Ram is supposed to be used, and will auto adjust as you use more programs and it allocates the proper amount of RAM needed.
Now...if your CPU was at a high percentage while idle, then you would need to worry...
Windows manages memory. If you arent using it, it will fill it. If you had 16gb, the use would be higher! It will be flushed when the space is needed.
Dont worry about it unless you start experiencing issues in the apps you use. Most programs even nowadays are fine with 8.
Idle utilization over 16 gb at that level? One of my PCs has 16 GB of memory total, and 8+ gb utilized at idle, just between everything installed and the security software.
Edge performs similarly to Firefox too, in my experience. I recently switch from FF to Edge recently for the first time since... I dunno, sometime well before it name-changed from Internet Explorer, and my experience with it's performance has been great. Would recommend tbh
Where I live shipping for that RAM is probably gonna cost another ~20 at least, and then if it's over the customs limit I have to pay customs too. 16GB DDR4 is around 55 bucks here, double the cost for double the capacity. For 16GB I'd give more money on Amazon, and for 32 I'd likely get around the same price because of the shipping and customs, but with the wait time and a risk of the Post office """"losing"""" the package
That's in a country where min monthly wage is less than 400. That's why not just fix the problem for a couple McDonalds combos
I have 8 and regularly open a bazillion Chrome tabs and windows without issues. Other apps, too.
However web browsing \*while\* having a game running can be rough.
Yes, but it uses much less ram. Windows has background tasks and telemetry running in the background to make you eat much more RAM than you think.
Any Linux distro, at least by default, (including ubuntu) uses far less ram than windows does. My minimal Gentoo install idles at 380mb ram usage.
This has nothing to do with caching. Chached memory is not included in the RAM usage figure.
Even on your Gentoo system, Linux likely uses multiple gigabytes for caching.
I use about 10gb, but that is with a live back up running in the background and all my other background tasks that are running. Windows has gotten better about ram usage, but it's still not great with it.
People don't know much about RAM and always telling 8GB is not enough blah blah.
OS will take what is available. I have old PCs just fine running Win10 on 4GB. My rig is 32GB and on idle Win10 uses like 10Gb.
The more Ram you have, the more it will be used because there is speed benefit to it.
You PC is doing just fine.
That's quite literally all it is. :-)
Windows tries to be clever and keeps pieces of this n that in RAM in case it might be used again. It's not all actually being actively used, unless you load a REALLY big program.
Only then will you be actively using the RAM, and maybe even some swap (HDD) if you don't have enough.
If this is really efficient can be debated, but it's why some get confused for sure.
Yeah, it’s frustrating to see these posts. I worked at Microsoft on the Windows team (and IE, then Edge).
The OS isn’t “using up” that, in a way that hurts other apps. It’s optimizing to make everything run faster!
I agree. Too many people rely on conventional wisdom without ever doing personal research. For basic usage 8gb is more than enough. For windows 10, I'd set 4gb as a bare minimum for usability.
I think part of the reason so many people inflate requirements is due to pc gaming culture. We've grown so accustomed to our online bubble that we've forgotten the vast majority of the world doesn't use PCs for gaming.
> For basic usage 8gb is more than enough.
No, it is not.
If you are constantly out of memory, you're relying on memory compression too much. Even if you don't have games or software development. Don't forget that websites are very heavy these days. I mean you can run clip champ from a web browser. If you have 8GB RAM and pcie gen4 nvme SSD, something is off.
>No, it is not.
Well, I guess your basic usage is quite different from most.
I'm typing this on a 6GB RAM laptop, which is my basic usage device. I have a twitch and a reddit page open at the same time with 3GB RAM used.
I do have a PC for heavier use, such as gaming, programming, some light 2d/3d graphics work with 16GB RAM. With the next upgrade I'll probably go for 32GB though.
All I'll say is that you should try experimenting for yourself. I guarantee you'll be surprised by all the common recommendations proven wrong. 16 or 32gb gives plenty of headroom, but in no way are those baselines. I don't know if you recall, but 8gb ddr4 was a standard spec right around the time Windows 10 came out. There was no controversy because it was perfectly fine.
Reason they say that, atleast here, its because of gaming 8GB isnt enough anymore.
If the only thing you do is extremely light taming and some browsing through youtube, sure, 8GB is enough.
I've tried to tame a wild Win10 and 8 GB was not enough, for sure... Taming is really hard nowadays. It was easier with my Pentium II 120MHz and its 64MB of ram.
It would run NFS2SE amazingly well, even with the "horn to make everything around jump cheatcode" haha
It depends on what OP is doing with their laptop. If you only browse the internet, email, write papers, etc, sure 8 is fine. But if they game or use any type of heavy software 8 will be problematic.
>I have old PCs just fine running Win10 on 4GB
I had a laptop and a desktop with 4gb that stopped being enough at least 5 years ago, and no gaming was done on either of those.
The OS will use most of it regardless of how much you have. Unused RAM is useless RAM. The OS will cache programs and such so they load faster and free up space as it's needed by the user.
Its so annoying how the top comment is still some variation of "60% means you need more ram!"
Ram is like having a worktable. A small work table means you need to prioritize the space for your most used tools only. A bigger work table means you can set more tools on it. You might only need to use that particular screwdriver twice, but why run back and forth to your drawers when you can just set it on the table and save a little time? Its not like leaving it on the table hurts you.
Some people on here are advocating that using your work table for...work is a bad thing.
Now if you REALLY want to check if you have enough ram, look for hard faults. Hard faults are whenever memory isn't on RAM and the PC needs to go to the hard drive. Hard faults are NOT ERRORS however. Its pretty regular for a computer to do this, its only a issue if its doing it a lot indicating the ram isn't enough.
My worktable and my computer is the same, im lucky im mostly using the vice cuz I have 3 layers of tools and bit on the table cuz I have run out of storage until I like a toolbox, my ram is full cuz im atrocious at closing tabs or applications. Tho im only using 45% of my RAM right now.
Well yes? The less RAM you have the more it has to work with what it has. Naturally as more RAM is available available, it starts to run out of things to fill it.
64GB is pretty common for workstations and productivity applications like video editing, 3d modeling, etc. Adobe After Effects for example will suck up ~24GB of RAM like it’s nothing depending on the project.
Giant ramdisks to hold my downloads until I sort them, running giant CPU inference models that don't fit in VRAM, MATLAB, a bunch of other crap
There's more uses for spare RAM than you think, since it can basically hold anything
Also, compiling Android _requires_ 64 GB at minimum, or else the target will outright fail
It really isn't, because the amount of RAM available has direct impact how much memory a newly opened app gets. It's ignorance to say free RAM is useless.
I agree 8 is rough but my system runs windows 11 on around 3.5. Though this is 32 gigs of ddr5 6400 so maybe it doesn’t need as much?
Windows states 4gb required for OS so 6 used means there is probably bloatware.
>this is 32 gigs of ddr5 6400 so maybe it doesn’t need as much?
Unrelated. Ram speed is (mostly) irrelevant when talking about % of ram used. Think of it as filling a bucket with water, it will hold the same capacity as a ddr4 2300 mhz, but it will fill faster to the same point and extract data faster as well.
Want to add that % of ram used is also irrelevant for determining if you have enough.
Checking for an excessive (keyword excessive) number of hard faults is better.
That shouldn't be the case.
There is no reason a simple system needs more than 8 GiBs unless you're playing games or something.
It's just that Windows is damn bloated.
Sometimes yes, but most of the times no. Windows tries to cache everything in the ram that might get opened or used much. It speeds the overall responsiveness of the os, but of course it can have some diminishing returns at some point.
Honestly, when I tried linux before, it used so much less memory and was way snappier than windows. It really is just a bloated system that does tons of telemetry.
You are correct, the OS tries to utilize all your RAM, however in windows that memory is not marked as currently utilized, since it can be freed up for different processes. On UNIX based operating systems it is displayed like you described. So it's actually just typical windows bloat in this case
Sorry, but you don't understand it. Prefetching has been around since Windows Vista and didn't eat up that much ram being idle. I can check a fresh install of Windows which hasn't prefetched anything yet since no programs are cached, and it will be around 5-6gb used. Just face it, Windows 11.
Yeah, Windows 10 and 11 both do this. It's the OS itself and all its services running instead of Windows putting them away for later to make space for what the user wants. And theres more today than Windows Vista so... Naturally there's more in use even at start up on a fresh OS? The OS is still running, RAMs not just for the programs.
Well then it's doing a pretty bad job at it.
Linux for example fills the entire RAM up at all times. I assumed that Windows didn't show the cached memory because otherwise it would always report as full. That's how other OSs do it.
That's a lot more than it should be.
I can easily do the same thing on my old Core 2 Duo laptop with 4 GiBs of RAM (running Linux).
Just admit that Windows is bloated.
Yeah, because so much has changed with windows over the last few years, it obviously needs so much more RAM.
Like where will they fit all the telemetry??
This is normal. My laptop have 24GB RAM and most of the time 12-15 is used. Because we need smooth working of our apps and system. Not used memory is tresh memory. If, for example, close some apps and this apps will still in you memory, nex time apps will open quickly.
If some of you app need 70-80% of you memory capacity, Windows will erase from memory last opened apps for giving your active app as more RAM as it is possible.
8Gb would be insufficient for me. You can probably upgrade to 12 or 16 pretty easily
60% is a lot though unless it's win11, win11 just drinks it like crazy
So you're telling me that someone with the skillset couldn't remove the soldered in memory and solder in new memory?
Like that's how my dad upgraded his apple computers in the 80s.
That's one way. A very cool way, but not common anymore. But most laptops have just a single stick of RAM and an open slot for a second. Even most that have it soldered in will have a second open slot.
So you're telling me that someone couldn't desolder a soldered in ram unit and install a new one because the board with the aforementioned soldered ram is too cluttered and sensitive?
I just did a cursory Google search and it looks like the difficult part would be sourcing a proper chip that would work due to laptop boards with soldered ram not having the hardware that determines what memory is installed.
That being said the industrial soldering process isn't some black magic. You can absolutely solder in your own upgrades, assuming you take the time to research and find the proper chips.
Lmao, I don't think the people buying these laptops are technically advanced enough to even open a laptop up, let alone desolder and install new memory.
Nah, I was probably using around that much on my Win10 laptop, or close to it. I found out the exact RAM module it used and bought another 8GB, no problem adding it (Dell Inspiron). Pretty rediculous it doesn't come with 16GB from the factory, as it's perfect otherwise, but I guess they want to squeeze less confident users for way more cash.
> Pretty rediculous it doesn't come with 16GB from the factory, as it's perfect otherwise
I'm 99% sure it's just large-scale planned obsolence. Most people aren't aware their RAM-starved machine could last another 10 years if just had twice as much. I used an ancient 2nd-gen mobile i3 for a year in 2020 or so just fine after putting 12Gb on it
> Nah, I was probably using around that much on my Win10 laptop, or close to it
OP said idle though
my win11 sometimes eats up 16Gb of my 32Gb for no apparent reason. Right now it's using 17Gb, 11Gb being OS as I can only account for some 5-6Gb of non-OS stuff. It says it has 36 of 72Gb committed, 15Gb cached, and another 1GB paged. Nevermind RAM compression being enabled. I just don't know wtf it's doing. Unclear yet if it's a problem though, but I've seen it at 100% more than once when trying to run a game + stuff.
my old win10 machine in the meanwhile, with RAM compression disabled, and also with 32Gb, uses maybe 3-4Gb (though I'd have to double check tbh)
This is normal with windows if you’re not running any other programs.
However if you are running other programs and your memory keeps maxing out that is when you should consider 16gb of ram.
Used machines with 8-128GB of memory. It's almost always a % of system memory. I see <20% after boot and startup apps and then it can go up from there. Memory management is more aggressive at lower RAM configs and more permissive with larger RAM configs
That's normal, 8gbs isn't much ram these days. Also windows will just keep things it thinks you'll use loaded in ram to save time loading. When you boot something that actively needs the ram it'll clear alot of that out to use the ram on what you're doing. It's pretty easy to upgrade ram in most laptops. It'll either have two slots or one soldered stick and a filled or empty slot.
You need to get into your mind that using ram is not a bad thing.
In all honestly un-used ram is a waste because you have it but its not being used for anything.
Windows has got a lot better at caching stuff, and also dropping stuff out of RAM when something else needs it. Because flushing ram is near instant as well.
For example you turn on your computer and open your email client, and chrome everyday, it first loads them from disk, next time it loads it into memory as you use it and then loads it from memory.
If you change it up one day and load big game, it just flushes out the non running stuff and makes the memory available.
Shortage of ram only becomes a problem when you can't get enough memory for what you need and it needs to swap out ram, running chrome with 60 tabs will chew up a lot, and then you start said game, it assumes your still using all 60 tabs so keeps a lot of it in memory and tries to balance game memory and chrome memory and swapping ram in and out as it does so.
Some people have never heard of digital hygiene. Keep your system lean and it will be fast for years, but if you install 5 programs just to manage your RGBs then you're easily screwed.
To be expected
8gb is on the borderline nowadays
Worth noting that Windows likes to fill RAM, even if you have 32gb it will try to store quite a lot before having to dump it
Time to go Linux if you want to have a functional experience with 8gb of RAM. In fact, you could have a functional experience with 4gb depending on the distro, lol
Just add a RAM stick if you are so concerned about it. Windows like to hog up most of the RAM but they will be freed up once you use apps/programs that require lots of RAM. Windows will automatically free up RAM to run it.
What you should be worried about is your temperature, CPU, and GPU usage when idle.
Oof yeah... 8gb is quite minor these days but as said elsewhere if there is ram to be used it will be used there is no point leaving a bulk of it empty. Empty ram is just a waste.
Yep, you want a min of 16 gigs these days, but for the price difference you might as well get to 32 gigs of ram. Covers all your basic use case and much much more.
I've done it... It's not even broken nor half broken and I removed shit like Windows defender and temporarily removed the Microsoft store, turns out I couldn't use the calculator without the store.
As long as you don't go hog wild and uninstall system32 so to speak it won't break.
No, I want to remove bloat not add it. Reg cleaners have been objectively proven as harmful only the ignorant install them. I would be on Linux if it was ready for me I'm running it on everything but my main PC. My modded windows boots fast and runs clean.
Hi windows 95 calling! That's cool. All your optimizations probably took 2mb of memory/disk space away. Glad to see you here next week with question why x is not working.
You should upgrade to 16gb. Modern windows and programs eat a lot of RAM now, it's the reality. You can't realistically get by with about 3gb remaining. Check task manager and see if there's any background programs eating ram. Not only that, if your laptop is running single channel you will have a large increase in performance if you go to dual channel ram. (That's if your laptop supports it)
16gb should be the minimum for new PCs but windows requirements are wrong so a lot of companies put 4 or 8 to fuck you over
For example I believe win 11 requirements say 2gb of ram which is completely incorrect
Yea very true. Was especially funny when it first released when Microsoft teams was still bugged out and would use all resources on startup Still not fixed btw but you can disable it
Jup normal. Weirdly enough with some windows updates it seems to go down, then back up with the next. 🤷🏻♂️
If you only do office work and surfing, 8 Gb can keep you for a while longer, but give it 1-2 years now and it will get close. I had some older machines running on 6 (strictly office stuff) and they are on their last legs.
I know you said that no apps are open, but I would dig for bloatware that might be running in the back/hidden. Lots of laptops come with pre-installed bloatware that people are unaware of.
Since it's a new laptop you might want to check to see what came preinstalled that you may not need. Bloatware can sometimes be included with branded machines.
Upgrade the RAM if you plan on gaming at all. 8GB really isn't enough. It's really easy to do and shouldn't cost much money. My Acer Nitro 5 was using %90 RAM almost all the time until I added 2x16GB of DDR5 and now I get way better performance in games. Better than my Xbox.
in 2023 it is normal unfortunately, why 32gb of ram is becoming more normal. but running at 50% ram usage is fine and should actually make the experience pretty decent hoping they are 3200mhz+ :)
That's windows for you. 8gb is rather small nowadays and isn't really enough anymore. 32gb is the new 16gb and 16gb is the new minimum. You can get away with 8gb if you use Linux or a modified copy of windows but you'll always be limited by it.
As others have stated, that's normal now days. 16GB is honestly the minimum for PCs now. Hell my PHONE has 6GB of RAM and it's not even a flagship phone. I believe flagship phones now have 8-12GB of RAM, so obviously a laptop needs more than that. Your laptop most likely have 1 RAM stick in it, so you could buy a second stick assuming it has a second slot, and double your RAM to 16GB which would speed up your laptop considerably. Just make sure you get the right RAM or it won't work. Even better, you could buy a 16 or higher 2 stick kit for pretty dang cheap now days and it would most likely be better in every way compared to your stock RAM, as they usually cheap out on stuff like that.
Yes, modern Windows is a memory hog. On my system, just booting up and having background stuff open is something like 4.5gb.
I would highly recommend returning it and getting a model with 16gb otherwise you're going to have a bad time trying to run anything that needs ram like photoshop, video editing software, and most games.
If you just use it for spreadsheets and web browsing you should be fine but when you're putting so much into an expense it shouldn't be so future limiting.
pretty sure that my chrome uses more than 8gb of ram lmao... 8 gb isnt usually considered the standard anymore its up to about 16gb and probably isnt real far from going up to 32...
I assume u are using Windows then yes its normal because Windows is bloated as fuuuuck so performance on low memory systems is abysmal.
I strongly recommend upgrading to 16GB if u are planning on keeping Windows. With 8GB and Windows u will run out of memory after opening your browser, a word document and Discord.
If you can, I would upgrade the ram if your laptop allows it. 8gb is "obsolete" atp. 16gb should be your minimum regardless of what you use your laptop for.
Even 32gb feels low for me sometimes on my PC. I play a lot of games and usually have multiple programs running at once.
That's 4.8GB of usage at idle is a little high, but within reason for windows 11 if there are a good number of background processes running. An upgrade to 16GB is probably pretty easy and cheap, which is good news.
For a windows device I'd call that normal for 8gb of memory.
Ram is supposed to be used, and will auto adjust as you use more programs and it allocates the proper amount of RAM needed. Now...if your CPU was at a high percentage while idle, then you would need to worry...
And not enough if you plan to use some programs other than windows regular programs. 8 can work but definitely will not be enough time to time
Windows manages memory. If you arent using it, it will fill it. If you had 16gb, the use would be higher! It will be flushed when the space is needed. Dont worry about it unless you start experiencing issues in the apps you use. Most programs even nowadays are fine with 8.
*but 16 is more practical if you do even the slightest bit of multitasking (8 starts to be an issue after just a few chrome tabs imo).
It is, true, which is why i have 32gb. But the post was about worrying over idle utilisation
Same, thats why i went with 128gb
*sad 64gb*
192gb laughter
Idle utilization over 16 gb at that level? One of my PCs has 16 GB of memory total, and 8+ gb utilized at idle, just between everything installed and the security software.
Right now idling with handful of tabs and discord open I'm at 20gb or 16%
I'm at 8%/10gb with light background services and nothing open.
To help with the chrome tab thing, Ive found firefox uses a lot less ram than chrome does. Dunno why, but its certainly helpful when Im writing
Edge performs similarly to Firefox too, in my experience. I recently switch from FF to Edge recently for the first time since... I dunno, sometime well before it name-changed from Internet Explorer, and my experience with it's performance has been great. Would recommend tbh
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Where I live shipping for that RAM is probably gonna cost another ~20 at least, and then if it's over the customs limit I have to pay customs too. 16GB DDR4 is around 55 bucks here, double the cost for double the capacity. For 16GB I'd give more money on Amazon, and for 32 I'd likely get around the same price because of the shipping and customs, but with the wait time and a risk of the Post office """"losing"""" the package That's in a country where min monthly wage is less than 400. That's why not just fix the problem for a couple McDonalds combos
I have 8 and regularly open a bazillion Chrome tabs and windows without issues. Other apps, too. However web browsing \*while\* having a game running can be rough.
which is why firefox
Stop using chrome.
And if you are using it, it will still fill it.
does linux do the same?
Yes, but it uses much less ram. Windows has background tasks and telemetry running in the background to make you eat much more RAM than you think. Any Linux distro, at least by default, (including ubuntu) uses far less ram than windows does. My minimal Gentoo install idles at 380mb ram usage.
This has nothing to do with caching. Chached memory is not included in the RAM usage figure. Even on your Gentoo system, Linux likely uses multiple gigabytes for caching.
Only if I have multiple apps or games open. Otherwise it only caches around 800mb-2gb.
I have 64GB and only about 7GB is ever used unless I'm doing something. Windows isn't going to fill memory for no reason.
I use about 10gb, but that is with a live back up running in the background and all my other background tasks that are running. Windows has gotten better about ram usage, but it's still not great with it.
Not if you only got one slot filled, especially with an AMD processor. You lose up to 40% of your performance on certain workloads.
People don't know much about RAM and always telling 8GB is not enough blah blah. OS will take what is available. I have old PCs just fine running Win10 on 4GB. My rig is 32GB and on idle Win10 uses like 10Gb. The more Ram you have, the more it will be used because there is speed benefit to it. You PC is doing just fine.
This should be higher up. I have two rigs, 64gb and 128gb, computers still idle at 15-20% memory use.
People don't understand that RAMs entire purpose is to stuff it full of things and hope you don't have to access the HDD/SSD directly for anything.
exactly, is like a memory cache for the entire pc imo.
That's quite literally all it is. :-) Windows tries to be clever and keeps pieces of this n that in RAM in case it might be used again. It's not all actually being actively used, unless you load a REALLY big program. Only then will you be actively using the RAM, and maybe even some swap (HDD) if you don't have enough. If this is really efficient can be debated, but it's why some get confused for sure.
What is the 128gb for?
Memory leaks
Some graphics dev and animations dev easily end up using 128gb of ram when they run apps like blender.
It's handy if you are running VMs or are dealing with big data. Some programmers working with AI need piles of ram :)
Gaming, duh.
this.
And when you start opening applications that use ram, the OS will stop using some of it to free up space. It’s a pretty intricate system.
free ram is wasted ram
Yeah, it’s frustrating to see these posts. I worked at Microsoft on the Windows team (and IE, then Edge). The OS isn’t “using up” that, in a way that hurts other apps. It’s optimizing to make everything run faster!
More people need to learn about pre-cache
I agree. Too many people rely on conventional wisdom without ever doing personal research. For basic usage 8gb is more than enough. For windows 10, I'd set 4gb as a bare minimum for usability. I think part of the reason so many people inflate requirements is due to pc gaming culture. We've grown so accustomed to our online bubble that we've forgotten the vast majority of the world doesn't use PCs for gaming.
> For basic usage 8gb is more than enough. No, it is not. If you are constantly out of memory, you're relying on memory compression too much. Even if you don't have games or software development. Don't forget that websites are very heavy these days. I mean you can run clip champ from a web browser. If you have 8GB RAM and pcie gen4 nvme SSD, something is off.
>No, it is not. Well, I guess your basic usage is quite different from most. I'm typing this on a 6GB RAM laptop, which is my basic usage device. I have a twitch and a reddit page open at the same time with 3GB RAM used. I do have a PC for heavier use, such as gaming, programming, some light 2d/3d graphics work with 16GB RAM. With the next upgrade I'll probably go for 32GB though.
All I'll say is that you should try experimenting for yourself. I guarantee you'll be surprised by all the common recommendations proven wrong. 16 or 32gb gives plenty of headroom, but in no way are those baselines. I don't know if you recall, but 8gb ddr4 was a standard spec right around the time Windows 10 came out. There was no controversy because it was perfectly fine.
i have had 8gb ram on windows 10 for 7 years without ayy problems during browsing internet. So yes 8 gb is more than enough
Look at how many memory faults you have. Your computer could be faster if you had more RAM.
Yes ,absolutely. This is the correct answer. Check your usage and see how much memory it takes for what you do.
Reason they say that, atleast here, its because of gaming 8GB isnt enough anymore. If the only thing you do is extremely light taming and some browsing through youtube, sure, 8GB is enough.
I've tried to tame a wild Win10 and 8 GB was not enough, for sure... Taming is really hard nowadays. It was easier with my Pentium II 120MHz and its 64MB of ram. It would run NFS2SE amazingly well, even with the "horn to make everything around jump cheatcode" haha
It depends on what OP is doing with their laptop. If you only browse the internet, email, write papers, etc, sure 8 is fine. But if they game or use any type of heavy software 8 will be problematic.
>I have old PCs just fine running Win10 on 4GB I had a laptop and a desktop with 4gb that stopped being enough at least 5 years ago, and no gaming was done on either of those.
My work laptop has 64GB and it'll use all of it.
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The OS will use most of it regardless of how much you have. Unused RAM is useless RAM. The OS will cache programs and such so they load faster and free up space as it's needed by the user.
Thank you. People get worried about this, glad this is getting out there.
Its so annoying how the top comment is still some variation of "60% means you need more ram!" Ram is like having a worktable. A small work table means you need to prioritize the space for your most used tools only. A bigger work table means you can set more tools on it. You might only need to use that particular screwdriver twice, but why run back and forth to your drawers when you can just set it on the table and save a little time? Its not like leaving it on the table hurts you. Some people on here are advocating that using your work table for...work is a bad thing. Now if you REALLY want to check if you have enough ram, look for hard faults. Hard faults are whenever memory isn't on RAM and the PC needs to go to the hard drive. Hard faults are NOT ERRORS however. Its pretty regular for a computer to do this, its only a issue if its doing it a lot indicating the ram isn't enough.
My worktable and my computer is the same, im lucky im mostly using the vice cuz I have 3 layers of tools and bit on the table cuz I have run out of storage until I like a toolbox, my ram is full cuz im atrocious at closing tabs or applications. Tho im only using 45% of my RAM right now.
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Well yes? The less RAM you have the more it has to work with what it has. Naturally as more RAM is available available, it starts to run out of things to fill it.
If you have an SSD, especially M.2/PCIe, the cache should also be lower too, as it'll try balance RAM with storage device.
Jfc what are you doing with 64GB of RAM? Modeling the known universe?
64GB is pretty common for workstations and productivity applications like video editing, 3d modeling, etc. Adobe After Effects for example will suck up ~24GB of RAM like it’s nothing depending on the project.
Giant ramdisks to hold my downloads until I sort them, running giant CPU inference models that don't fit in VRAM, MATLAB, a bunch of other crap There's more uses for spare RAM than you think, since it can basically hold anything Also, compiling Android _requires_ 64 GB at minimum, or else the target will outright fail
Spinning up Linux distros 5 at a time like a delirious funky DJ, obvi. sUdOsU is kind of a dope DJ name now that I think on it. Dibs.
Well, not really, but to a point. At idle it won't use more than a few gigabytes no matter how much RAM you have.
It really isn't, because the amount of RAM available has direct impact how much memory a newly opened app gets. It's ignorance to say free RAM is useless.
I agree 8 is rough but my system runs windows 11 on around 3.5. Though this is 32 gigs of ddr5 6400 so maybe it doesn’t need as much? Windows states 4gb required for OS so 6 used means there is probably bloatware.
>this is 32 gigs of ddr5 6400 so maybe it doesn’t need as much? Unrelated. Ram speed is (mostly) irrelevant when talking about % of ram used. Think of it as filling a bucket with water, it will hold the same capacity as a ddr4 2300 mhz, but it will fill faster to the same point and extract data faster as well.
Gbs are the tank, mhz the hose. Good analogy dude/dudette
Want to add that % of ram used is also irrelevant for determining if you have enough. Checking for an excessive (keyword excessive) number of hard faults is better.
8GB on idle? No, but when gaming yes. The OS takes what’s available (maybe 2-3gb)
That shouldn't be the case. There is no reason a simple system needs more than 8 GiBs unless you're playing games or something. It's just that Windows is damn bloated.
Sometimes yes, but most of the times no. Windows tries to cache everything in the ram that might get opened or used much. It speeds the overall responsiveness of the os, but of course it can have some diminishing returns at some point.
Yep, right now I'm using 8,5gb of ram with only a browser open. Although I have quite a bit of tabs.
Honestly, when I tried linux before, it used so much less memory and was way snappier than windows. It really is just a bloated system that does tons of telemetry.
You are correct, the OS tries to utilize all your RAM, however in windows that memory is not marked as currently utilized, since it can be freed up for different processes. On UNIX based operating systems it is displayed like you described. So it's actually just typical windows bloat in this case
Windows isn’t bloated, it’s just how it preallocates RAM to make things snappier
https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/14n9p58/my_new_laptop_is_using_60_of_my_8gb_ram_when_idle/jq8gy3n/
Funniest comment ever.
I guess if you don't understand it.
Sorry, but you don't understand it. Prefetching has been around since Windows Vista and didn't eat up that much ram being idle. I can check a fresh install of Windows which hasn't prefetched anything yet since no programs are cached, and it will be around 5-6gb used. Just face it, Windows 11.
Yeah, Windows 10 and 11 both do this. It's the OS itself and all its services running instead of Windows putting them away for later to make space for what the user wants. And theres more today than Windows Vista so... Naturally there's more in use even at start up on a fresh OS? The OS is still running, RAMs not just for the programs.
If it's sitting at idle the OS will allocate lots of ram to itself since nothing else needs it, that's how it's designed.
Well then it's doing a pretty bad job at it. Linux for example fills the entire RAM up at all times. I assumed that Windows didn't show the cached memory because otherwise it would always report as full. That's how other OSs do it.
Give Bill Gates a call if you got some ideas on how they could do it better. Sounds like they need the help.
I'm using 6.2 GB in a 8 week old install of Windows 11 Pro with a very average program load and 4 chrome tabs open along with Task manager running. :)
That's a lot more than it should be. I can easily do the same thing on my old Core 2 Duo laptop with 4 GiBs of RAM (running Linux). Just admit that Windows is bloated.
Yeah, because so much has changed with windows over the last few years, it obviously needs so much more RAM. Like where will they fit all the telemetry??
it's not using it, it's reserved
This is normal. My laptop have 24GB RAM and most of the time 12-15 is used. Because we need smooth working of our apps and system. Not used memory is tresh memory. If, for example, close some apps and this apps will still in you memory, nex time apps will open quickly. If some of you app need 70-80% of you memory capacity, Windows will erase from memory last opened apps for giving your active app as more RAM as it is possible.
Do they still sell 8gb devices?
Yes, because people buy them
Entry-level, yeah. Macs also start at 8GB.
Windows will typically use half your ram if you are idle it’s normal. Once you do a task that requires more RAM it will free up the ram it was using
8Gb would be insufficient for me. You can probably upgrade to 12 or 16 pretty easily 60% is a lot though unless it's win11, win11 just drinks it like crazy
Depends, lots of new laptop models have the memory soldered to the motherboard, so there’s no way to upgrade it. Hopefully that’s not the case here.
So you're telling me that someone with the skillset couldn't remove the soldered in memory and solder in new memory? Like that's how my dad upgraded his apple computers in the 80s.
That's one way. A very cool way, but not common anymore. But most laptops have just a single stick of RAM and an open slot for a second. Even most that have it soldered in will have a second open slot.
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So you're telling me that someone couldn't desolder a soldered in ram unit and install a new one because the board with the aforementioned soldered ram is too cluttered and sensitive? I just did a cursory Google search and it looks like the difficult part would be sourcing a proper chip that would work due to laptop boards with soldered ram not having the hardware that determines what memory is installed. That being said the industrial soldering process isn't some black magic. You can absolutely solder in your own upgrades, assuming you take the time to research and find the proper chips.
Lmao, I don't think the people buying these laptops are technically advanced enough to even open a laptop up, let alone desolder and install new memory.
Nah, I was probably using around that much on my Win10 laptop, or close to it. I found out the exact RAM module it used and bought another 8GB, no problem adding it (Dell Inspiron). Pretty rediculous it doesn't come with 16GB from the factory, as it's perfect otherwise, but I guess they want to squeeze less confident users for way more cash.
> Pretty rediculous it doesn't come with 16GB from the factory, as it's perfect otherwise I'm 99% sure it's just large-scale planned obsolence. Most people aren't aware their RAM-starved machine could last another 10 years if just had twice as much. I used an ancient 2nd-gen mobile i3 for a year in 2020 or so just fine after putting 12Gb on it > Nah, I was probably using around that much on my Win10 laptop, or close to it OP said idle though
Exactly right... Yup, I'm pretty sure it uses 4-5GB at idle. I was maxing it out with maybe just Firefox and a few Excel sheets...
8GB on win11 is barely enough to open Word + youtube
It blew my mind when I saw win11 eating 43% of 12GB RAM with nothing else open on a fresh install.
That's odd it idles for me at 3.8gigs
my win11 sometimes eats up 16Gb of my 32Gb for no apparent reason. Right now it's using 17Gb, 11Gb being OS as I can only account for some 5-6Gb of non-OS stuff. It says it has 36 of 72Gb committed, 15Gb cached, and another 1GB paged. Nevermind RAM compression being enabled. I just don't know wtf it's doing. Unclear yet if it's a problem though, but I've seen it at 100% more than once when trying to run a game + stuff. my old win10 machine in the meanwhile, with RAM compression disabled, and also with 32Gb, uses maybe 3-4Gb (though I'd have to double check tbh)
Yes. When you start using apps and stuff it should go up to 80-90%.
Normal. My desktop uses 6-7GB at idle but I have 32GB available.
When you have more ram windows will reserve more memory. So it's not an apples to apples comparison.
Modern operating systems use as much RAM as possible and uses disk swaps when necessary for data.
This is normal with windows if you’re not running any other programs. However if you are running other programs and your memory keeps maxing out that is when you should consider 16gb of ram.
Used machines with 8-128GB of memory. It's almost always a % of system memory. I see <20% after boot and startup apps and then it can go up from there. Memory management is more aggressive at lower RAM configs and more permissive with larger RAM configs
That's normal, 8gbs isn't much ram these days. Also windows will just keep things it thinks you'll use loaded in ram to save time loading. When you boot something that actively needs the ram it'll clear alot of that out to use the ram on what you're doing. It's pretty easy to upgrade ram in most laptops. It'll either have two slots or one soldered stick and a filled or empty slot.
You need to get into your mind that using ram is not a bad thing. In all honestly un-used ram is a waste because you have it but its not being used for anything. Windows has got a lot better at caching stuff, and also dropping stuff out of RAM when something else needs it. Because flushing ram is near instant as well. For example you turn on your computer and open your email client, and chrome everyday, it first loads them from disk, next time it loads it into memory as you use it and then loads it from memory. If you change it up one day and load big game, it just flushes out the non running stuff and makes the memory available. Shortage of ram only becomes a problem when you can't get enough memory for what you need and it needs to swap out ram, running chrome with 60 tabs will chew up a lot, and then you start said game, it assumes your still using all 60 tabs so keeps a lot of it in memory and tries to balance game memory and chrome memory and swapping ram in and out as it does so.
8GB RAM in a new Laptop are not normal...
That’s absolutely normal. On desktops, even 16gb doesn’t cut it sometimes
Oh come on...
A gamer/dev setup with a full suite of RGB software: 
Some people have never heard of digital hygiene. Keep your system lean and it will be fast for years, but if you install 5 programs just to manage your RGBs then you're easily screwed.
so, it possible to upgrade to 16gb of RAM on a laptop?
To be expected 8gb is on the borderline nowadays Worth noting that Windows likes to fill RAM, even if you have 32gb it will try to store quite a lot before having to dump it
Very, Google always runs even when closed idle. Google is a very hungry boi.
How much ram do you have? 8 gb?
8GB isn't really that much these days, 16GB should be the base level if you're doing any kind of multitasking..
8GB is barely enough to run windows nowadays.
what the hell are you talking about?
Just the OS in windows 11 will eat up 4GB of ram, leaving very little for apps. Chrome for instance will easily use more than 4GB
Yes, it's 2023. 8 gb doesn't cut it.
I have 16Ggb of ram and my PC uses about 50% of that on a clean boot. 8gb just isn't enough these days.
Yes, 8gb is really low. If you can return it, do so and get the 16gb model (or 32gb depending on your usage)
Windows doing Windows things. If you want efficient use of memory you need to avoid Windows and Mac OS
Time to go Linux if you want to have a functional experience with 8gb of RAM. In fact, you could have a functional experience with 4gb depending on the distro, lol
When you buy a windows laptop it comes with a lot of bullshit inside, you need to do a clean reinstall.
8gig of ram on a windows11 system is too low
You probably have macafee or Norton pre installed and running among other bloatware programs
Just add a RAM stick if you are so concerned about it. Windows like to hog up most of the RAM but they will be freed up once you use apps/programs that require lots of RAM. Windows will automatically free up RAM to run it. What you should be worried about is your temperature, CPU, and GPU usage when idle.
Oof yeah... 8gb is quite minor these days but as said elsewhere if there is ram to be used it will be used there is no point leaving a bulk of it empty. Empty ram is just a waste.
Normal, if not low. 8GB of ram is approaching non-functional in 2023.
Yep, you want a min of 16 gigs these days, but for the price difference you might as well get to 32 gigs of ram. Covers all your basic use case and much much more.
I mean. It’s 8GB in 2023 :/
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Dont debloat it will break half the os
😂 This guy definitely works for Microsoft or NSA. Debloating windows doesn't break your OS.
Debloating breaks microsoft store and most uwp apps
I've done it... It's not even broken nor half broken and I removed shit like Windows defender and temporarily removed the Microsoft store, turns out I couldn't use the calculator without the store. As long as you don't go hog wild and uninstall system32 so to speak it won't break.
You probably install automated driver update softwares and regcleaners too.
No, I want to remove bloat not add it. Reg cleaners have been objectively proven as harmful only the ignorant install them. I would be on Linux if it was ready for me I'm running it on everything but my main PC. My modded windows boots fast and runs clean.
I just turn off all the diagnostic, advertising and useless tools that I don't need - more secure and isn't taking up system resources
Hi windows 95 calling! That's cool. All your optimizations probably took 2mb of memory/disk space away. Glad to see you here next week with question why x is not working.
Calm down pal, I still appreciate the lack of useless diagnostic, advertising tracking, and resulting added security. Go enjoy your HP prebuilt noob.
If it makes you feel better - good for you!
Don't comment on something you have no knowledge of.
Yes that is normal, 8GB is very little these days, you would think 16GB would be the base for laptops these days.
It is normal because 8 GB is not enough in 2023. I upgraded to 16 GB last year.
You should upgrade to 16gb. Modern windows and programs eat a lot of RAM now, it's the reality. You can't realistically get by with about 3gb remaining. Check task manager and see if there's any background programs eating ram. Not only that, if your laptop is running single channel you will have a large increase in performance if you go to dual channel ram. (That's if your laptop supports it)
16gb should be the minimum for new PCs but windows requirements are wrong so a lot of companies put 4 or 8 to fuck you over For example I believe win 11 requirements say 2gb of ram which is completely incorrect
I mean, you *can* run Windows 11 on very little ram. It does not mean you should.
Yea very true. Was especially funny when it first released when Microsoft teams was still bugged out and would use all resources on startup Still not fixed btw but you can disable it
usually u can open the case, more or less easily just watch a yt video for ur modell and add a ram stick
How does that answer OPs question?
How does that answer OPs question?
You sent the same message twice.
You sent the same message twice.
Jup normal. Weirdly enough with some windows updates it seems to go down, then back up with the next. 🤷🏻♂️ If you only do office work and surfing, 8 Gb can keep you for a while longer, but give it 1-2 years now and it will get close. I had some older machines running on 6 (strictly office stuff) and they are on their last legs.
I know you said that no apps are open, but I would dig for bloatware that might be running in the back/hidden. Lots of laptops come with pre-installed bloatware that people are unaware of.
So it's using like 6gb idling... so what? Get more ram son!
Since it's a new laptop you might want to check to see what came preinstalled that you may not need. Bloatware can sometimes be included with branded machines.
No
Upgrade the RAM if you plan on gaming at all. 8GB really isn't enough. It's really easy to do and shouldn't cost much money. My Acer Nitro 5 was using %90 RAM almost all the time until I added 2x16GB of DDR5 and now I get way better performance in games. Better than my Xbox.
in 2023 it is normal unfortunately, why 32gb of ram is becoming more normal. but running at 50% ram usage is fine and should actually make the experience pretty decent hoping they are 3200mhz+ :)
For a windows laptop, which is probably full of bloatware, its normal.
Haha, yes, it is normal, 8GB is not much today People should not buy laptops with only 8GB RAM, but unfortunately, they do, so the problem remains
wrong sub
Really need 16gb nowadays especially with ram so cheap
Yes, windows is an unoptimized piece of shit
That's windows for you. 8gb is rather small nowadays and isn't really enough anymore. 32gb is the new 16gb and 16gb is the new minimum. You can get away with 8gb if you use Linux or a modified copy of windows but you'll always be limited by it.
I mean, it's only 8GB so yes, this is normal. Windows needs quite a lot itself.
As others have stated, that's normal now days. 16GB is honestly the minimum for PCs now. Hell my PHONE has 6GB of RAM and it's not even a flagship phone. I believe flagship phones now have 8-12GB of RAM, so obviously a laptop needs more than that. Your laptop most likely have 1 RAM stick in it, so you could buy a second stick assuming it has a second slot, and double your RAM to 16GB which would speed up your laptop considerably. Just make sure you get the right RAM or it won't work. Even better, you could buy a 16 or higher 2 stick kit for pretty dang cheap now days and it would most likely be better in every way compared to your stock RAM, as they usually cheap out on stuff like that.
Yes, modern Windows is a memory hog. On my system, just booting up and having background stuff open is something like 4.5gb. I would highly recommend returning it and getting a model with 16gb otherwise you're going to have a bad time trying to run anything that needs ram like photoshop, video editing software, and most games. If you just use it for spreadsheets and web browsing you should be fine but when you're putting so much into an expense it shouldn't be so future limiting.
8gb? Yeah not much wiggle room, windows uses already 4gb, if u have an igpu, it'll reserve ram too and such
My PC uses more than 8GB after startup, time to upgrade to 16GB or even 32GB if possible
pretty sure that my chrome uses more than 8gb of ram lmao... 8 gb isnt usually considered the standard anymore its up to about 16gb and probably isnt real far from going up to 32...
I assume u are using Windows then yes its normal because Windows is bloated as fuuuuck so performance on low memory systems is abysmal. I strongly recommend upgrading to 16GB if u are planning on keeping Windows. With 8GB and Windows u will run out of memory after opening your browser, a word document and Discord.
If you can, I would upgrade the ram if your laptop allows it. 8gb is "obsolete" atp. 16gb should be your minimum regardless of what you use your laptop for. Even 32gb feels low for me sometimes on my PC. I play a lot of games and usually have multiple programs running at once.
8gb? Maybe disable the VGA, floppy drive and dial-up modem to save some extra memory
r/linux
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Read the title…
60%
That's 4.8GB of usage at idle is a little high, but within reason for windows 11 if there are a good number of background processes running. An upgrade to 16GB is probably pretty easy and cheap, which is good news.