32GB is worth it if you plan to keep the laptop for 3+ years.

Yes – if you can afford the upgrade and your laptop has replaceable RAM, go for 32GB. It’s cheap insurance against future bloat.

For general productivity (browsers, office apps, video calls) and light gaming, 16GB is still fine in 2025. But it’s also the new baseline for “I don’t want to think about it.” Chrome alone will eat 4-6GB with a dozen tabs. Windows 11 idles around 4GB. Light games add another 2-4GB. That leaves you maybe 4GB of headroom with 16GB – which sounds fine until you have a background zoom call, a Slack client, and a game running. Suddenly you’re paging.

The real argument for 32GB is longevity. Laptops last 4-6 years now. Software doesn’t get less hungry. And since your RAM is socketed (not soldered), you can do this upgrade cheaply yourself. A 32GB kit (2x16GB) is like $50-70. That’s less than a decent dinner for two. Future you will thank present you the first time you have 20 tabs open, a VM running, and Discord in the background without a stutter.

Light gaming won’t see a huge FPS boost, but it will prevent stutter when the system runs out of memory and swaps to SSD. That feels like lag. 32GB removes it.

One caveat: if you’re on a strict budget or plan to replace the laptop in 2 years, skip it. 16GB still works for most people. But if you’re keeping this machine, spend the $60. It’s the best performance-per-dollar upgrade you can do.