PC GPU died, need help with what to go for next

[Randelmire]

I don't know which programs you are using, but I never hit the pagefile in daily use/gaming. I wasn't even close to the 3GB mark, except when compressing something with 7zip at custom settings.

Steam, Chrome, Winamp, MSN Messenger, Avast, sometimes Photoshop (yes, I agree it may seem abusive, but some times I take screenshots and edit them right away), Motioninjoy, Dropbox, Microsoft Excel, Mumble.

You should know that I don't only do gaming with that computer. Depending on what I do, I often go over 4gig usage. (Virtual machines, image and video editing, etc...) Other games in the future may have to use more ram too.

Anyway, by going with 4 gig right now, you may be fine, but maybe in a year or two you will need an upgrade. Why not pay about 15 or 20$ more right away and get 8gb instead of 4gb, if you are already going to buy a gaming computer that will cost you a few hundreds?

Last time I asked myself that question was about 4 years ago. At that time, I agree that 4gb was more than enough, but not today. Not for a gaming computer.

You don't seem to be aware win7 is using all available RAM a fixed percentage of RAM for speeding up HDD access. So the more RAM you have in your machine, the more will be used. This used RAM will be freed in case you need it, so going just by that number is not reliable.

Well, that does mean that you are using more than 4gig in that case. If Windows must free up some of the space used to speed up HDD read, it means you loose that feature.