The Computer Tutor
The RAM
The amount of RAM, or random access memory, that you have in your computer, helps determine how fast data being accessed from your hard drive reaches your screen. The word “random” in its name means that data store on it is accessed at a uniform speed regardless of where it is stored. There are always many more programs running on your computer at a time than you can see on the screen. The program that moves your mouse, allows words to be typed on the screen, runs your virus scanner, your notifiers and your operating system are all working simultaneously to access information from your hard drive in order to function. When they request information from the hard drive, that information is placed in RAM before it is accessed by the CPU.
Since the data that is written onto the RAM chips can be accessed in the same amount of time no matter where it is (unlike hard drives or disk drives, where the drive has to spin to the right place and the data has to be read by the laser before it can be passed to the CPU), it is a necessary holding place for frequently used data and commands, which allows your computer to get information to you faster. The greater the storage capacity of your RAM (which always come in paired sets of two sticks – 500 Mb is 2 250 Mb sticks, 1 Gb is two 500 Mb sticks, etc.) the more data and commands it can hold for easy access by the CPU, thus allowing high memory-access programs such as games to run faster because more of their data can be stored in a fast and volatile memory state.
Now that you know about the RAM's basic functionality, you can check out: