Maximum PC

Why does it matter? You don't need more than 16GB.

Before people pull out that misquoted quote from Bill about 640KB of RAM, let me know when most of the world turns to 64-bit software. And even then, let me know when they start reasonably using more than 2GB. And let me know what that application is.

Until then, the need is going to stagnate where it's at. And that's a good thing.

For the original question... don't know & don't care since I'll never use Windows 8 beyond the several months I've already used it.



There are dozens of uses for more than 16GB RAM, just because YOU don't use them, doesn't mean they don't exist for desktop use.

I'm sure they have a reason for this... the developers of Metro 2033 recommendations for optimum setup:

Surely, there's no reason that ANY game would need more than 2GB RAM... I mean, you said it yourself...


Try encoding 90 minutes of AVCHD 1080p 60fps 28Mbit/sec video to Blu-Ray on 2GB RAM, then bump it up to 8GB RAM, then 16GB, then 32GB, then 64GB

Try rendering a 1 minute 1080p animation with 3ds Max using the above method. This can take several days just for one render btw...

Forget the exotic stuff, how about batch processing vacation photos through Photoshop, like the 1200+ 7-9MB each JPEG photos I took on my cruise last year, batch processing as follows: auto level correction> auto resizing> auto renaming> auto saving on my photo drive in groups of 200 photos at a time. Should be a piece of cake with just 2GB RAM if you're right, go ahead & try it... then try opening 500 at once... then all at once... now try it with 4, 8, & 16GB RAM...

Sure this stuff is generally going to be done on a workstation built for that specific task, especially the 3ds Max rendering, but I can't afford such a workstation for my photo work / video editing/encoding/authoring, so it's done on my gaming rig / daily folder / email checking PC. I can tell you from personal experience, that even a 24 minute vacation video (originally shot in 30 frame progressive 35Mbit/sec 1280x720) encoded to Blu-Ray with Premier Pro CS5, goes several minutes faster on 16GB RAM than it does on 8GB RAM.

Please, stop applying your personal experience to everyone else, and/or stop thinking in terms of gaming only. There's MUCH MORE out there, I haven't even begun to scratch the surface...

Good for you, you actually have an application that you do quite often that will use that much memory. You want a cookie?

I'm under the assumption that many times someone wants to build their own computer, they're only doing it to play video games. The number of people I know who wanted to build their own computer for something other than gaming I could count with one hand. And in fact, in a lot of the "help me build" threads here, many people that do explicitly state their intended use for the computer, the most heavy hitting thing is going to be games. Even then, most people won't use a computer for heavy hitting programs anyway (considering the 4chan joke that people spend $2000 for a "facebook machine")

And most games are 32-bit. Even Metro 2033. By default, any 32-bit program can only run up to 2GB before crashing, because this is what Microsoft implemented for it's 32-bit support on 64-bit OSes. Yes you can compile the executable so it takes up the whole 4GB, but you can't tell which executable was actually compiled for that. Besides, what's Metro 2033 going to use all that RAM for? It's a mostly indoor game and the outdoor sections aren't even that big (or open). Skyrim is understandable. Metro 2033 is not.

Although really, if there's anyone you should be mad about, it's Microsoft for imposing an arbitrary limit of memory usage on their OS's. There's no reason why there should be one, it's not going to make the memory management any more complicated (well, I'd like to believe that).

Well if you want me to shut up about RAM since this seems like a personal thing with so much srs business, then I will.