Upgraded to GTX970 about a month ago, though I feel like I should probably get more system RAM for newer games. How much RAM is enough these days?
Yes, so it's enough. As long as you dont multitask much, you still have at least 1GB (or 2GB) to spare. There is no game out there right now that would need more than 8 GB. If you find a sale or some fantastic promotion, by all means, buy some more, future proof you rig, but at the moment 8 GB will blitz any game with room to spare.
Yep, I am throwing my hat into the 8GB bin. Sometime within the next couple of years I will probably bump up to 16GB, but for the time being 8GB covers the gamut. It really depends on what you do too. You won't need more than 8GB, unless you like to have Photoshop, Illustrator and multiple web browsers open while playing a new high end game at the same time. It's pretty much a consensus that unless you're doing heavy memory reliant tasks like video editing, or using intense 3D development apps, 8GB is plenty.
Dunno why would anyone need more than 8gb if you dont do some serious whatever stuff where you need that much. All basic gaming and stuff (not rendering or editing videos etc) is all I do and I have 6gb and I never had any problems getting bottlenecked by ram. If I was building new pc I would buy 8gb and add another 8gb in future if I really needed more for something.
8gb is more than enough for my needs but if I was piecing a new machine, I'd go 16. Your ram amount depends on what you do, best way to know for sure would be to monitor your usage during heavy work loads.
The way I see it with memory, I don't go by the standard. I usually try to double it, that way whatever rig you have you're set in multiple ways. If you keep your rig, you'll have that memory that apps at some point will desire, you can reuse the memory in a new rig, or if you repurpose your rig you'll have the memory for that. Only reason I don't have 12gb of ram in my Mac Pro right now is because ram for this machine is not cheap! Hopefully I will soon.
Twice the average of what you usually see advertised is what I recommend. Right now, that is 8GB. For a moderate pc user, that would be 16GB. If you do video compression, streaming, etc...then maybe 24-32. But, 16 should suffice more than you will ever use in the next 5 years.
You can buy regular laptop ram for it...Can't you? Pretty sure you can put the same Ballistix I have in any Macbook. Oh you say 12BG so you need old Tri Channel laptop ram?
So hardcore. So old school. It's like Windows 3.1 again ... say no to pagefiles! RAM is cheap, get how much you can afford. 16GB will last you a long time. Heck even my 6GB is doing fine after 6 years.