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According to the latest update, the now-deleted page stated that Windows 11 should ideally run with 32GB of RAM. The changes were first spotted by Windows Current. Microsoft has silently removed all references to a support page that recommended lots of RAM for Windows 11.
The report highlights that (Its URL now redirects to the Learning Center’s homepage.) In the now-removed page, Microsoft stated that while 16GB of RAM was sufficient for most gamers, 32GB was the ideal memory amount for “serious gamers.”. Among the pages that were removed was one titled ““How to optimize your tech industry PC setup,” which Microsoft published in the Windows Learning Center on November 28th, 2025.
According to the latest update, in that page, Microsoft said 16GB was the baseline while 32GB was the “no worries” upgrade. Back in May, Microsoft previously removed a different support page from its Learning Center that recommended 32GB of RAM for tech industry on Windows 11 machines.
According to the latest update, with exorbitant hikes pushing RAM prices way up beyond the reach of everyday consumers—all thanks to AI data centers gobbling up all the RAM, storage, and GPUs they can get their hands on—it now costs over $250 for 32GB of DDR4 and over $400 for DDR5. Both of these now-removed pages claimed that 32GB of RAM was needed for the best Windows 11 experience… which is no longer a fitting recommendation given the current state of the devices market.
Industry observers note that you still need at least 16GB of RAM for a reasonably responsive experience, and 32GB if you want a great experience for years to come. Microsoft’s solution? To simply remove its 32GB recommendations from its Windows Learning Center pages. As of now, Microsoft hasn’t actually done anything to fundamentally improve the memory requirements and efficiency of Windows 11.
In a fresh development, whether that materializes—and how soon—is still to be seen. The move coincides with Microsoft’s recently launched “budget”-tier Surface Pro and Surface Laptop, which both offer only 8GB of RAM in their base configurations. That combined with Microsoft’s secret “Windows K2” project for improving performance on Windows 11 might actually help. To be fair, Microsoft recently unveiled that it wants to make Windows 11 less painful to use on 8GB of RAM.
Industry observers note that meanwhile, Windows 10 copes a lot better with less RAM than Windows 11 does, which might be one of the many reasons why so many users are still hanging onto Windows 10 PCs.
In a fresh development, this article originally appeared on our sister publication PC-WELT and was translated and localized from German.
As part of the ongoing story, he has been writing on almost all IT topics for around 25 years, covering everything from news to reviews and buying guides. Hans-Christian Dirscherl began his IT life with Autoexec.bat and config.sys, Turbo-Pascal and C, Sinix and Wordperfect.