As usual I’m going to divide the PC users into 3 segments and then I’ll say how much RAM each of them will require.

Media consumption users

I assume that Media consumption users

1.     Play HD videos frequently and occasionally full HD videos

2.     Browse Internet, often in chrome and Firefox with multiple tabs open

3.     Some rare video and audio conversions

4.     Often using Microsoft office

5.     Mp3 Playback

6.     Casual games and online games

Simple answer is 2 GB minimum and 4 GB recommended.

If you’re in this category and still have anything less than 2 GB, without making any delay upgrade your RAM now, because you will see 2 to 3 times speed improvement in normal day to day tasks, if you upgrade to 4 GB RAM.

Media creators

Media creators are one of the heavy users of RAM. They use high resource hunger software like Adobe flash, Photoshop, premiere, cyber link power director etc. Also they usually have multi-Monitors setup, as well as high resolution monitors. These are all the factors that add up the need for more RAM.

1.     If you spend more than 3 hours daily in video editing or photo editing then a minimum of 6 GB is highly required

2.     Recommended capacity of RAM is 8 GB

3.     But before that verify whether you have installed x64 bit OS, because x86 or 32bit OS cannot detect more than 4 GB RAM (3.6 GB usable)

Gamers

If you just play casual flash games or online games you fall under first category “Media consumers”.

But if you play high graphics intensive 3D games such as Crysis 2, Far Cry 2, Call of Duty etc. then you’re a serious gamer. You need a considerable amount of RAM for some games, which decompress images or textures on the go. But more than RAM you need graphics card’s memory, but that will be dealt in graphic card section. So,

1.     Minimum amount of required RAM is 2 GB

2.     Recommended amount is 4 GB, if you wish you can add more but utilizing that money for graphics card is advisory.

3D Modelling

Only for RAM section, I’m going to distinguish this type of users separately, because software in this field depends exclusively on RAM.

This is actually a sub category of the Media creators. But 3D modelling people require more RAM than normal Media creators.

1.     Minimum amount of RAM required is 8 GB

2.     Recommended capacity is 16 GB

All these recommendations are based on an assumption that you really care for what you spend, as I had mentioned earlier that this entire hardware course is for budget and mid-range PC users and not for enthusiasts or high end PC users.

How to improve the speed of PC using RAM

Before improving the speed of your computer using RAM, you should find out whether it is possible, if so then how much?

Actually it’s a simple technique,

1.     Open task manager

2.     Go to performance tab

3.     See page file usage and RAM usage

4.     If RAM usage is more than 70 percent all the time (normally), then you should install the same amount of RAM installed, again.

5.     If RAM usage is more than 40 percent all the time then add half the amount of RAM already installed

This technique is well suited for those in media consumption user’s segment, because they generally do not use high resource using software.

Others, if you want to follow this technique then note the amount of RAM used while using those high resource using software or while giving maximum load to your computer.

To be frank RAM doesn’t improve the speed, besides it unveils the hidden potential of your processor. If you still cannot decide, or if you have any questions, you may write below, in comments section.