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#11
16GB is the norm now. Lotta software out there that eats it up pretty fast. I wouldn't build a rig any more with less than that.
You can see price trends for various RAM types over the last 18 months here:
Memory - Price Trends - PCPartPicker
The bottom was May of last year.
Since then prices have roughly doubled for DDR 4, so I wonder if the PC manufacturers are selling fewer PCs with 16 GB than they did a couple of years ago.
You'll notice SSD prices have been stubbornly high lately too.
I have a table of RAM prices for 1957 through 2013, compiled from a website that is no longer around.
Summarized; per Megabyte; multiply by 1000 for GB equivalent.
1957: $411 million per MB ($411 billion per GB; I wonder if there was 1 GB in the world?)
1977: $36,800
1997: $4.63
August 1998: went below a dollar for the first time
2006: went below a dime
2011: went below a penny (below $10 per GB)
I still consider 8GB to be the minimum. For me, I go with 16GB these days, but I like to run VM's and those take up extra memory.
My first computer I personally bought was a 486 SX-25 with 4MB of RAM and 170MB hard drive, and it had a smoking fast 2x CDROM drive. It run DOS 6 with MS Windows 3.1
If you want to use your computer with 4GB, use SSD on Windows 10...Really.