New Laptop - How Much RAM do I need

rk911 wrote:
... RAM is cheap so I recommend always maxing out the RAM in a new PC as I'd rather have more than I need than need more than I have.

This is probably the best philosophy regarding RAM but there are a few points for consideration.

Make sure the OS your new computer is running is a 64-bit OS if you go with more than 4GB of RAM. 32-bit versions of Windows can't address more than about 3.8GB of RAM.

My personal machine has 16GB of RAM. I find it nearly impossible to use that much RAM UNLESS I run multiple VMs (Virtual Machines). A VM is a software version of another computer running as a program on your system.

Adding more RAM to your computer does not magically speed it up in any way unless your system is starved for RAM in the first place. Most users rarely put 4GB of RAM to full use.

rk911 wrote:

JJnLilly wrote:
Shopping for a new laptop and wondering how much RAM I really do need. The two current laptops we have(one Dell and one HP) both have 6G RAM. This seems a bit of an over kill as we do not do a lot of multi-tasking/lots of windows open nor any gaming. So is 4, 6 or 8 what we need?

RAM is cheap so I recommend always maxing out the RAM in a new PC as I'd rather have more than I need than need more than I have.

This is the best answer to your question. Either I missed it or you never asked it, but I see NOTHING about any SSD or hard drive in your OP.

JJnLilly wrote:
Shopping for a new laptop and wondering how much RAM I really do need. The two current laptops we have(one Dell and one HP) both have 6G RAM. This seems a bit of an over kill as we do not do a lot of multi-tasking/lots of windows open nor any gaming. So is 4, 6 or 8 what we need?

RAM is cheap so I recommend always maxing out the RAM in a new PC as I'd rather have more than I need than need more than I have.

It all depends on your usage. I would recommend 8GB, that should be a nice 'sweet' spot for casual users in windows 10. In my experience it's easy for users to install this and that and this other free thing...etc.. those start eating up resources fast.

WIN10 loves to have all those windows on your screen in little bitty squares all running...

Not like the old days when you only had one or two programs opened at one time...

I am running 8GB on my QVC DELL INSPIRON I7 Intel Core 17R5737 Laptop...

Being a Radio Guy I have a good ten or twelve BROADCASTIFY tabs up and running all the time. This is my modern day RADIO SCANNER... Then in addition to that is the WINDOWS OFFICE Email-Wundermap WEATHER RADAR and several FORUMS (Radio and Camping) I have on all day long...

Keeps my dual 24-inch Monitors going all the time and is still very fast... Usually fire up my laptop at 6Am in the mornings and shut down at 11PM at night... Retirement mode hehe... My older XP Pro DELL M90 laptop is sitting in the mix running my radio ops and it takes forever to just do simple things... But it helps out keeping some things off the DELL INSPIRON setup...

All in a days work here...
Roy Ken

PC's are so cheap now days why cut yourself short. The software always runs a little better in more ram and ram is cheap, buy it now. A nice discussion on required hardware is HERE. I agree with you that there's no reason to spend a lot on hardware in our retired lives so we've settled on AMD or I3/I5 Intel processors, 2-4 GB RAM. SSD drives would be nice but are pricey compared to a regular HDD. We're easy on our laptops so opted for standard HDD and saved quite a bit of money. Info on SSD vs. HDD is HERE.

Dave

4GB of RAM is plenty for what you are doing. If you don't plan on saving a lot of videos and pictures to your computer you do not need a huge hard drive. SSD (Solid State Disk) is nice but not required. An SSD will boot up much faster than a hard drive.

Put your money into the largest SSD drive you can afford.
Memory, 12 mb is a nice number.
Myself, I went with 12 mb, but also 128 gb SSD, 1 terebyte 2nd hard drive, and because the SSD drice is so fast, just an I5 processor. All my programs are on the SSD, as are cache, and anything the OS needs. Boots up in 15 seconds.