If your page file is always busy, you need 32GB.

Check your page file usage. That’s the clearest sign.

When Windows runs out of physical RAM, it starts swapping data out to the page file on your disk. If you open Task Manager and see the “Page File” usage sitting at 80%+ most of the time, or if the “Memory” section shows “In use” close to your total RAM while the page file is also heavily used, you’re hitting the wall.

Other signs: apps take forever to switch back to, your system feels sluggish when you have more than a few tabs and apps open, and disk usage spikes to 100% because the page file is thrashing. This happens a lot with developers running Docker, VMs, or large IDEs, or with heavy video editing and 3D work. If you see “High” or “Very High” under “Memory” in Task Manager on a regular basis, 32GB is the fix.

Future You will thank you when multitasking stops feeling like a punishment.