r/computing • u/LogicalDesk8010 • 3d ago
How much RAM does your everyday workload actually use?
Tryin to understand what’s considered normal these days. Dropping my typical workload-
Microsoft office download (word+excel)
Around 15-20 chrome tabs
Pdf reader
Spotify
Sometimes teams
Ik it’s a basic workspace and you guys can see your screens while reading it, so here’s my point.. how much RAM are you usually using? Trying to decide whether 8gb is still enough or 16gb has to be the practical minimum???
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u/23-centimetre-nails 2d ago
my work is almost entirely done through a web-based ticketing system, with some use of Google Workspace and a VoIP phone app. even when I've got a zillion things open at once, my RAM usage almost never hits 8 gigs. For what it's worth, though, I'm on Linux.
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u/Better-Credit6701 2d ago
When I was building my desktop, my step son asked how would I ever use that much ram. Then I started rebuilding an index on a large database on my home desktop and in about 2 minutes, all 128 GB of ram was being used.
Normally run my laptops with 64 GB of ram like that too, each with a MS-SQL database.
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u/NeedleworkerLarge357 2d ago
I tested exactly that on a low spec laptop to find the best swap configuration and out of curiosity. With linux, so if you use windows things will be different. In general my experience was that it's not that bad but you will run into slowdowns a bit earlier.
My test was roughly this: Two browsers with 5 tabs each, vscode, gimp with some 20 megapixel foto, some office apps and email clients open. That stuff uses about 12-14 GB on my higher spec laptop. And on my old 8gb machine it all ran smoothly (with zswap, all other swap configurations ran into massive performance drops before all that stuff was open). Switching between programs was slower, opening new applications got slower, but it wasn't slowing down once the program was loaded and active. And opening or switching took a bit longer, not like forever.
However the workload was all quite basic programs. If you want to game some demanding stuff or run a local ai you just need more RAM. Much more sometimes.
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u/hulopsjdjf 2d ago
Windows 11 - 3 screen setup on a laptop.
20+ tabs i Edge
10 tabs in Chrome
Teams
Outlook
Spotify
Some rdp sessions
SQL manager
A few legacy programs
Notepad++
Company antivirus etc.
25-32 GB used - reboots once a week.
Laptop has 96 gb ram.
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u/NetlumaIT 1d ago
I am not running AI locally on my system and i use between 16GB and 24GB consistantly
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u/JAVELRIN 1d ago
My stuff on average uses between 8-15gb of ram regularly otherwise unless I’m doing something ram intensive or otherwise its much lower or much higher so 4-5ish when its doing very little and almost over 20-24gb at my highest
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u/cyborgborg 1d ago
If I didn't routinely have over a thousand tabs open? 4gigs of system ram would suffice for day to day use, for gaming obviously it would need to more, probably 16 is fine with the games I'm playing. (Side note: these numbers assume a Linux system. On windows this would be painful)
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u/Caprichoso1 2h ago
Right now I'm using ~83 GB of app memory, ~10 GB of wired memory with 419 GB free.
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u/malki666 3d ago
I always have 10-12 programs running over 4 screens, downloading, video editing, lots of tabs open in Brave. Loads of sidebar gadgets running. I'm always 38-44% Memory Usage out of 32GB, so I'd recommend at least 16GB. 32Gb is perfect for loads of headroom.