16gb ram vs 32gb ram Upgrade

Bottom line in a nutshell get 32GB to be safe in case later on you have programs that might need more than what you are currently using
some software is ram dependent so 32GB is a good option doesn't have to be the best but at least compatible with your system

paulyjustin said:

With 8gb ram, it rarely lags but sometimes lags when im playing. So i thought 16gb should be more than good enough. Then i thought... should i make it max 32gb? Then i recall reading years ago very few ppl need 32gb.

8 GB's is what I would tell everybody to have as a minimum. For gamer or power user, I suggest going to 16GB of RAM. 32GB or more RAM I usually only see for people who are running lots of VM's, databases, or high end rendering type applications.

At what price increase would you say buying the 32gb is a no brainer? Example say it cost you $65 or so for the 16gb. If its around double that or $60 more say $125, then that is a price difference considerable.



But if it only cost say $110 to upgrade to the 32gb, would you say then it would be foolish to not upgrade to 32gb?

The person who handles that poker program, i asked him that question. He said the current program i use... well 8gb is recommended by 16gb is much preferred. The thing is that poker tracking program im using now, it will probably soon not get any support any more so i have to use a different program they have.. an updated version... imagine instead of it being called holdem manager 2, now its holdem manager 3. That person tells me holdem manager 3 uses a ton more ram and resources than holdem manager 2. Says with holdem manager 3, 16gb is the recommended amount of ram... where 8gb would be the bare minimum. Said 32gb would be the best.


So based on that, i assume 32gb might be the better option then? Thing is i always thought 32gb ram was way too much but he says that if i start using that program, that much ram would be even better than 16gb would be fine.

Pauly:

What are the chances you will be using the same laptop in 2 or 3 years?

It's 4 years old now. If the motherboard fails, it's very unlikely it would be cost-efficient to repair.

If you buy a new laptop in say 2022, it might well use DDR5, which means any RAM you buy now would not be transferable to the new laptop.

An NVMe drive could likely be carried over to a new laptop.

The specific hard drive choice should be driven by price, size, warranty, vendor, and return privileges more than the fine points of the drive's specifications.

If you did not know what SSD drive was inside the laptop, there's virtually no chance you could tell by performance or battery usage. Boot speed possibly.

Many things are largely driven by chance and we are all driftwood on the river to a considerable extent, with much less control than we would like to have.

But you knew that.

Well if the laptop still works for another 2-3 years... I will still be using it. I wouldn't mind using this laptop for more years than that if it still works. I mean the thing is the processor is a bit old... i5-6300hq... and that well you can't change for a laptop. I honestly wouldn't mind using this laptop for another 5 years or longer. I like this laptop. But you say its unreasonable to use this laptop for another 5 years because by then, my processor would be like how an i3 processor would be now right?



Yea the nvme would definitely would be carried to another laptop. I mean if i get a new laptop whenever, i surely would use the one im planning to buy... the 1tb nvme samsung evo 970 on it... as oppose to whatever ssd they put in the machine because it won't be as good as the samsung ssd.



You say its possible new laptop uses ddr5. Well if thats the case, i could still sell my 16gb right for ppl with old laptops? Also... i actually still have 2 old laptops that do not work anymore and left them in the garage for years.... both of those have 8gb ram... each is 4gb sticks though... but i never sold it. I just left it there.

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Ghot said:

The 16GB of RAM in my build was $134. If you can find 32Gb of decent RAM for less than that... grab it, fast.

The 16gb ram for my build i saw was around $125 or so.

see comments:

paulyjustin said:

I like this laptop. But you say its unreasonable to use this laptop for another 5 years because by then, my processor would be like how an i3 processor would be now right?

Wrong.

I'm wondering how long you can reasonably expect your laptop to perform well without major expense--as from a motherboard failure.

Your processor will almost certainly be as fast in 5 years as it is now. And it will do the same set of tasks as fast as it can today.

But CPUs are the strongest link in the chain---very unlikely to fail.

You can always repair anything if you are indifferent to cost. But at some point it doesn't make sense. If a car is worth 1000, you probably don't spend 2000 to fix it.

Yea the nvme would definitely would be carried to another laptop. I mean if i get a new laptop whenever, i surely would use the one im planning to buy... the 1tb nvme samsung evo 970 on it... as oppose to whatever ssd they put in the machine because it won't be as good as the samsung ssd.

"As good as". Not sure that can be quantified, but I wouldn't be very sure about it.

Two random NVMe drives of the same generation would likely be quite similar in performance. But generational change and improvements come quite quickly now, particularly on storage and storage controllers.

Maybe your next laptop will have 2 NVMe ports. You could use the supplied NVMe for Windows and your Samsung NVMe for storage. Otherwise, you'd have to throw one of them into the closet.

Okay still deciding on this right now. I have the 16gb ram as of now... bought it for like $63 didn't open it yet so i can return it.


The 32gb memory is double that $126.


So would you all say based on what i mention, upgrade to 32gb ram? This is really the only upgrade i can do to my laptop as i upgraded my old 2.5 inch 250gb samsung ssd with a 1tb samsung evo 970 nvme. There isn't any other upgrades i can do to the xps 15 9550 as processor you can't.


I plan to use this laptop for a long time... at least another 2 years minimum... I wouldn't mind using it for another 5 more years or longer if its possible.


Like you could regret not buying a big enough ssd like I did. I certainly feel the same would be said with RAM right?


But anyone here bought ram like 32gb ram but then though... why did i buy 32gb ram when i would never use it? For me i bought the 1tb nvme ssd even though i know 500gb would probably be good enough for a while... though i cloned my sold ssd into the new ssd so i have over 700gb free of 930gb. But had i bought the 500gb, i probably have like 230gb free of 465gb. But obviously i want the biggest ssd possible so I know i could use it for many years.


So here, would anyone regret buying too much RAM though even if they never use anywhere close to that? Its double the price, $126 compared to $63. I mean i can afford it... but at first I thought I read almost nobody uses 32gb ram... but the poker program i use... version 2... i use 8gb with some little lagging... so 16gb should fix it. But i might use that program version 3 later on... and that poker program site mentioned 16gb is recommended but get 32gb because it is very data intensive.