Having overkill RAM isn’t a bad thing if we’re talking purely about performance, all it will offer is a massive surplus of memory that hardly any applications will not use. For 64GB of RAM, it’s hard to justify its uses because even 32GB of RAM is considered overkill a lot of the time, so we’re going to find out whether there is a point in having this much RAM.
In this post, we’re going to go over the basics of RAM functionality so you have a general understanding on how it impacts your PC, and we’re going to go over whether it’s possible to have too much RAM. Also, we’re going to examine different scenarios such as Gaming, Streaming, and Video editing to find out whether 64GB of RAM is necessary for them.
Answer: In most cases, 64GB of RAM is extreme overkill, even for future-proofing, this is because little to no applications will use this much RAM, and it will become redundant before any application does. But there are certain scenarios where 64GB of RAM is useful for example, video editing at 8K.
How Does RAM Work?
RAM is an interesting type of storage because of how it behaves, when the PC loses power, the RAM will clear its data, this is unlike the HDD and SSDs we know. RAM does this because it’s a volatile storage device that has to work extremely quickly with the processor, all it does is send and receive specific instructions between the CPU.
The RAM and CPU work very close and are in constant communication, this is because the data stored in the RAM is usually instructions that are executed by the ALU on the processor. This data is crucial to the functionality of the computer, and it needs to be accessed instantaneously otherwise slow performance and other problems can occur. Not having enough RAM means once the RAM modules are full, the CPU will begin to send and retrieve instructions from the permanent storage which can be slow.
The installation of the RAM is quite easy, and arguably the most simple out of every component, all you do is push it into the DIMM slots located on the motherboard. This will allow the RAM to communicate directly with the CPU, the RAM is meant to work much faster than traditional storage, and each instruction is sent and received within nanoseconds.
Can You Have Too Much RAM?
It is definitely possible to have too much RAM for your computer’s needs, the average computer can do with 16GB of RAM and this will suffice for gaming and streaming. 32GB of RAM is more aimed at professional usages such as video editing, and photoshop, but 64GB of RAM is extreme and expensive, not a lot of applications will challenge 64GB of RAM.
Yes 64GB of RAM is very expensive therefore if you don’t need it, the money can be invested in upgrading other components. This will greatly improve the performance of your PC as having a better graphics card or CPU will directly translate into more performance depending on the applications you use. We can’t imagine games using 64GB of RAM, even massive open world games so yes it is too much.
Although from a performance perspective, having too much RAM isn’t bad because it won’t have any negative influences, 32bit instances of windows can only use 4GB of RAM. It’s extremely unlikely that the 32bit instance of Windows is being used for gaming, streaming, and video editing, but having more than 4GB of RAM will go unnoticed by the operating system.
Also Read: Can Too Much RAM Be Bad?
Is 64GB Overkill For Gaming?
For gaming, the most RAM-intensive games are those that are heavily modded and open world, and at most, these games will use 32GB of RAM. So using 64GB of RAM will provide you with an unnecessary amount of capacity, double of what the most RAM-intensive games use therefore 64GB of RAM is overkill for gaming. The average game won’t even use 16GB of RAM, but 16GB is the sweet spot for gaming nowadays so that’s what we recommend.
A very RAM-intensive game would be DCS World 2.7 which can use up to 64GB of RAM, so if you’re looking to play this game, then we recommend you purchase 32GB of RAM as it won’t use anywhere near 64GB of RAM. As for modded Minecraft, still, 64GB of RAM is overkill, even 32GB for some modpacks, so it’s quite hard to justify purchasing 64GB of RAM for gaming.
So if you’re gaming and you’re looking for the right amount of RAM, sticking with 16GB of RAM is a good idea because not many games use 16GB of RAM or even 8GB. Having 64GB of RAM can seem attractive to gamers that want the ultimate build with no compromises, but those builds usually cost absurd amounts of money.
Also Read: How Much RAM Do I Need For A Gaming PC
Is 64GB Overkill For Streaming?
Streaming is a CPU-intensive application but that doesn’t mean it is RAM intensive, 64GB of RAM for streaming is an even bigger overkill compared to having 64GB of RAM for gaming. Streaming isn’t RAM intensive and you can get away with having 8GB of RAM depending on the encoder. Encoding via x264 is the most common way of software encoding and 16GB of RAM is more than enough for streaming, 64GB of RAM is major overkill.
If you look at software encoding, you’ll notice that it’s just pure number crushing, nothing about processing numbers is RAM intensive therefore it won’t use a lot of RAM. The RAM plays little role in streaming, the most important component for software encoding is the CPU, we recommend 6-8 cores, and 8GB of RAM for optimized streaming build.
64GB of RAM is extremely expensive, so if you’re looking to improve your streaming performance, you can use that money to purchase a far superior processor. We recommend 6-8 processing cores, Intel or Ryzen is fine although Ryzen is more streamer friendly, with SMT enabled for multitasking.
Is 64GB Overkill For Video Editing?
Now, video editing is a task that is RAM intensive, this is because it processes a lot of heavy data depending on the resolution you’re video editing at. 32GB of RAM is considered to be the sweet spot of video editing, and it’ll allow you to comfortably video edit at 4K+. The larger the file, the more RAM you may need, for example, if you’re making high-quality 4K movies you may need 64GB of RAM.
64GB of RAM pushes your PC’s capabilities further allowing 4K video editing to be a breeze as well as allowing you to video edit up to 8K. Now, most people won’t be video editing at 8K, even professional as 8K isn’t widespread yet, but if you’re handling a lot of visual effects, then 64GB of RAM may be a good idea.
If you’re the average YouTuber, you most definitely do not need 64GB of RAM, as you can video edit comfortably with much less. 16-32GB of RAM would be just fine if you’re looking to make videos in 1080P-1440P, but if you’re a professional video editor, then an argument could be made that you need 64GB of RAM.
Conclusion
The verdict is 64GB of RAM is extremely overkill for most users even for video editors, this is because the average video editors are not making 8K professional videos. 32GB of RAM is more justified for video editing as it allows you to make 4K videos comfortably. As for gaming, we recommend 16-32GB of RAM depending on what types of games you will be playing as not a lot of games will use 16GB of RAM.
