‘The only worry is for your budget’: Microsoft briefly says 32GB of RAM is the ‘no worries’ level for gaming on Windows 11, but users fear getting priced out

• 32GB of RAM is a “no worries zone” for gamers, Microsoft says
• Users aren’t happy — especially with the current price of memory
• The article has since disappeared, which is perhaps for the best

How much RAM is enough RAM for your Windows 11 gaming PC? It’s an age-old debate, but Microsoft has briefly recommended 32GB as the “no worries zone” level, if you’re planning on doing some multi-tasking alongside your actual gaming.

We say briefly, because the article mentioning 32GB of RAM has now been pulled from the Windows Learning Center — though not before Windows Latest and several other outlets spotted the new advice for gamers.

Perhaps the Microsoft marketing team realized that recommending 32GB of RAM wasn’t the best idea during the current RAM crisis, when AI data center demand is driving up prices to ridiculously expensive levels.

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Certainly, reaction on Reddit has not been kind: “the only worry is for your budget” quips one poster, while another says “the correct amount of RAM for Windows 11 is installing Linux” (a sentiment that seems to be broadly shared online).

Worried, or not worried?

Microsoft says 32GB of RAM is the “no-worries” upgrade for Windows 11 gaming from r/technology

To be fair to Microsoft, the now-pulled document said that 16GB of RAM remained the baseline for gamers, and the recommended RAM for Windows 11 itself is still 8GB. It’s really the awkward phrasing that’s new.

The unsaid implication of labeling 32GB as the “no worries zone” is that gamers who spend a lot of time in their browser, checking Discord, or livestreaming content while gaming should be worried if they’ve only got 16GB installed.

It’s all semantics to some extent, but with prices continuing to shoot upwards — affecting every company in the industry — it’s perhaps not the best idea to push 32GB of RAM as the new normal, especially when your own Copilot AI is contributing to memory shortages.

Reddit is filled with requests for Microsoft to get busy optimizing RAM usage on Windows 11 rather than advising customers to buy more memory — though there are also complaints about the bloat of Discord and modern AAA games as well.

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Dave is a freelance tech journalist who has been writing about gadgets, apps and the web for more than two decades. Based out of Stockport, England, on TechRadar you’ll find him covering news, features and reviews, particularly for phones, tablets and wearables. Working to ensure our breaking news coverage is the best in the business over weekends, David also has bylines at Gizmodo, T3, PopSci and a few other places besides, as well as being many years editing the likes of PC Explorer and The Hardware Handbook.