DDR5 gaming capacity scaling Realities: The SSD Cushion of Modern System Memory

Today we’re testing 8, 16, 32, 48, and 64 GB, gaming only, and gaming plus apps in the background. And as of now in 2026, RAM prices are quite crazy, decreasing, but still quite high. So, for today’s article, I’ll be showing you if you really need at least 32 GB of RAM. And I can tell you right away that you’ll be pretty impressed with some games that can even run with 8 GB of RAM. And I mean run well like Crimson Desert that is a 2026 game and runs pretty well with only 8 GB of RAM.

And this happens because your system will adapt and gather the resources as it needs. If you’re low on VRAM, your graphics card RAM, your system will try to help by using your RAM, which is fairly slower but still helps. And if you’re low on RAM, your system will use your disc which is also fairly slower but still helps. And since nowadays discs are way faster than they used to be with NVME discs for example PCI Express 5 and so on. RAM is not a huge issue as it has been in the past.

I remember when lacking RAM was an absolute nightmare because we only have the HDDs the hard solid the hard what are you doing here? The hard drive discs and they were fairly slow. So, as soon as you went out of RAM, the system would use your disc and things would get crazy with lots of stutters and so on. But gladly, those times are behind our backs. This is all to say that you will be impressed by how well some games can run with only 8 GB of RAM the same way that you’ll be impressed with today’s sponsor.

Sponsor Notice: GBG Moore

Today’s sponsor is GBG Moore. bringing lots of software deals like Windows 10 and several versions of Windows 11 like Home Pro and even the LTSC Enterprise. You also have Office 2021 with Windows 11 design where you can use my SKG discount code for 30% off getting your Windows 11 key for $25 and your Windows 10 one for 15. After that, just use your key on your Windows settings and you’ll have an activated system.

Test Methodology and System Configurations

And before going into the benchmarks, I just want to let you know that in terms of configurations used for this article, we’re testing, of course, 8, 16, 32, 48, and 64 GB of RAM. 8 GB being 1 + 8 GB because there are no 4 GB sticks of DDR5, at least not for desktop. Then we have 2 * 8 GB for 16 GB, 2 * 16 GB for 32 GB, 2 * 24 GB for 48 GB, and 4 * 16 GB for the 64 GB.

All running at the same frequency and timings of 6,000 MTS 36 36 36 36 even with subtimings tweaked manually tweaked in order to not have performance deviations because we are using different RAMs RAM not RAM sticks RAM kit. So yeah in order to not have those performance deviations and well with this all said let’s see how things go.

Game-by-Game Benchmark Results

Outriders

Starting with our craters, we have the 8 GB stick performing decently well, delivering around the same average FPS, but consistently lower 1% lows. Think that happens especially when having the apps opened. And for the ones that haven’t read the intro, the apps consist of 11 browser tabs plus Discord. And as for any configuration above 8 GB, they all run well.

Now, RAM doesn’t really get affected by resolution, but we’re using an RTX 5070 that only has 12 GB VRAM. And the higher the resolution, the more VRAM you’ll need. And like I explained before, as soon as you get out of VRAM, the system will try to compensate with RAM. And that’s exactly why I’m using the 12 GB RTX 5070 and also testing 4K. After all, with a smaller FPS output, the only two configurations that had slightly lower values were 8 and 16 GB and only with the apps opened.

Counter Strike 2

As for Counter Strike 2, we can see some interesting results. First of all, it seems that the game and the CPU benefited a bit from having four RAM sticks with the game only, delivering higher averages and considerably higher 1% lows. But besides this outlier, 16, 32, 48, and 64 GB configurations are almost all within the margin of error, with the 8 GB still being perfectly enjoyable, I would say. And that gets even better at 1440p, where the FPS output is lower and we get more GPU bottleneck, making the 8 GB configuration basically the same as the others, delivering a good overall experience.

Battlefield 6

Battlefield 6 uses Frostbite engine known to be very CPU and RAM dependent. And this was gameplay with bots in the CPU test v2 map. And while the 8 GB configuration was still usable here, we had some stutters that led the 1% lose to 70 instead of the usual 90. And it got even worse with apps opened where we got a big stutter down to 34 fps. And when we checking uh when checking the browser, I mean, you would notice that sometimes it would close some of the tabs in order to save memory. I mean, it’s only 8 GB. At 4K, everything was also within the margin of error, I would say, since this was a game play with 8 GB delivering a good result overall since the FPS output was also reduced.

Crimson Desert

Crimson Desert is a new addition to our benchmarks and a very deserved one to be honest. Here we can see the 8 GB being more than enough to be honest, performing quite well with minimal stutters as you can see in the gameplay passing right now on the screen. What I can’t really understand is how the 64 GB configuration gave me worse results than the 32 and 48 GB. I tested this several times to be honest, rebooted the computer and yet it would still deliver only 105 fps which is quite odd at 4K. Things got even as I went into a more GPU bottleneck scenario with the 8 GB performing extremely well on a title that released a couple of months ago. Outstanding.

Death Stranding 2

Although things turn 180° when we move to Death Stranding 2, that doesn’t even load into the game with only 8 GB. Maybe because it uses direct storage. I don’t really know. What I know here is that 8 GB is a no-go. But anything above 16 GB delivers exactly the same numbers. And the same applies to 4K where all configurations deliver the same results performance-wise.

Need for Speed Unbound

It for Speed and Bound also uses Frostbite engine and it is an excellent title when it comes to test CPU and RAM power. Although it seems that it has kind of a pattern of running better on the second run compared to the first one, which is usual for most games, but not all of the games, especially since we now have NVMEs.

The 8 GB configuration was still usable, but it generally delivered big stutters when loading new parts of the map as the memory needed to be refreshed and so it would stutter with 16 GB being quite acceptable in that regard and 32 GB and above being completely fine. At 4K, the RTX 5070 starts getting out of VRAMm in this game, and we start seeing some odd results. The 8 GB configuration crashed when testing with apps since the system was trying to allocate RAM to help with the lack of VRAM with 16 GB configuration also stuttering quite a lot in the same scenario. And above that, all configurations performed as expected. So yeah, for this game with apps opened, 32 GB at 4K with a card with only 12 GB VM, which is a very specific scenario, but yeah, in those case scenarios, 32 GB is the minimum for a good experience.

Fortnite

As for Fortnite, we have around the same scenario as we had before with all configurations besides the 8 GB performing around the same with with and without apps. Sorry. The 48 GB kit um had a small drop to 125 average FPS, but it was around 131 with the app. So that’s just a small deviation I would say. At 4K VRAM and bandwidth are requested a bit more. So the 8 GB ran worse with only the game, but had a huge stutter when running the apps in the background, leading to 1% lows of 1 FPS. Besides that, all kits ran considerably well with higherend kits, of course, having a bit higher 1% lows.

PUBG

As for PUBG, we have one of the most stable benchmarks I’ve ever seen. Rock solid results, to be honest. At 1440p, all configurations ran extremely well with the game having no issues running with only 8 GB of RAM, which is great for low-end users. And of course, the same exact scenario happens at 4K. Absolutely no difference.

Resident Evil Requiem

Resident Evil Reququum is an entirely different case though. It uses a lot of VRAM required a lot of bandwidth because you it uses rate tracing as well and pushes the RTX 5070 to places it doesn’t like. That’s exactly why you see the results here where the 1% lows are completely messed in most cases with the extreme one being 8 GB where the 1% lows are extremely low in both situations which is understandable. I mean it’s 8 GB for a 2026 game. Moving to 4K keeps things at around the same mess as we’ve seen before with the RTX 5070 getting VRAM bottleneck and getting bunished FPS wise even with a bigger RAM kit.

Romeo is a Dead Man

Now with a game that I personally enjoyed a lot, Romeo is a dead man. Here we have the 8 GB configuration running outstandingly well. One more time with 1% lows deviating a bit on the configuration because I mean the FPS tend to drop a bit on the battle parts. Nonetheless, the bigger RAM kits only have around 2 FPS more when compared to 8 GB, which is nothing. and that nothing gets transposed to 4K where the averages and 1% lows are around the same even with 8 GB of RAM running a 2026 Unreal Engine 5 title.

Spider Man 2

With Spider-Man 2, we have another Sony game and another game that doesn’t even load with 8 GB of RAM. And like I said before, I suppose that is due to some Sony games using direct storage, but I might be wrong. Let me know in the comments section, by the way, if you know I’m wrong in this case scenario. As for the results, as soon as we have at least 16 GB of RAM, I mean, we’re completely fine playing Spider-Man 2, even with the apps on the background.

The Last of Us Part Two

And the final game is The Last of Us Part Two. Another Sony game and another one that doesn’t launch with 8 GB of RAM. It is also another game that runs completely fine as long as you have 16 GB. Something that does not change at all when moving to 4K as expected, I would say. I mean, it even rhymed, so that’s great. As for the averages, things are nothing relevant to be honest.

Benchmark Synthesis and Average FPS Realities

8 GB shows considerably lower results here because there are some games where it didn’t launch like Death Stranding, Spider-Man, and so on. But anything over 16 GB is more than enough for most case scenarios. Even with a 12 GB GPU like the RTX 5070 and even at 4K where those same 12 GB VM get pushed a lot and the system will sometimes try to compensate by using RAM even there anything over 16 GB would be more than enough.

Now will you have higher smoothness overall after an hour of gameplay when using 32 GB? you most likely will, especially if you have a lower-end CPU and disk, as the memory will need to get refreshed a lot more, and when that happens, it might stutter a little. I would say that the sweet spot is definitely 32 GB in 2026. But if you can’t afford it, as you see in this article, 16 GB of DDR5 will suffice in will suffice, sorry, in most case scenarios. So, you’re good to go, I would say.

And well, the performance is basically on par with it. As I was saying, the performance is basically on par with every single kit and every single configuration as long as you have the same frequency and timings. In this case, 16 GB 32, 48, and 64 GB. They all perform around the same with some minor deviations here and there. But since we are using the same frequency, the same timings, and the same the same sub timings, the capacity itself doesn’t really matter much unless you go to 8 GB. Of course, in all the games that we tested, only one game had slightly lower FPS when going to 16 GB, but that was it. Besides that, all games would run perfectly well with 16 GB. And that happens because once more, we have NVMEs and powerful CPUs.

Why Modern PC Storage Changes the RAM Equation

Now if we were talking about maybe 5 6 7 years ago things would be different because discs were much slower were much slower than they are. RAM was much slower and um even the CPUs were much slower. So doing all the decompression the memory refreshing and so on would cause several stutters since NVME discs are quite fast nowadays. And for this test I’m not even using a PCI Express NVME. I’m using a normal PCI Express 4 NVME that’s fairly cheap to be honest. I believe it’s the Kingston NV3 or something like that. So, nothing really hugely fast and still 8 GB will still be able to perform decently well.

16 GB, 32, 48, and 64 will again deliver the same exact performance apart from some minor deviations. But yeah, so I really hope this article helped you in some way. Again, more RAM is never never worse. So if you have more RAM, it is always better especially if you’re doing some productivity and so on where you actually need lots of capacity or maybe if you’re going let’s say for some MLMs and so on, you need VRAM, you need RAM and so on, that’s fine.

Conclusion and Final Buying Recommendations

But for gaming only as of 2026, I would say that yeah, unless you are really on a budget, 32 GB will suffice. If you can’t really spend more money because RAM prices are still quite high and if you again if you can’t absolutely get 32 GB, I believe that you’ll be completely fine with 16 GB as long as you have an NVME of course and your CPU isn’t from the prehistoric ages or something like that. So if you have a decent CPU, if you have a decent disc, 16 GB will be more than enough. Well, even 8 GB will suffice in some case scenarios, but 8 GB I can definitely not recommend. So, yeah, 16 GB is okay. If you can, 32 GB.

And once more, more RAM is never worse. It’s always better. It’s like I mean, it’s like like gas. It’s always better to have more gas in order to to be able to to drift around with your car. I mean, not a great analogy, but you you know what I mean. And well, that’s all for this article. Again, hope you really enjoy the article. Leave your comment in the comment section. Let me know what you think about 8 16 GB and so on. Let me know if you thought let you thought let me know if you thought that that the performance with 8 GB would be so great because again I myself was surprised and leave your comment in the comment section saying that. Thank you very much and see you in the next article. Cheers.

DDR5 gaming capacity scaling Realities: The SSD Cushion of Modern System Memory