So, I’ve got to ask: Did you guys see this whole memory crisis coming a mile off, or what? Because, while we’re continually bemoaning the state of the industry with AI datacenter business hoarding all the available memory as fast as Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron can make it—and the ensuing pricing batshittery that has followed it—you lot have seemingly been securing yourselves against the RAMpocalypse.
With the topic of widespread hardware price rises owing to this memory demand and supply issue being something that is almost permanently in our heads on the PCG hardware team, we thought it worth just finding out how you guys were faring in these troubling times.
So, over the past week, we’ve been asking one simple question: How much RAM do you have in your current gaming rig? And the answers have been interestingly enlightening; basically, the vast majority of you had already protected yourself from the core issue by filling your machines with a whole lot of RAM already.
I will admit I had my own expectations, which have been utterly overturned by the data you guys have provided. I thought that there would effectively be some level-pegging between those rocking 16 GB of RAM and those with 32 GB in their gaming PCs. But the numbers are not even close.
A solid 50% of readers already have 32 GB of RAM in their main gaming PCs, which is by far the biggest contingent in the results. Those with 16 GB of RAM surprisingly only make up 18% of the readers who responded to the survey, which is actually less than the number of people who’ve gone even bigger with 64 GB of RAM. Golly.
How much RAM do you have in your current gaming rig?
Votes (%)
| Product | Value |
|---|---|
| 32 GB | 50 |
| 64 GB | 20 |
| 16 GB | 18 |
| MOAR THAN 64 GB, MWAHAHAHAHA | 7 |
| 8 GB | 3 |
| 48 GB | 2 |
In fact, if you combine the 3% still sporting 8 GB of memory (how do you get anything done, and which version of Linux are you using?) and those with 16 GB, that only just about tops the number with 64 GB, and then by only 133 votes.
Then you have the local AI luvvers (surely) who are sporting more than 64 GB of RAM, which makes up a surprisingly large 7% of responders.
The thing to note here, however, is that we are still just talking about capacity, and that isn’t the be-all and end-all of memory. You could be sitting on a ton of DDR4 RAM with a limited upgrade path for future CPU platforms. But in today’s climate, I’d probably be happier sitting on 32 GB DDR4 than 16 GB DDR5, because even the CPUs of those latter generations will still be keeping modern GPUs happily fed with raw frames to play with.
It also doesn’t secure you against the knock-on effects of the memory crisis, either. Sure, you might have lots of system memory, but buying extra storage for your PC or NAS box is still a nightmare experience. To say nothing of the rising prices of PCs, laptops, graphics cards, and pretty much anything else that can claim to need memory.
I would bet we’re not far off peripheral makers trying to justify a me-too price hike by saying the memory chips they need for saving tiny profiles necessitate 200% increases.
Let us know in the comments where you stand on this sliding scale of memory capacity, and how the memory crisis has affected you and your PC gaming experience.
This week’s question:
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