Tom's hardware price lists:

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ssds/ssd-price-tracking-2026-lowest-price-on-every-m-2-ssd

The cheapest 4TB drive Toms lists is this: ($480)

https://sp-siliconpower.com/products/silicon-power-ud90-4tb-pcie-nvme-gen4x4-m-2-2280-internal-solid-state-drive

 

 Going from 32gb to 64gb made a MASSIVE difference for me with 2024. I was getting near constant Low GPU mem warnings in the sim but if I checked the built in fps display it showed NO issues at all with GPU memory (barely 50% on my RTX 4080) but it showed that it was my system ram that was hovering on exhaustion. My monitor is an ultra-wide  at 5120x1440 and that wasn't even running in full screen, often 60-70% windowed.
 I upgraded to 64gb in January and it has been smooth sailing ever since.  Yup, I paid an arm and a leg for it, but figured the prices weren't going down anytime soon and I am very happy that I did as they have gone up even more since then (approx $360 more now than what I paid 4 months ago). When I think back to even just late last summer I could have gotten the entire 64gb kit for about $250 which is now retailing for $1400.

The short answer is, those who have 32 are going to say 32 is enough, those who have 64 are going to say that 64 is better.

64 is better 😉

I think today it's mostly about $$$ .

 

dd

I upgraded from the 32Gb I had last year for 2020 to 64Gb for my new 2024 setup.

I don’t regret it one bit but there some things to be aware of - apart from the price! I bought my original 32Gb RAM for £150. The extra RAM cost £320!

However there are still issues to be aware of when you install 4x16Gb DIMMS. Not sure whether this applies to all motherboards, but on my Gigabyte Aero z790, I can’t run 64Gb with XMP1 at 6000MHz with CL30 timings, bc it becomes unstable. I’ve got mine running now with XMP2 with CL40 at 5600MHz.

i would start by staying with 32Gb assuming they are 2x16Gb. Unless you’re already running 4k… then that might not be enough. There’s loads of optimisations you can do now esp with SU5 that will definitely help.

Anyway good luck with it, hope this helps.

5 hours ago, Funky D said:

As others mentioned, the sim will take advantage of over 32GB of RAM, but whether or not there is a noticeable performance benefit

MSFS is very cache-friendly, the 7800X3D's cache memory already eliminates a lot of memory pressure. at high graphics settings/high  resolution, memory speed becomes virtually irrelevant.

6 minutes ago, rayharris108 said:

Unless you’re already running 4k…

higher resolution requires more GPU/VRAM, not mainboard DRAM

3 hours ago, St Mawgan said:

those who have 32 are going to say 32 is enough, those who have 64 are going to say that 64 is better.

and the single one user who has 96 GB said it was even better 😀

hasn't provided a single benchmark screenhot showing increased fps or more constant frametimes though. 

Edited April 19Apr 19 by turbomax

I still only have 16bg of system dram on a 7 year old pc with a 3080 gtx gpu... and I get no memory warnings from msfs 2024 at all.

But then again I don't use any scenery addons, only aircraft addons. It runs fine and with that new frame generation mod I am getting 100+ fps and all is nice and smooth on approach in NY area.

I can’t say how much better 96GB is, but I am glad i went “overboard” on RAM over a year ago. Memory prices have gone insane thanks to AI. 

9 hours ago, turbomax said:

hasn't provided a single benchmark screenhot showing increased fps or more constant frametimes though

Sorry, not going to pull out my 96GB RAM, buy 32GB RAM and run more testing to provide resulting data and then no one caring what the data suggest because they just "want to believe" ... seems a bit pointless ... unless of course you're willing to fund the work effort?  😉 

I have provided screenshots of RAM use many times and will again:

43GB used

42GB used:

These are screen captures I posted from the videos I made.  I'm not going to post my videos because I hate to be accused of trying to make money from them even though I don't monetize any of my videos nor sell merchandise nor have big fat juicy contracts with vendors ... not that it matters because we back to people just "wanting to believe whatever the heck they want to believe". 🙂

Quick overview of why one wants to use the fastest possible access to data/resources:

• HDD - slow as snot 175-300 MB/s access times 8ms 
• SSD SATA - better 600 MB/s - access times 0.5ms
• PCIe Gen3 NVMe - 1,500 - 3,500 MB/s - access times 0.025ms (normally measure in us microseconds)
• PCIe Gen4 NVMe - 5,000 - 7,000 MB/s - access times 0.020ms
• PCIe Gen5 NVMe - 10,000 - 14,000 MB/s - access times 0.020ms
• DDR5 RAM 6000Mhz - 50,000 MB/s - 0.00001ms access times (normally measure in ns nanoseconds)
• GDDR7 RAM - 192,000 MB/s - 0.0000022ms access times

It's a pretty simple concept, the more data you have in the fastest possible storage component, the better for performance.  For FPS hunters (of which I am not) this doesn't translate exactly to some magical FPS increase (too many other variables on software and hardware side), it should however reduce long frame frequency so one's FPS will be a bit more consistent.

 

Edited April 19Apr 19 by SayAgain

28 minutes ago, SayAgain said:

I have provided screenshots of RAM use

and where exactly do you show a direct relationship between more RAM results in more fps? the fact that MSFS can use and pre-load stuff into main memory upto 42 GB is not proof that this makes the sim run smoother. especially not when using CPU's that have lots of cache, which is many times faster than main DRAM.

13 hours ago, St Mawgan said:

The short answer is, those who have 32 are going to say 32 is enough, those who have 64 are going to say that 64 is better.

64 is better 😉

48 Gb is better 🥳

Only "small hiccups" when loading at complex airport, all maxed, goes to over 30 GB then it drops to 22-25 GB...I thought I might not be able to run without 64 GB like I had on my 2020 PC...but it proved me wrong. So far 32 is sufficient on my build. Saved some $$ at least....

13 minutes ago, turbomax said:

and where exactly do you show a direct relationship between more RAM results in more fps? the fact that MSFS can use and pre-load stuff into main memory upto 42 GB is not proof that this makes the sim run smoother. especially not when using CPU's that have lots of cache, which is many times faster than main DRAM.

Where did he say that "more RAM results in more fps"?