Can you help me make sense of computer memory? What is Ram, memory, gigs, etc. What is considered good?

November 28th, 2008 | by computermemory |
computer memory
Shawn C asked:


I have a new computer and dont understand the specs.

FOSTER
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  1. 5 Responses to “Can you help me make sense of computer memory? What is Ram, memory, gigs, etc. What is considered good?”

  2. By ipodtouchaddict on Dec 1, 2008 | Reply

    RAM (memory) stands for Random Access Memory. Its what programs use to run efficiently buy putting its temporary files into.

    Also 1000 MegaBytes(MB) = 1 GigaByte(GB), 3MB is around the average size of an average .mp3 or music file, a CD can hold about 700MB, and a DVD can hold about 4GB.

  3. By avanttard on Dec 3, 2008 | Reply

    all a computer is is a hunk of metal and plastic that processes and calculates things. anytime you tell it to do something it loads it into it’s current memory to work on it. that memory is called RAM. any information that it needs to save for later or is critical to it’s performance is saved onto the Hard Drive which is also memory. Gigaytes are a form of measurement of memory which is all relative. (just as a foot or a meter is nothing more than a foot or a meter. just a form of measurement). the basic measurement is 1byte. 1000 bytes = 1 Kilobyte. 1000 Kilobytes = 1 Megabyte. 1000 Megabytes = 1 Gigabyte and so on.

  4. By Lil' China Girl on Dec 6, 2008 | Reply

    For Windows XP or Vista at least 1GB of ram is good. But it depends what you will use it for.

  5. By ? on Dec 9, 2008 | Reply

    You should visit your library and read some of the “beginners” books/guides on computers. Basic illustrations of the insides of a modern PC will give you a much better understanding, than just reading/hearing the words. Go Go Go!

  6. By rgentry23 on Dec 12, 2008 | Reply

    Well your computer has Memory and Storage. Many times people incorrectly use these terms interchangably. Memory (RAM) is basically a chip that stores the files, applications, operations, etc. that your computer IS currently performing or will perform in the very near future. Very near future for a computer is nanoseconds by the way. The computer puts information in RAM because it can access it quicker from this chip than it can from your hard drive. Your RAM is cleared everytime you turn off power. This is why restarting your computer seems to make it run faster. The more RAM you have, the more programs you can run at the same time. Storage on the other hand is your hard drive. This is where information is stored and saved on your computer. It does not go away when you power off. The computer cannot read from the hard drive very quickly, so when it is using programs, it takes them from the hard drive and places them in the RAM. There are also things call L1 and L2 cache. There is also L3 cache for higher end computers. Cache is a location that stores files and programs that the computer thinks you might need to access in the future, but not the near enough future to put it on the RAM. Information is transferred from cache to RAM very quickly and much more quickly than it is from the hard drive to RAM. Therefore, the more levels of cache you have, the better your computer will perform multiple tasks.

    You can do pretty much any home application with 2 GB of RAM and 20 GB of storage.

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