How Much Memory Does a Computer Need?

Modern computers make machines from the nineties look like beige crates of lead. The websites of today's computer manufacturers are littered with terms like quad-core, double data rate, hypertransport, and PCI Express X16, and, for the most part, the computers being advertised are just as fast as their advertising implies. The problem is that modern software has also become more complex, which can make new computers seem clunky. Most of the time this can be solved by adding more computer memory (RAM). Since memory is dirt cheap compared to things like processors, motherboards, and graphics cards, almost anyone can double the speed of their computer for under a hundred bucks. Even better, when buying a new computer, a mere fifty dollars can make the difference between one and two gigs of memory! The question is, how much ram is needed?

According to Microsoft, computers running Windows XP need a minimum of 64 megabytes (MB) of ram to scrape past the loading screen. Their latest operating system, Windows Vista, needs 512 MB. Still, since this is the bare minimum; a computer running XP might load Windows (ahem...slowly) with 64 MB of RAM, but it will never run a modern program with any modicum of speed. The same goes for a Vista system with 512MB of ram. The average Windows XP machine uses 200-300 MB just idling (drivers, anti-virus, and other background programs are what is taking up the space), and a Vista machine can be expected to use twice that. When the user goes to check their mail or browse the Internet, more ram will be needed to store the information the processor is working on. If there isn't enough memory, the computer is forced to use the hard drive as RAM, which is incredibly slow.

To keep a computer's active data in memory and off the hard drive, the machine needs more RAM than the active programs can call on. Some programs use more memory than others, so the amount of memory that is right for you depends on what you do with your machine. It also depends on the operating system you use: Windows XP and Linux don't need nearly as much memory as Vista does. The following list can be used as a guideline for deciding how much memory you need. For Windows Vista users, add 1 gigabyte (1024 MB) to the numbers, since Vista craves a lot of memory. If it turns out that your computer needs more than 4 GB of memory to operate effectively, you will need to have a 64-bit operating system.

Casual Web Surfing, Word Processing, MP3 playing, and E-mail: 768 megabytes to 1 gigabyte

Picture/Video Editing, Multimedia: 1.5 to 2 gigabytes

3D Modeling, Advanced Photo Editing: 2 gigabytes

Light--Modest Gaming: 2 gigabytes

Heavy Gaming, all graphics and physics settings maxed: 3 to 4 gigabytes

Industrial Number Crunching, Finite Element Analysis, etc. : 4 to 8 gigabytes

Keep in mind that it is never a bad idea to get extra RAM. 32-bit operating systems can address up to 4GB, and 64-bit systems like XP-64 and Vista-64 can address up to 1 terabyte (1000GB) of memory. Still, the general max is 16GB, because it is physically impossible to plug any more than that into the slots of a motherboard...yet. So, if you're feeling adventurous, and want to have the maximum performance of your machine, go ahead and max the memory out!