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When I built my current rig in May 2011, I initially bought 8GB of memory. But my old computer had 12 GB of memory, and at that time I thought you needed 12 GB of memory for an adequate computer. When memory got cheaper I bought an additional 8GB of memory, for 16GB total on my i7 2600K rig.
At first I thought 16GB was overkill. But frequently I have certain programs open, like Word, Open Office Calc, AOL, and Microsoft Streets & Trips 2011. Then I have a bunch of web pages / multi tabs open. Now when I look at my memory load it's often 10 to 14 GB! When I'm hitting near 14 GB my system gets laggy, - like it takes some time to switch between web page tabs. ANd Flash would often crash.
I could replace my memory and upgrade to 32GB total, but I guess I don't need that luxury until my next computer build. And 32GB is affordable nowadays costin $140 to $300 a set on Newegg... So I guess the latest system builds are now using 32GB of memory. That would be great for FEA programs!
How about you? How much memory do you survive on? Are you a heavy duty computer user that needs a lot of memory like me?
In my experience, there is no reason to have more than 6 GB.
There is no reason for your computer to be using 14 GB...you must be running other things. Are you running a server or something? High end applications?
I suspect you are either trolling, or trying to make people envious of your RAM.
No, I'm not trolling... I'm serious... I often look at my memory load with the usual stuff I have open at it's often between 10 to 14 GB of memory.
Something is wrong with your machine. What's using all of the memory??
Until August I had two machines at my desk. Both Core 2 series machines with 4GB each. I could have used more but I rarely maxed out unless I opened a lot of tabs in FF.
My current build has 16 GB (I run multiple VMs during the day, and dedicate 2 - 4 GB per VM). I never notice the missing RAM on the host OS.
Currently I have:
Firefox (with a dozen CD tabs, and over 100 imgur tabs - all pictures)
Word (couple of docs)
Excel (couple of workbooks)
VS 2010 (with a large project loaded)
a feed reader program,
Outlook
Steam
QuickBooks
and 75 or 80 odd services running
I'm only at 5.4 GB used (FF is using almost 2 of that by itself).
I have 16GB, only because of my use of Lightroom and Photoshop. Those are the only two programs that ever come close to maxing out the 16GB. Normal load is around 3-5GB. 16GB is not a must.
I have Firefox running on OS X with 4 tabs open, it is using 368.3 MB:
PID Process Name User CPU Real Mem Virtual Mem
337 Firefox _______ 6.4 368.3 MB 3.64 GB
Seriously how many add-ons are you running? 50?
I only have a couple of addons and most of them aren't active while browsing. FF in my case will continue to consume memory until the machine grinds to a halt. I only have 1GB but have a new machine sitting here I'm waiting on power extension cable. This is after having FF open for many hours or even over a day. I try and remember to close it out occasionally but often forget, if it gets to the point where it's up around 600MB it takes forever to close. Just closing tabs doesn't help.
I've experienced this problem for years, if it exists after new machine FF is getting the boot.
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I have 16GB and it is enough
