Timeline for Will adding more RAM speed up my computer?
Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5
11 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Oct 18, 2015 at 17:13 | comment | added | Mikey | I run on a 12GB core i5 notebook, usually with 3GB free.. I have a monitor in the tray and it never shows under 3... however, with my workflow it is usually in the 3.something free area. At this level, my computer just feels sluggish - but when there is 5 to 6 free it feels quite snappy... is it possible that windows could run better if I upgrade to 16GB RAM? maybe it would notice I have more free and allocate more to various things that are running? or would it make no difference? | |
| Oct 18, 2015 at 17:08 | comment | added | Mikey | @TheLQ, to most people the deciding factor is how many tabs they keep open in their browser (Especially chrome since it is a memory hog due to its architecture) - if you have many tabs open often (and this is more likely if you use virtual desktops like in windows 10), then 4GB is not enough for sure. Solution, ditch chrome and use onetab (although you can use the onetab extension with chrome as well).. it's the most amazing thing ever (really :) and get a RAM upgrade as well, why not - RAM is pretty cheap | |
| May 24, 2015 at 9:22 | comment | added | AndrejaKo | @qasdfdsaq Keep in mind that all of that was written a bit less than 5 years ago, when things looked differently. | |
| May 23, 2015 at 23:37 | comment | added | qasdfdsaq | I would agree that 4GB+ is the minimum these days for all but the most basic of computers. @TheLQ: A bit hypocritical given your example of an XP VM, which in itself is a niche application. Firstly, XP is not used on any new computers. Secondly, a VM does not have to deal with the mass amount of bloatware and more importantly, drivers that are loaded on a non-virtual PC. Finally, your VM benefits from unused memory on the host machine for caching. Also Firefox is the least popular of the major browsers right now and the only one not to use multiple processes for different sites. | |
| Jun 30, 2013 at 14:13 | comment | added | Andrew Sun | Nowadays, as far as I can tell, people recommend at least 8 GB of RAM! I noticed a considerable difference when I upgraded my Dell Inspiron 620 Desktop running Windows 7 from 6 GB to 8 GB. | |
| Sep 7, 2010 at 7:20 | vote | accept | subanki | ||
| Sep 5, 2010 at 20:04 | comment | added | Tamara Wijsman | @TheLQ: Caching! As Windows handles your memory in the "Memory that is not being used is useless"-way adding memory past the 4 GB limit will have a benefit... ;-) | |
| Aug 29, 2010 at 17:41 | comment | added | AndrejaKo | @TheLQ On the other hand I have a computer with 2 GiB of RAM which is struggling to keep up with Outlook, Word, Excel, printer drivers and Cisco VPN. One time I took 4 GiB of RAM from another computer and put it there and it worked great. To directly answer your question: BLOAT! BLOAT EVERYWHERE! Especially from drivers for printers, mobile phones and similar devices. Also disk caching in windows vista and 7. But I agree that 4 GiB should be enough for vast majority right now. | |
| Aug 29, 2010 at 14:55 | comment | added | TheLQ | WHY ARE PEOPLE SAYING 4 GB+ IS NEEDED? I'm tired of this. I've been able to run NetBeans with profiler, my memory leaking application, Firefox, and a Windows XP VM on VirtualBox on 2 GB of RAM and experienced little to none disk thrashing from SWAP. 2GB is enough for 85% of the population. 4GB is enough for 95%. The rest are niche applications | |
| Aug 29, 2010 at 10:34 | history | edited | AndrejaKo | CC BY-SA 2.5 |
added 1007 characters in body
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| Aug 29, 2010 at 10:13 | history | answered | AndrejaKo | CC BY-SA 2.5 |