16GB is the new baseline.

Yes, for almost everyone. Upgrading from 8GB to 16GB will noticeably reduce the need to babysit your background apps during intense tasks.

Here’s the deal: 8GB used to be plenty, but modern operating systems and apps are memory hogs. A browser with a dozen tabs, Slack, Spotify, and a few other background apps can easily eat 6–7GB before you even launch a game or a heavy creative tool. Once you open something demanding, the system starts swapping to disk, and you feel it — stutters, lag, the urge to close everything.

With 16GB, you have enough headroom to keep your usual background apps running while doing something intense. You won’t have to close your browser tabs before launching a game or editing a video. For 95% of people, that’s the sweet spot.

The exception: if you’re doing professional video editing, 3D rendering, or running multiple virtual machines, you might want 32GB. But for everyday intense tasks — gaming, coding, photo editing, light video work — 16GB stops the juggling.

Don’t overthink it. 16GB is where you stop noticing RAM.