too big in many cases.

 

[Gt403cyl]

You can never have too much RAM. 16GB is plenty for normal usage, but if you run a lot of VMs at the same time 32GB isn't wasted.

For gaming (I assume Windows), its pretty nice to be able to cache an entire game* to memory.

*older titles. Newer ones are simply too big in many cases.

Yeah that's pretty much my thoughts, if you are upgrading to 32GB just for the fun of it, that's $150-$200 probably better spent elsewhere unless you need it for VM's or video editing, at least in my opinion.

 

[Nashemon]

You can never have too much RAM. 16GB is plenty for normal usage, but if you run a lot of VMs at the same time 32GB isn't wasted.

For gaming (I assume Windows), its pretty nice to be able to cache an entire game* to memory.

*older titles. Newer ones are simply too big in many cases.

On your initial statement I have to generally disagree. As the above poster indicated, if you're not using it, it's wasted money that would have been better spent elsewhere. VM can also see performance issues with too much RAM (this can be resolved by configuring it properly). In the OP's case, I would recommend 32GB over 16GB for video editing, particularly 4K. VM RAM requirements depend entirely on what your use case is.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

So, of four respondents, one mentioned video editing, another spoke of VMs, and a third cited the price range of $150 to $200 for either another 2x8 kit or replacement-with-resale and the additional outlay for a 4x8 configuration or 2x16 kit. Somebody mentioned "caching a game" in RAM, unspecific to what was meant by "caching."

I would certainly question the cost-effectiveness of spending another $180 to boost my 2x8 to a 4x8 configuration. Of the additional 16GB, 8GB is allocated as a true Ram Cache for a 960 Pro NVMe drive, and 8GB is allocated in two-tiered caching of a large ~ 2TB SATA device (either HDD or SSD in principle), using a 250 GB EVO NVME to cache the drive as well.

Here's the benchies, without putting any spin on interpretation, and I will allow others to do that. But after considering that I went for the less expensive and simpler proposition of simply adding another 2x8 kit, I won't tell myself that I completely wasted the money. This is the latter two-tier-cached SSD. These scores would be about the same using an SATA HDD of the same size, and they are approximately the same as I get with the RAM-cached boot-drive 960 Pro:

https://postimg.cc/image/a237mlcaj/

In addition to the expense of the extra RAM kit, the PrimoCache software license was about $25/workstation.

PS. You could think about 64GB of RAM, but I'd be curious about the improvements of allocating part of 32GB in video editing in face of the trade-off with having more RAM available for the editing program and working file-data.

 

[jkauff]

Lenovo and Dell both have new laptop workstations with 128GB of RAM (according to Slashdot), so I guess some people can use that much memory. Your particular use case indicates you could utilize 32GB with no problem, especially if you're doing any of those tasks at the same time. If the price is reasonable, go for it.

 

[ΔΗΜΗΤΡΙΟΣ ΑΡΒΑΝΙΤΑΚΗΣ]

16 giga is fine dude

 

[paperfist]

I dunno if it's a huge performance boost, but I run 32GB and it allows me to have a zillion things open at once.

 

[DaveSimmons]

32 GB is "nice to have" after you budget for a good CPU like an i7-8700, plenty of SSD storage, at least a 1070 ti GPU, and a nice monitor. No budget constraints at all? Go for it. Would need to sacrifice something else? Skip it.

For Windows application development 16 GB is fine even for things like building Chromium from source (which chokes with just 8 GB). Same for gaming.

 

[Deight]

16 gb would be enough, make sure they'd be 2x8gb for the dual channel heaven.

 

[whm1974]

32 GB is "nice to have" after you budget for a good CPU like an i7-8700, plenty of SSD storage, at least a 1070 ti GPU, and a nice monitor. No budget constraints at all? Go for it. Would need to sacrifice something else? Skip it.

For Windows application development 16 GB is fine even for things like building Chromium from source (which chokes with just 8 GB). Same for gaming.

Yeah I wouldn't bother with 32GB unless I need or can make use of it. And I definitely wouldn't sacrifice an SSD for it.