16GB is the floor for Photoshop and Chrome.

Yes. If you’re running Photoshop and Chrome at the same time on a Ryzen 5 3600, 16GB isn’t a luxury – it’s the minimum.

Photoshop alone will chew through 4–8GB depending on the file size, and Chrome with a few tabs can eat another 2–4GB. On 8GB, the system starts swapping to disk the second you open both. The Ryzen 5 3600 is a capable six-core chip, but it can’t fix memory starvation. You’ll see stutters, lag, and the dreaded “your system is low on memory” notification.

With 16GB, you’ve got headroom. The CPU can actually do its job instead of waiting on the page file. Multitasking feels snappy, not painful. If you’re doing heavy Photoshop work (large PSDs, lots of layers) or have 20+ Chrome tabs open, 32GB would be even better – but for most people, 16GB is the sweet spot.

Don’t overthink it. Upgrade your RAM and move on.