Processors get all the glory when it comes to spouting performance specifications, but RAM is the beating heart of a computer’s engine. Plenty of RAM, or random access memory, is in large part a crucial component of a gaming rig that can play demanding titles. It even helps run your computer without lag and slowdown when you have a bazillion browser tabs open.

Microsoft ruffled feathers when it posted a brief message, which it later took down, that called 32 GB of RAM the “no-worries” amount of RAM for PC gaming. Microsoft pulled the post down after a Reddit thread touched off like an angry wildfire, but not before several gaming news sites, including Windows Latest, picked it up and ran with it.

a tough 32 gb pill to swallow

Why did Microsoft’s comment touch a nerve with Windows gamers? Because the AI industry’s insatiable demand for computer components hasn’t just driven up prices and created availability shortages for GPUs. It’s also done the same for RAM. We’re used to the prices of computers and computer parts falling reliably over time, and yet over the past year the price of RAM has skyrocketed.

Telling us common folk to lay down several hundred bucks on 32 GB of RAM, which is quite a lot, is easy for a megacorporation like Microsoft, and it hit the PC gaming community as tone deaf. Microsoft still calls 16 GB the baseline, but the 32 GB is still quite a lot of RAM for most people.

“Microsoft is not saying 16GB is outdated, and they still frame it as a practical starting point,” as Windows Latest opined. “But it is obvious here that 32GB is no longer positioned as an enthusiast upgrade. It’s being normalized as the safer, more future-proof option.”

You can still get by with 16 GB of RAM for Windows gaming, although Microsoft’s here-today-gone-tomorrow statement gives us a peek into its mindset when it comes to what’ll be considered adequate in the near future.