16GB of RAM, useful?

[Roark]

So last night I noticed the RAM I was eyeballing on Newegg was on promo (buying my new computer piecemeal as prices fluctuate). The Scotch took over and before I knew it I had ordered 16MB of RAM, the question now is should I keep it when it comes, or return 8GB of it?

I'd like my build to be 3-5yr future proof, and I'm just not sure if in the near future 16GB will become the recommended standard, or even necessary.

 

[Night Fox]

I really doubt 16gb would be useful for anything...unless you're running tons of virtual machines.

You could send it to me.. although it's probably ddr3

 

[Druid]

Yeah, nope. 5 years ago 1 GB was sufficient. Now it is 4. 8 sounds about right in another 5. Up to you though.

 

[Roark]

Yeah I'm not sure what exactly a virtual machine is, so I doubt I'm running tons of them without realizing it
I currently have 2GB, and while my system can get bogged down, I don't think I really strain it too much.

Yeah Nite its DDR3 (this), went down to 79.99 and apparently the drunken shopper in me got a little over excited. Certainly going to return the extra set now though.

 

[Slaymate]

It depends on what your doing. If your a big time multi-tasker working on large images/videos/3D Modeling/etc... then you might find 16GB useful. If your more of a mainstream power user then 8GB should be fine. If your just the average computer user then 4GB is all you need.

 

[Night Fox]

(virtual machine is running another operating system inside your original operating system (the host OS). VirtualBox is what I use. )

 

[strollin]

You've heard of Virtual Reality, right? Virtual means 'not really existing" so a Virtual Machine is a machine that doesn't really exist. It exists only within your computer, totally emulated by software. Using VMs you can create many different machines, each of them running a different OS. The more RAM you have the more VMs you could run simultaneously (provided your CPU has sufficient processing power).

 

[gurusan]

For the average hardware enthusiast/gamer 16GB is silly. Heck, I have 8GB and have pretty much never seen more than 5GB used.

 

[Press_Corpse]

I have a ton of RAM.. but only because newegg was having a shell shocker deal on it.. and I had a 50.00 gift card to use and it was less than an 8gb set at that point. At least I won't have to buy any more ram for a while!

 

[iFargle]

I have 8GB.. I can say I've used all of it on a few occasions. VM's and a few games with a ton of background applications really eat the RAM up. I'd say 16 would be sufficient for 3-5 years.. 8 seems.. "normal" for a build nowadays.