- Valve’s new hardware and software survey shows a slow decrease in the use of 16 GB of RAM and an increase in the use of 32 GB of RAM
- This comes as more recommended system requirements for games include 32 GB of RAM
- 32 GB of RAM can help improve frame times and reduce ttutters in poorly optimized games
With the new games that are launched on the PC every year, players often find poorly optimized titles, even in the best PC for games, or the highest hardware demands that ultimately affect a weaker specifications hardware, and that is why users are updating a crucial component in their systems.
As reported by Tom’s Hardware, the latest results of the Valve hardware and software survey show a gradual decrease in the use of 16 GB of RAM 43.12% to 41.67% and a constant increase in the use of 32 GB of RAM 32.85% to 35.42%, between March 2025 and August 2025.
Although it is not particularly a great drop for the use of 16 GB of RAM, the 2.57% increase on the 32 GB side of the RAM side should not be a surprise. A significant number of new triple-A games recommends 32 GB of RAM for good performance. This does not mean that 16 GB of RAM is not viable in game scenarios, but it is very likely that players will find stuttering or problems in games that depend on more RAM.
This is remarkable in games like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Monster Hunter Wildsand Dragon’s Dogma 2. All these titles are poorly optimized and have not yet received exhaustive performance patches to calm stuttering and low FPS problems, but 32 GB of RAM instead of 16 GB relieves things with better Marco times.
It is also worth noting that more PC manufacturers for hand games are launching 32 GB configurations of RAM, and although portable players may not form a significant part of PC players in general, it is a market that is growing rapidly.
Nor is it any secret that Microsoft Windows 11 has constantly background processes, some of which are unnecessary for games, so systems should have more RAM to compensate for this. Fortunately, RAM updates are affordable, at least compared to other components such as CPU or GPU.
ANALYSIS: Even if 16 GB of RAM is fine for you, the future test with 32 GB of RAM is ideal
Having updated 16 GB from RAM to 32 GB both on my main game PC and on my hand computer (Asus Rog Ally to Lenovo Legion Go S Z1 Extreme), I can say that the difference is certainly notable. While performance results are insignificant in well optimized games with smaller frame speed profits, it is certainly a bigger problem in games that work badly on the PC.
I have noticed that most of the last games that I am playing in my NVIDIA RTX 4080 Super RIG are pushing far beyond 16 GB of RAM, and yes, that is while it has other applications, such as Mozilla Firefox, open in the background and playing at a resolution of 3440×1440 in the Max Graphics environments, but that only gives me my point.
If you already have a powerful GPU and CPU, or you are planning to update in the near future, you are likely to play in higher graphics configurations and a resolution higher than 1080p. You can also have other content playing simultaneously, like me, and that is where 32 GB of RAM will come into play.
Sooner or later, most Triple-A games will have 32 GB of RAM as recommended for system requirements, so I advise acting accordingly, before current price increases get worse.
