Posted on 12/27/2022 3:04:02 PM PST by dennisw
Key Points 8GB and 16GB make a big difference in performance. The key difference is the volume of RAM and how much stress you need to put on your PC. 16GB is the clear winner for any PC. 8GB and 16GB of RAM isn’t the usual comparison. Obviously, more RAM would be better, so we’re going to look at the comparison from a few different angles. We’re going to look at what 16GB can do that 8GB can’t. When does 8GB stop being enough?
What are the differences in performance and available features?
We’ll look at what we can and can’t do with this amount of RAM.
Choosing Between 8GB RAM and 16GB RAM The choice is fairly straightforward. The answer depends on how much stress you put on your computer. It depends on how many apps you try to run at the same time. It depends on how many new apps you open while you already have so many open. pros and cons are minimal.
The answer really depends on how often your computer freezes. RAM is the free and fluid memory that programs use in real-time to make changes.
Unfortunately, there is only so much that can go around. If we run out, then the entire system freezes until it starts flowing again. RAM is like the circulatory system carrying oxygen around the body.
There always needs to be enough to go around or the entire system fails. 8GB is enough for the usual programs, but it gets used up pretty quickly when larger programs are up and running.
8GB vs 16GB RAM: Key Differences The key difference is the volume of RAM. The amount of RAM available is the only difference. It’s mostly similarities between the two options. There aren’t really any pros and cons. Anyone would just rather have more RAM if you had the choice between the two.
Although, It’s not really that necessary unless you play video games or run a bunch of programs at the same time.
Our Hands-On Experience I’ve worked with both levels of RAM. 16GB is nice to have, but that’s not always an option. 8GB has taken care of the job almost without fail. In short, it’s nice to have more than you’ll need with 16GB, but it’s nice to always have as much as you’ll need with 8GB.
Your computer’s memory is integral to your computer’s ease-of-use when running applications. The pros and cons are clearly visible which shows you if 8GB is enough or if you need more. It’s likely that you’ll need more than 8GB unless you only need to accomplish the simplest of tasks. 16GB of RAM is the clear winner.
What's the difference between 8GB and 16GB RAM?
Ignoring the obvious answer, we should be asking a different question. What can 16GB of RAM do that 8GB of RAM can’t? 8GB is usually enough to handle most anything unless you include gaming. I’m not saying that you can’t try to play games with 8GB of RAM, but you might become frustrated with your performance. You would expect lag and even freeze with some of the games that require more of your system’s resources.
Is there a big difference between 8GB and 16GB RAM when it comes to gaming?
That is the difference for gaming. Speed is paramount for gaming. 8GB is usually included with the standard laptop. It’s a reasonable amount of RAM, and 8GB is sturdy enough to handle most tasks. I just wouldn’t rely on it for gaming. It’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. 16GB gives you far more breathing room than 8GB ever would.
How much faster is 16GB RAM than 8GB?
Reliability is really the name of the game. It’s not about speed. It’s about not freezing up. 16GB has the capacity to handle a large enough amount of data so as not to freeze. 8GB can handle a lot, but sometimes that’s not enough.
Is 8GB RAM enough for a laptop?
8GB is more than enough for average laptop use. For general programs, games, and the internet 8GB is more than enough. When people start to open too many programs that need a large amount of RAM, that’s when the system starts to freeze up. As long as you only use your laptop for average business practices, 8GB will be just fine.
My software engineer career began with hobby programming a C64 before I was old enough to drive. LOL
Matters if you run memory hogging leaking blue screening windows it’s.
I could never make those long programs in those books work most of the time.
Those games on tape somehow did.
The repetitive "8GB vs. 16GB" sequences say it was written for search optimization. The dodgy grammer says offshore.
IMHO nobody pays enough attention to the clock speed of RAM. Yes more RAM is good, as long as it’s also fast. This laptop’s 32GB of RAM at 3300 Mhz is able to easily run my SQL Server service for my investment app to gather and report on market data while compiling in Visual Studio and watching Bama beat Kansas St in the Sugar Bowl.
later
Boy,after reading some of the spec’s other Freepers have I checked mine. I have a Hewlett Packard all-in-one with 4GB ram but over 400GB memory Intel celeron inside for the chip...I use this daily for news/ weather/gaming and of course Free Republic. It serves me well and to note I bought my better half a new laptop for Christmas (179.00$ on sale )a Lenovo ...now that has 8 Gb ram , ironically she has barely touched it since opening.
IIRC, with the VIC20 didn’t you have to retype in the code every time you powered up?
That’s where I learned my lesson the hard way about “GOTO” rather than nested loops.
I think so.
Been so long.
>>I was sysop of a commodore users group for almost a year in early 80’s.
>>At least until they discovered I only had an apple II+ and was doing it as a joke on them.
>>I did have a 16k expansion card in my apple so 64k. and a z80 card as well
Ah, the good old days. I was around the Apple, Commodore and Atari BBSs and Usenet on my Apple //e and 300 baud modem around then too. Those were the days!
16GB outperforms 8GB? Who’d have thunk it? [/s]
In many ways, RAM is more important than CPU speed. Having a blazing fast CPU with insufficient RAM is like having a Ferrari and then being forced to drive it on side streets.
I don’t know, I’m not a biologist.
I saw a lot more dodgy AI grammar today as I tried to find a treatment on 8gb vs 16gb RAM. But now you have convinced me that the article I posted above is AI generated too.
This is kind of a silly article. Most decent computers should not come with less than 16Gb these days, and I would say 32Gb is minimum and 64Gb recommended due to OS and software bloat. My 2017 MacBook Pro runs fine on the default 16Gb it came with, but for serious work I would want 64Gb. Fortunately, I don’t do all that kind of hacker or performance work anymore, such as music and video editing or playing complex multiplayer games that love to fill out graphics and main memory. Web browsers these days have enough overhead to kill even 32Gb of RAM the way I work with dozens or more windows with multiple tabs open and loads of applications in the background, but I consider that a minimal and standard use profile.
There seems to be an online industry which involves re-writing content posted on other websites. I guess it’s a way to get clicks. The rewritten version often has mistakes because the rewriter doesn’t grasp the underlying material. What’s tricky is the mistakes can be pretty subtle and it’s not always obvious that it’s a rewrite.
So what is the CPU in your laptop? You are a super user compared to me. I like computers, both desktops and laptops. I have assembled many of my desktops. I have upgraded laptops with RAM and NVME drives. But for my purposes 16-20GB are enough.
All my systems run a minimum of 32gig memory. My main system runs 64 gig of memory with SSD drives in a raid 5 configuration for the data side. OS lives on an 1TB SSD. NVIDIA 1650 card with dual outputs....HDMI and Display port.
I often have 300 tabs open in Chrome and Edge. 16GB takes care of this. When things get shaky I prune them (tabs) back with the help of Session Buddy extension. Save them via Session Buddy and reboot that browser. This is how I free up RAM and CPU burden. You are a super user.
Yes. Guidance on how to prevent memory leak problems would be great. I have 4 HP6300 SFF’s that supposedly all started their refurb lives with clean installs of Win 7 Pro (most are now upgraded to Win 10 pro). When all still had Win 7 Pro on them, they had varying amounts of trouble with browser window memory leaks. (I don’t recall such problems with any other apps.)
FWIW, at least on the machine that has the most problems with this (memory leaks), I find they occur with every browser I’ve tried.
I’ve not compared BIOS versions on the 4 machines — could certain BIOS versions be prone to browser memory leaks?
“I’ve not compared BIOS versions on the 4 machines — could certain BIOS versions be prone to browser memory leaks?”
I am not going to say that is impossible, but it’s nearly impossible.
the program running, in this case the browser or it’s dependency library are what likely are causing the memory leak. if you are running windows you can use perfmon and watch the memory usage for everything.
if there is a memory leak the memory usage will continue to rise for that process over time
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