Is 8GB RAM Enough for Laptop in 2023? This question might bother you if you are in the market for a new laptop.
Don’t worry, we have a good experience with 8GB RAM laptops, based on which, we can tell you whether the 8GB RAM is enough for a laptop or not.
But First,
We would like to tell you that we have picked an older laptop with 4GB of RAM to see how much of a difference it makes when upgrading from 4GB to 8GB RAM.
So how fast is an 8GB RAM laptop compared to a 4GB one? Is 8GB RAM Enough for Laptops in 2023, or should you buy a 16GB RAM laptop?
It’s time to clear your doubts.
4GB vs 8GB RAM Laptop
Should you get a 4GB or 8GB laptop?
To test it, we started using the laptop with 4GB RAM for a few days to see how it performs in daily life.
Then we upgraded the RAM to 8GB and checked how much of a difference it made in performance.
With 4GB RAM, we noticed a significant lag while opening multiple apps and switching between them.
The laptop used to reload all the apps again and again. Chrome alone works fine with 3-4 tabs, but opening more tabs started reloading everything.
So the overall experience with 4GB RAM was laggy if you open 3-4 apps together. For working on MS-word or Notepad, 4GB RAM was enough.
Now we upgraded the RAM to 8GB, and here’s what we have noticed.
The apps started to load a tiny bit faster, but the opening speed wasn’t significant compared to 4GB RAM.
What’s significant was the number of apps opened in the background. With 8GB RAM, we opened multiple apps along with Chrome browser with 6-7 tabs, and we didn’t encounter the reloading issue.
We stretched it further by running Chrome, Firefox, Photoshop, and 2-3 more apps all together. Still, the laptop didn’t reload any single app, at least in our case.
So the laptop used to struggle a lot with 4GB RAM is now working smoothly with 8GB RAM.
The laptop we tested had an HDD. Inserting an SSD would have made it faster, but we are not talking about the type of storage here.
Does more RAM increase speed?
Having more RAM doesn’t guarantee that your laptop will start performing faster.
On the other side,
Having less RAM can guarantee that the laptop will start to slow down.
Now how to check if the RAM is enough or not?
Start doing your everyday work. Open the apps that you use in your daily life.
After opening everything that you use, right-click on the taskbar. Now click on Start Task Manager.
A pop-up window will appear with some graphs showing the CPU Usage History and Memory Usage History. It will look something like this:
From here, you can get an idea of whether you should add more RAM or not.
For example, in our case, we managed to use only 3.72GB of RAM out of 8GB.
Will adding an extra 4 or 8GB of RAM make the laptop even faster?
No, absolutely not. We are only using 47% of 8GB RAM. Adding more RAM will do nothing to the speed.
It could have made a huge difference if our work had been consuming 95-100% of RAM.
So, adding more RAM can speed up the laptop if your work has already been using 100% of it.
Is 8GB RAM Enough for Laptop?
Frankly speaking, the majority of the users won’t need more than 8GB of RAM. But it is a must to have at least 8GB on your laptop.
Yes, in a lot of scenarios, you might need more RAM, but those aren’t common scenarios.
In what scenarios would you need 16GB of RAM?
- If you are a gamer and love playing heavy games on your laptop, 16GB RAM is the right choice.
- Particular scenarios when you blast so many apps with your beloved Chrome browser opening with 15-20 tabs.
- If you do video editing and render 4k videos, then 16GB RAM is on the safer side.
- For app development or CAD, you should pick a 16GB RAM laptop.
- For Database or Software developers, 16GB RAM would offer a smoother experience.
You need 16GB RAM for the aforementioned scenarios. We highly suggest you check these amazing 16GB RAM laptops under 60–65K that offer the best experience.
Now to the remaining users, Is 8GB RAM enough for laptops?
Yes, it is enough. Are you the one who:
- Uses a laptop for office work with casual gaming and watching videos on YT?
- Do medium level of FHD video editing?
- Open Chrome with up to 10 tabs together?
- Uses software development software that doesn’t eat too much RAM?
If yes, then 8GB RAM is enough for your laptop.
In such a case, you should check these powerful Ryzen 5 laptops under 50k with 8GB RAM that you can upgrade further up to 16GB in the future.
What do we suggest?
Look at your needs and tasks, and then choose the right amount of RAM for yourself.
It’s better to buy a laptop that has an option to upgrade RAM so that you can do so when you need it in the future.
- Is 8GB RAM enough for coding?
For most coding software, 8GB RAM is enough.
- Is 8GB RAM enough for students?
It totally depends on your stream. Still, for an IT student who learns to code or does anything that a student requires to do, 8GB RAM is enough.
- Is 8GB RAM enough for gaming?
For the most part, 8GB RAM is sufficient if you don’t play too many heavy games. Still, for gaming, we suggest you upgrade RAM up to 12 or 16GB.
You can check the most powerful gaming laptops under 75000 to have an immersive gaming experience.
Which RAM type is fastest?
There are two types of RAM available in the market right now. DDR3 and DDR4, where DDR4 is the newest.
You would have known that DDR4 is the fastest, obviously, but the question is, Is there a big difference between DDR3 and DDR4?
The maximum clock speed of DDR3 RAM is 2133 MHz, where it’s the minimum clock speed in DDR4 RAM. Know more.
Forget the clock speed, and let’s talk about the real-life speed difference?
While using regular apps like Chrome browser or anything else, the DDR4 RAM performs slightly better.
It’s not a night and day difference, but it’s enough to get noticed.
The same can’t be said in gaming. The difference in speed while gaming isn’t that significant if the GPU is powerful enough.
You might get a 5% better FPS on games running using the DDR4 RAM with a powerful GPU.
The difference is significant in gaming if you use a weaker GPU.
So overall, DDR4 is better, no doubt, but DDR3 is still fast enough for the majority of the users, depending on their needs.
Final Verdict
Laptops with 16GB RAM come with other good features putting the overall pricing on the higher side.
Many users keep expensive laptops at an arm’s distance because they know they will never use all the resources.
So, buying a laptop with 8GB upgradeable RAM makes more sense for such users.
But,
If your work demands more RAM, then it is always good to have 16GB RAM. Or you can buy one if you want to make your laptop future-proof.
You may also like these Asus Gaming Laptops under 80000.
We hope now you know whether 8GB RAM is enough for a laptop or not.
If you still have any doubt, then feel free to ask us in the comments.
Do you agree or disagree with the points mentioned above? We would love to hear your thoughts.
Consider sharing this information if you have found it helpful.
