Is 16GB of RAM the new minimum for AAA gaming?

Yes — especially for stuttering and load times in heavy games like Cyberpunk 2077 or Flight Simulator. 8GB might have been fine five years ago, but those days are over. Modern open-world games are memory hogs, and with 8GB your system starts swapping to disk constantly, causing stuttering and longer load times. If you’re still on 8GB and play anything modern, this is the single best $40-50 you can spend.