Your peak RAM usage tells you if you need 32GB.

Yes — open Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc), go to the Performance tab, and watch the Memory section during your heaviest workload. The key number is the “In use” value, not the total available.

If that number regularly hits 80–90% of your current 16GB, you’ll see a real benefit from jumping to 32GB. If it stays below 70% even when you’re multitasking, you’re fine. Windows or macOS will cache unused memory, so high usage alone isn’t a problem — but constant paging to disk (high “Hard Faults” in Task Manager, or "