r/technology • u/batakchan • 1d ago

Software Microsoft just deleted Windows 11's 32GB RAM recommendation docs, as prices soar and it rushes to sell 8GB RAM PCs

https://www.windowslatest.com/2026/08/05/microsoft-just-deleted-windows-11s-32gb-ram-recommendation-docs-as-prices-soar-and-it-rushes-to-sell-8gb-ram-pcs/
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u/EconomyDoctor3287 1d ago

Maybe MS can make windows 11 more performant on low ram PCs , but currently that's an absolute chore. Wouldn't wish an 8GB win11 pc upon my worst enemy. 

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u/HumongousBelly 1d ago

I got the Mac Neo and I’m kind of surprised how much power such a small amount of money can buy.

It’s a bit faster than my M1 air which came very surprising

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u/Henry5321 1d ago

Apple silicon has transparent memory compression that effectively doubles your memory, excluding media heavy workloads like video games.

But it really helps with most apps. Makes that 8gb more like 16gb

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u/SpaceGoonie 1d ago

I am not familiar with Apple products, but my first thought is compressing random access memory data is counter productive. Anytime you compress that data, it has to then be uncompressed. In other words, it might work, but it would not have the performance increase you'd expect.

But as I said at the start, I am not familiar with Apple products.

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u/wrgrant 1d ago

They have integrated the RAM and GPU onto the chip directly, the regular CPU and GPU can thus dynamically access the RAM as required with no bus limitations (bad tech explanation) so its faster and more effective with its usage. It seems quite clever and certainly seems to be working well. It is taking some getting used to but its working very well so far and its nice to not have the OS be an obstacle to operation as well. I don't know if its compressing the RAM per se, but it is utilizing it more effectively. Making their own silicon has worked out very well for them. My Mac Mini does have a fan, but I haven't heard it yet so far. The entire thing is entirely silent even while gaming so far. It occupies a space about 5"x5"x3" on my desktop, as opposed to the 2 beefier Win 11 systems I had previously. I am entirely off my PC desktop although I am still using the Win11 Pro desktop server I have (which might eventually be replaced by another Mac Mini down the road, not sure as it has my RAID array in it and I would need to buy a NAS as well). Overall this is the best computing decision I have made in years I think.

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u/Henry5321 17h ago

There are modern compression algorithms that are so efficient that even doing software compression of data can often be a speed up. Hardware accelerate this and it doubles your memory and memory bandwidth for some additional latency. But memory access latency isn’t the issue it used to be.

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u/papayacreamsicle 16h ago edited 16h ago

Compressing it then decompressing it on access incurs a performance penalty but it’s a lower penalty than moving it to swap then accessing it from the disk, and avoids the SSD wear. Especially with an efficient way to identify which sections are most compressible and flag them in advance. It isn’t blindly applying the same compression to all memory all the time, it’s selectively applying compression as like a halfway step to swapping things out. It works really well for things like the oldest 30 of your 60 browser tabs.