32GB is quickly becoming the new standard for PC gamers – Steam suggests

32GB could be Steam’s most common RAM configuration before the end of this year

Valve’s Steam hardware survey is a great way to analyse trends within the PC gaming market. According to Steam’s August survey, it has become clear that PC gamers are adding more RAM to their systems. Now, almost 36.5% of Steam users have 32GB of system memory. Last month, only 35.2% of Steam users had this much RAM.

While 16GB remains the most common configuration, accounting for 41.88% of Steam users, 32GB is on track to overtake 16GB as the most common configuration on Steam. If current trends continue, 32GB will become the most common configuration on Steam in early 2026. However, it is worth noting that Microsoft dropping Windows 10 support could force a wave of PC upgrades and accelerate this trend.

The move to DDR5 has had a major impact

For modern PCs to run optimally, they typically need two DRAM sticks. With the move to DDR5, 8GB DRAM sticks have become incredibly uncommon, with 16GB sticks being more widely available, at least in the DIY PC market.

The shift to DDR5 has helped to increase the popularity of 32GB memory configurations. However, rising PC hardware requirements for games have started to make 16GB memory configurations seem inadequate. It is not uncommon for new PC games to list 16GB of RAM as a minimum requirement, with 32GB being recommended.

(New gaming PCs are being built with more RAM, 32GB is now a common configuration)

Over time, we expect 16GB memory configurations to become less common and 32GB configurations to become more common. Recently, 48GB, and 64GB memory configurations have also become more common. However, neither of these configurations is even close to being as common as 16GB or 32GB.

You can join the discussion on 32GB quickly becoming the most common memory configuration on the OC3D Forums.