Be careful with what you wish for... if they can't do it on your computer, then they'll send your data to the cloud to do it there.

nvidia opensourced their drivers because of that lapsus kid.

the community is already building a state of the art open driver for nvidia 2xxxx and above.

only a matter of time, but even then nvidia is pretty usable with the proprietary drivers nowadays.

Code optimization has pretty much fallen by the way side since ram prices keep going down and cpu performance keeps improving.

Why spend the time if you don't have to?

Browsers are some of the worst culprits.

For windows, yes. For Linux and OSx, 8gb si still ok for most usecase

8GB was the bare minimum in 2010. It’s amazing how the increase of memory just stopped.

I have 8 and am able to play 4x games at high settings w/o significant lag until late game lol. People really tend to blow this one out of proportion. Unless you're an incredibly heavy user you probably don't need more than 8 and 16 still feels luxurious.

8 GB is the absolute bare fucking minimum for most computers these days

I keep seeing this statement all around the web but it is still amazing that we need that much RAM even for today.

Don't get me wrong, I know 8 GB is becoming the standard even for mobile phones, so it is only logical to assume to bump this number for PCs (why no 12 GBS of RAM? IDK) and I have been using 16 GBs of RAM for 10 years now, it is a MacBook Pro and for me Apple does not make it clear to see how much of that RAM I'm actually using... Regardless RAM has never been a problem for me, with casual usage, and I always thought 8 GBs should work the same for even a lighter usage, why do I say that? Because before moving to such a Mac I used a laptop with 4 GBs of RAM around 2011-2014 and it was a pain in the ass to use (the processor was shit as well) for simple navigation for my thesis... So yeah if you think 8 GBs is bad, try 4 GBs.

Another reason I think 8 GBs is "a high amount for casual usage" is that my work PC had also 4 GBs of RAM, but there was not a reason to hoard tabs and such, so it was very manageable (also the processor wasn't shit, but it was like a Core i5 or something like that, the usual office PCs you see and know), if we are talking about bottlenecks it would be the shitty HDD speeds LMAO.

What I think you guys all mean with 8 GBs of RAM is the bare minimum for nowadays standard is if you use it for IT related topics or you like to hoard stuff in it (which ain't bad, unused RAM is wasted RAM after all) or simply depend on heavy programs which ain't the web browser, for casuals I'd say 6 GBs would be a fair number, although it is not usual, and fuck 4 GBs of RAM in 2024, for any kind of device lol (I bet offices still use that dog shit).

Anyway I'd personally aim for 16 GBs of RAM or more regardless, for any of my future purchases, because I like to keep my stuff for years to come.

256MB on my old NAS running OpenMediaVault.

Strictly speaking, "Linux" can run on 10MB of RAM or less.

Meanwhile, a single web page may need 100MB or more to build the DOM, run all scripts, and keep a buffer of the canvas.

Phones are coming with 12GB and Apple are still only putting 8Gb in their ‘pro’ line.

🙃

Well, Chrome OS is a thing.

Average users aren’t going to be installing an OS.

The article mentions AI. 16gigs feels far too little to run a LLM of respectable size so I wonder what exactly this means? Feels like no one is gonna be happy about a 16gig LLM (high RAM usage and bad AI features)

That's probably not the worst option for most consumers. People are horrible about keeping their shit updated.

Most people only use their computers for web browsing anyways, and many people buy systems that are way more powerful than what they actually need. I've had to talk a ton of people out of buying i7 laptops just for Office and the internet.

I've built and maintained Citrix VDI environments for a global company, and once people get over the "this is new" hurdle, they love it.