| Use | Practical starting point | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Web, office | 16 GB | Modern browsers and OS use several GB on their own |
| Gaming | 32 GB | Headroom for the game plus background apps |
| Photo/video, dev work | 32–64 GB | Large projects, VMs, containers |
| Local AI with a GPU | At least the model size, ideally more | Models load through RAM; overflow layers run from RAM |
| Local AI on CPU or unified memory | Model size + context + OS | RAM is the model memory |
These are general guidelines, not measurements. Check each application's published requirements.
AI-specific detail: how much RAM for local AI. Difference from GPU memory: VRAM vs RAM.