Memory capacity (Whole system) over time
Installed byte-addressed memory of the stated kind.
- Device scope
- whole-system
- Method
- Design capacity
- Plotted in
- byte
Chart
71 figures from 68 machines, spanning 1977 to 2025. The lowest memory capacity here is 128 B (Atari 2600, 1977) and the highest is 80 GiB (NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPU (SXM), 2022). That is a range of about 671 088 640× within one comparability group; the figures are plotted in B. Points use the release date of the machine the figure belongs to. The table below lists absent figures with their recorded reasons.
Data
| Machine | Released | Figure | Confidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atari 2600 | September 1977 | 128 B | Derived | |
| Intel 8086 PC | 1978 | 256 KiB | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Atari 800 | November 1979 | 49 152 B | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| IBM Personal Computer 5150 | August 1981 | 16 384 B | Derived | |
| BBC Micro Model B | December 1981 | 32 768 B | Derived | |
| Intel 80286 PC | 1982 | 512 KiB | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| ZX Spectrum 48K | April 1982 | 48 KiB | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Commodore 64 | August 1982 | 64 KiB | Derived | |
| Apple Macintosh 128K | January 1984 | 131 072 B | Derived provisional | |
| Intel 80386DX PC | 1985 | 4 MiB | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Atari 520ST | June 1985 | 524 288 B | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Nintendo Entertainment System | October 1985 | 4096 B | Derived | |
| Commodore Amiga 500 | 1987 | 1 MiB | Vendor-rated | |
| Sega Mega Drive | October 1988 | 65 536 B | Derived provisional | |
| Intel 80486DX PC | 1989 | 8 MiB | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Nintendo Game Boy | April 1989 | 8192 B | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| SNK Neo Geo AES | April 1990 | 65 536 B | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Super Nintendo Entertainment System | August 1991 | 196 608 B | Derived | |
| Commodore Amiga 1200 | October 1992 | 2 MiB | Derived | |
| Commodore Amiga 4000 | October 1992 | 2 MiB | Derived | |
| Intel Pentium PC | 1993 | 16 MiB | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Sega Saturn | November 1994 | 4 751 360 B | Derived | |
| Sony PlayStation | December 1994 | 2 MiB | Derived | |
| Nintendo 64 | June 1996 | 4 MiB | Derived | |
| 3dfx Voodoo Graphics 3dfx Voodoo Graphics frame buffer | November 1996 | 4 MB | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Intel Pentium II PC | 1997 | 64 MiB | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Silicon Graphics Octane Octane 1X 250MHz R10k | 1997 | 128 MiB | Vendor-rated | |
| Silicon Graphics Octane Octane 2X 250MHz R10k | 1997 | 256 MiB | Vendor-rated | |
| Sega Dreamcast | November 1998 | 16 MiB | Derived | |
| NVIDIA GeForce 256 DDR 32 MiB reference card | October 1999 | 32 MiB | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| NVIDIA GeForce 256 SDR 32 MiB reference card | October 1999 | 32 MiB | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Sony PlayStation 2 | March 2000 | 32 MiB | Derived | |
| Nintendo GameCube | September 2001 | 41 943 040 B | Derived | |
| Microsoft Xbox | November 2001 | 67 108 864 B | Derived provisional | |
| Intel Pentium 4 PC | 2002 | 512 MiB | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| ATI Radeon 9700 Pro ATI Radeon 9700 Pro frame buffer | August 2002 | 128 MiB | Vendor-rated | |
| Nintendo DS | November 2004 | 4096 KiB | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Microsoft Xbox 360 | November 2005 | 536 870 912 B | Derived provisional | |
| NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX frame buffer | November 2006 | 768 MiB | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Sony PlayStation 3 | November 2006 | 256 MiB | Derived | |
| Apple iPhone (1st generation) Apple iPhone system-on-chip memory | June 2007 | 128 MiB | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Apple iPhone 4 | June 2010 | 512 MiB | Measured provisional | |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 frame buffer | November 2010 | 1536 MiB | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Intel Core i7-2600K PC | January 2011 | 8 GiB | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Nintendo Wii U | November 2012 | 2 147 483 648 B | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Apple iPhone 5s | September 2013 | 1 GiB | Measured provisional | |
| Microsoft Xbox One | November 2013 | 8 589 934 592 B | Derived | |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti frame buffer | November 2013 | 3 GiB | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Sony PlayStation 4 PlayStation 4 unified system memory (GDDR5) | November 2013 | 8 GiB | Vendor-rated | |
| Apple iPhone 6s | September 2015 | 2 GiB | Measured provisional | |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 frame buffer | May 2016 | 8 GiB | Vendor-rated | |
| Nintendo Switch | March 2017 | 4 294 967 296 B | Derived | |
| Apple iPhone X | November 2017 | 3 GiB | Measured provisional | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti frame buffer | September 2018 | 11 GiB | Vendor-rated | |
| Apple iPhone 12 | October 2020 | 4 GB | Measured provisional | |
| Apple Mac mini (M1, 2020) 16 GB unified memory | November 2020 | 16 GiB | Vendor-rated | |
| Apple Mac mini (M1, 2020) 8 GB unified memory | November 2020 | 8 GiB | Vendor-rated | |
| Microsoft Xbox Series X | November 2020 | 17 179 869 184 B | Derived | |
| Sony PlayStation 5 PlayStation 5 unified GDDR6 memory | November 2020 | 16 GiB | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPU (SXM) NVIDIA H100 (SXM) GPU memory | 2022 | 80 GiB | Vendor-rated | |
| Valve Steam Deck | February 2022 | 17 179 869 184 B | Derived | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 frame buffer | October 2022 | 24 GiB | Vendor-rated | |
| AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX frame buffer | December 2022 | 24 GiB | Vendor-rated | |
| Apple iPhone 15 Pro | September 2023 | 8 GB | Measured provisional | |
| Intel Core i9-14900K PC | October 2023 | 32 GiB | Vendor-rated provisional | |
| Raspberry Pi 5 | October 2023 | 8 GiB | Vendor-rated | |
| Apple Mac mini (M4, 2024) | November 2024 | 16 GiB | Vendor-rated | |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 frame buffer | January 2025 | 32 GiB | Vendor-rated | |
| Nintendo Switch 2 | June 2025 | 12 GB | Measured provisional | |
| Apple iPhone 17 | September 2025 | 8 GB | Measured provisional | |
| Apple iPhone 17 Pro | September 2025 | 12 GB | Measured provisional | |
| Apple II | June 1977 | unknown The January 1978 manual leaves fitted RAM dependent on the purchased configuration, so it does not support one whole-system writable-memory capacity. | not plotted | — |
| MSX | 1983 | unknown No whole-system total can be derived without a verified RAM figure. | not plotted | — |
| Amstrad CPC 464 | June 1984 | unknown No whole-system total can be derived without a verified RAM figure. | not plotted | — |
| Sega Master System | June 1986 | unknown The console's work RAM and video RAM are both known only from tier C material. Adding them would rest a new number on that material, which this catalog does not do. | not plotted | — |
| Acorn Archimedes A310 | June 1987 | unknown No whole-system total can be derived without a verified RAM figure. | not plotted | — |
| NEC PC Engine | October 1987 | unknown The console's work RAM and video RAM are both known only from tier C material. Adding them would rest a new number on that material, which this catalog does not do. | not plotted | — |
| Game Boy Advance | March 2001 | unknown The handheld's work RAM and video RAM are both known only from tier C material. Adding them would rest a new number on that material, which this catalog does not do. | not plotted | — |
| NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra frame buffer | April 2004 | unknown NVIDIA's release notes establish only that a 512 MB Ultra variant existed; the recovered material does not establish the launch-reference capacity. | not plotted | — |
| Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 PC | July 2006 | unknown Intel's 64 GB addressability field does not establish a fitted capacity for this reference PC. | not plotted | — |
| Nintendo Wii | November 2006 | unknown No whole-system total can be derived from Nintendo's public Wii manuals. | not plotted | — |
| Apple iPhone 3GS | June 2009 | unknown Apple does not publish installed DRAM capacity; listed flash storage is not working memory. | not plotted | — |
Why this chart holds one group only
Every point on a chart is implicitly compared with every other point on it. This chart uses one comparability group: one metric, one device scope, one method . There is no chart of all clock frequencies over time because they are not one quantity.
Points use the release date of the machine a figure belongs to, including figures recorded against a part. A release date applies only to a machine that shipped. What this metric measures.