How much memory does my computer need?
This is a terrific question! It's terrific simply because memory upgrades are the simplest to perform and the upgrade modules are relatively inexpensive to purchase. You will find the quick and easy answer to this question located at the bottom of this page. However, we would like to take a brief moment to explain how memory works and why it is so important.
Memory, also referred to as RAM (random access memory), works alot like our human memory functions. Some of us have an immaculate memory from which most details regarding any variety of subjects can be recalled without opening up a text book, referring to notes, or looking it up on the web. The rest of us live and die by those text books, notebooks, sticky notes, phone directories, etc. Obviously, information can be recalled much more quickly from someone's memory than it can be from a number of other personal reference materials. We can refer to this as memory capacity.
How does this relate to computers? Well, your computer is full of it's own reference material in the form of files, programs, and databases and all of these reference materials reside on the computer's hard drive. Unfortunately, information cannot be recalled from the hard drive as quickly as it can from the system's memory, but your computer knows this and attempts to store as much information in memory as it possibly can so that your programs and systems can run faster. The higher the capacity of memory, the more reference material stored. When memory gets full, it overwrites older reference material with newer material.
So the solution is simple right! Just use as much memory as the computer will take. In many cases this is the best solution. However, when taking into account important criteria such as your budget and the operating system's ability to fully utilize the memory capacity, this is not always the best choice. In addition, the way you use your computer, in conjunction with the operating system's requirements, should dictate how much memory you will be needing.
Here are some common activities / tasks that are memory intensive:
- Video Games - Action Games
- Video capture, editing, and playback
- Music capture, editing, and playback
- Web Cam Utilization
Unless, you perform the above activities or tasks on a daily basis, you should be able to refer to the list below for general purpose computing activities such as word processing, spreadsheets, email, and web browsing.
Minimum and Ideal memory capacities based on choice of operating system:
| Operating System | Min. Req. | Good | Ideal |
Windows 2000 |
32 MB |
256 MB |
512 MB |
Windows XP |
64 MB |
512 MB |
1 GB |
Windows Vista Home Basic |
512 MB |
1 GB |
2 GB |
Windows Vista Home Premium / Business / Ultimate |
1 GB |
1.5 GB |
3 GB |
Windows 7 |
1GB |
2 GB |
4 GB |