Too little RAM creates a bottleneck that slows everything down, and the basic rule of thumb is that more RAM is always better. While your overall performance will largely be dictated by the capabilities of your processor and graphics hardware, your memory allotment will directly impact how well you can take advantage of that performance. The bottom line is that RAM is essential to the smooth operating of your computer, particularly for things like multitasking and accessing multiple files at one time. A swap file still lets you get some things done, but will be dramatically slower. It will try to use this swap file in the same way it does RAM, constantly reading and writing the data during operation, but the memory in your storage drives simply isn’t designed to move data as rapidly as DRAM. Once you hit the limit of what your RAM can hold, then your computer will compensate with a swap file, putting some of the data onto your storage drive. If you want to run a program, it pulls the data from long-term storage on your hard drive to short-term storage in RAM, where it can be accessed quickly enough for smooth operation.
Even your operating system uses RAM when it’s running. Whenever your computer loads a program or opens a file, it opens up that data in RAM. Unlike your hard drive, however, the memory used for RAM is also volatile, meaning that it only holds onto that data while the chip is powered, so it’s not designed to hold information long term.Įssentially, RAM is the memory that actually lets you work with the data needed to run programs and open files. RAM stands for Random Access Memory, and it consists of dynamic memory chips that can be written and rewritten with data very quickly. RAM is where data is stored before processing. Let’s start with the most basic elements of the question.
By testing a variety of use cases on different amounts of RAM, we can get a very good idea what sort of uses can be comfortably done with how much RAM, and even give you an idea of how you can stretch the RAM you’ve got.