Realistically, How Important is RAM?

[GavinDoesntKnowPC]

I'm building my first Gaming Rig in November and I was wondering, I know that RAM is a rather large factor to gaming. However, HOW important is it? Right now I'm planning on going with a G.SKILL 8 GIG ram stick (Two 4 GIG Sticks). If I want to future proof it, should I upgrade to 16 GIG's or stick at 8. I'm sorry for making this thread so long but I really wanted to explain my situation. Thanks for any replies and have a nice day.

 

[Palnetz]

I'm building my first Gaming Rig in November and I was wondering, I know that RAM is a rather large factor to gaming. However, HOW important is it? Right now I'm planning on going with a G.SKILL 8 GIG ram stick (Two 4 GIG Sticks). If I want to future proof it, should I upgrade to 16 GIG's or stick at 8. I'm sorry for making this thread so long but I really wanted to explain my situation. Thanks for any replies and have a nice day.

For gaming, 8gb is more than enough, and it's what most of us would recommend. You should only get 16gb IF you will do multi-threaded apps like video editing, where RAM really makes a difference. For gaming, however, it won't make a difference on performance if you upgrade from 8gb to 16gb. No game, as of today, would be able to utilize more than 8 gigabytes of memory.

In short, don't upgrade to 16gb if you won't do any editing or Photoshop or any multi-threaded apps. As of now, games won't utilize the extra 8gb if you upgrade to 16gb.

UPDATE: Forgot to add that most games only utilize about 5-6 gb of RAM.