How much RAM do I need for my laptop?
Choose RAM for a laptop
Depending on what you want to do with a laptop, you need a certain amount of RAM. To choose the right amount of RAM, ask yourself the following:
- What are you going to use the laptop for?
- Do I want to upgrade the RAM?
Usage situations
In general, the more RAM, the more tasks your laptop can handle at the same time. This affects the speed of your laptop. To make it easy, we've listed a number of usage situations in the table below. This way, you know exactly how much RAM you need at least for how you will use your laptop.
Recommended amount of RAM per situation
| 4GB | 6GB | 8GB | 16GB | 32GB | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Internet and text processing | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Watching movies and series | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Excel and management systems | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Photo editing | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Video editing | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Gaming | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Virtual reality | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
Expand the RAM
Is Photoshop running slow on your old laptop after the last update? Your amount of RAM may no longer sufficient. Newer programs are often more demanding, so you need more RAM to run them. For some laptops, the RAM is easy to expand, making the laptop future-proof. We state whether the RAM is expandable in the specifications of each laptop. Note: the processor is also an important player in the speed of your laptop.
