Sometimes less is more. For years, 32 GB of RAM has been a safe default for many business laptop fleets. But surging AI data center demand has driven up memory prices and created supply shortages. For IT teams approaching a refresh cycle, sky-high memory prices can put a serious dent in hardware budgets. That raises a question: Are 32GB configurations worth a premium price or a backorder wait? Current-generation laptops with 16 GB of RAM may be more affordable, but decision-makers may think that cutting system memory will hinder productivity. These concerns can push organizations toward costly over-provisioning or delayed refreshes, even when newer hardware could meet their needs with less memory.  

One new 16GB option is the HP EliteBook 8 G2i, powered by Intel Core Ultra Series 3 processors, which are built on the Intel 18A process and support Copilot+ AI capabilities. On paper, some previous-generation EliteBooks have more cores, higher peak clock speeds, and double the RAM. Can a system with a newer processor and half the memory hold its own on creative and everyday work? We put three generations of HP EliteBooks head-to-head to find out.  

How we tested laptop memory and performance 

We compared three 14-inch HP EliteBook laptops: 

  • An EliteBook 8 G2i (2026) with an 8-core Intel Core Ultra 7 355 processor and 16 GB of LPDDR5 RAM. 

  • An EliteBook 8 G1i (2025) with a 12-core Intel Core Ultra 7 255U processor and 32 GB of DDR5 SODIMM RAM. 

  • An EliteBook 840 G10 (2023) with a 10-core Intel Core i7-1355U processor and 32 GB of DDR5 SODIMM RAM. 

On each laptop, we ran three benchmarks that test productivity performance in everyday tasks: Procyon Essentials, Procyon Office Productivity, and WebXPRT 5. In addition, because creative workloads push a system’s CPU, GPU, and RAM harder than everyday office tasks do, we ran five content creation benchmarks on each system: Blender Benchmark, Cinebench 2026, HandBrake, Procyon Photo Editing, and Procyon Video Editing.  

What the testing found 

Our tests found that across all eight benchmarks, the EliteBook 8 G2i, with a Core Ultra Series 3 processor and 16 GB of RAM, outperformed the EliteBook 8 G1i and 840 G10 laptops with 32 GB of RAM, despite running with half the memory and fewer CPU cores. Here are the highlights:  

  • Everyday productivity: Up to 59.1 percent better Procyon Essentials, 12.5 percent better Procyon Office Productivity, and 24.2 percent better WebXPRT 5 scores than the other two systems. 

  • Video and photo editing: Up to 111.6 percent better Procyon Video Editing and 11.0 percent better Procyon Photo Editing scores, plus a hardware 4K H.265 HandBrake encode task finished up to 10 minutes and 1 second sooner than the other two systems.  

  • 3D rendering: Up to 59.9 percent more Blender GPU samples per minute than the 8 G1i (the 840 G10 could not run the GPU test) and up to 48.7 percent more CPU samples per minute than other two systems. 

  • Compute-heavy work: Despite having fewer cores, up to 55.6 percent better Cinebench 2026 multi-core performance than the other two systems.  

What this means for IT teams 

In our tests, processor and platform advances had a bigger impact on EliteBook performance than memory size. This means you can deploy 16GB EliteBook 8 G2i laptops with confidence that they can hold their own in standard productivity and content creation workloads. That doesn’t mean memory no longer matters, as users running heavy multitasking or memory-intensive applications will likely still benefit from more RAM. Instead, these results let you match memory sizes to specific roles in your organization, which can help you stretch refresh budgets, work around supply shortages, and give employees faster systems for daily workflows.  

For more in-depth information about our HP EliteBook memory and performance tests, check out the report below.