How much RAM do you actually need? I did the research so you don't overspend

How much RAM do you actually need? I did the research so you don't overspend Features (Image credit: Google) (Image credit: Future) Marcus Mears III published From the top 20 most popular PC games RAM prices have risen to ridiculous heights over the past 6 months. It's to the point where you may well be better off purchasing a prebuilt PC than trying to source the parts at reasonable prices yourself. And with a looming GPU shortage coming in 2026 , it's only going to get worse for prospective PC builders. So I decided to take a look at the 20 most popular PC games of the year (by player count) to determine how much RAM you actually need in your gaming rig. If the games on this list are available in your library and you meet at least the minimum recommended RAM, I'd strongly suggest holding off on any purchases until prices settle back down. But if you just can't wait to build or upgrade your PC (I know how exciting it is!), let this list act as a guide to your RAM purchasing needs. Not a gamer? Skip ahead to the how much RAM do I need on my laptop section. RAM requirements for the top 20 most popular PC games Game Minimum Recommended Max 8GB 16GB 16GB 1GB N/A N/A 2GB 4GB N/A 2GB 4GB 16GB 8GB N/A N/A 4GB N/A N/A 6GB 8GB N/A 6GB 8GB N/A 4GB 8GB N/A 8GB 16GB N/A 8GB 16GB N/A 8GB 16GB N/A 4GB N/A N/A 8GB 16GB N/A 8GB 12GB 16GB 12GB 16GB N/A 16GB 16GB N/A 16GB 16GB N/A 8GB 16GB N/A 12GB 16GB N/A Note: Statistics for this list were pulled from Steam's " Top 100 played games by Daily Players " list and estimates from activeplayer.io's " Top 15 Most Popular PC Games of 2025 " list. They are not sorted by total player count. RAM requirements were collected from the system requirements sections. As you can see from the table above, 8GB is by no small margin the most common minimum RAM requirement for modern games. Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. In the past, I'd recommend a minimum of 16GB of DDR5 - and that's still what I ultimately think you should aim for, and what shows up most prevalently in the Recommended category - but with memory prices the way they are now , you may be able to skate by with half that. At least until RAM prices stabilize again and you can think about upgrading. Unfortunately, only a few games list a "max" configuration requirement, but those that do all specify 16GB. It's also important to note that if you run other programs, such as Chrome and Discord, for music and comms while you game, you'll need to factor that RAM usage into your setup. Google Chrome sucks up a ton of free memory - of course, some browsers are better optimized - but you...

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