Despite ongoing reports of a memory crisis driven by high demand from AI data centers, a survey conducted by PC Gamer reveals that a substantial 79% of its readership possesses 32GB or more of RAM in their primary gaming PCs. This finding contrasts with expectations that there would be a more even split between 16GB and 32GB configurations.
The survey results show that 50% of respondents have 32GB of RAM, making it the most common configuration among those polled. Even more surprisingly, 18% reported having 16GB, a figure lower than the 20% who stated they have 64GB of RAM. A further 7% reported having more than 64GB, while 3% still utilize 8GB configurations.
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Collectively, those with 8GB and 16GB configurations account for 21% of the surveyed readers. This means that upgrades for this segment of users are becoming increasingly costly due to the current memory market conditions.
The article notes that while RAM capacity is a significant factor, the type of RAM also matters, with DDR4 configurations potentially limiting future upgrade paths compared to newer DDR5 modules. However, it suggests that 32GB of DDR4 might still be preferable to 16GB of DDR5 in the current climate, as even older CPU generations paired with sufficient RAM can adequately feed modern GPUs.
This widespread adoption of higher RAM capacities among PC Gamer readers appears to have insulated a large portion of the audience from the immediate impact of the memory crisis on their gaming systems. Nevertheless, the broader effects of the memory shortage, including increased prices for storage devices, PCs, laptops, and graphics cards, continue to affect the market.