Which uses less RAM? Win7 or Win10?

hedron

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 24, 2008
Messages
495
I'm just kind of wondering whether I should just buy more RAM, which would probably entail a complete overhaul or upgrade to Win10?
 
actually ... you want your OS to use as much ram as possible .. idle ram is wasted ram... we're not talking about WinXP anymore :)

..that being said, they have the same hardware requirements .. a little less hard drive space is needed for windows 10 though for a 64bit install. 12Gb is plenty for your setup ..
 
actually ... you want your OS to use as much ram as possible .. idle ram is wasted ram... we're not talking about WinXP anymore :)

..that being said, they have the same hardware requirements .. a little less hard drive space is needed for windows 10 though for a 64bit install. 12Gb is plenty for your setup ..

I think that these days with Windows behaving more like UNIX (eg, not going to swap until RAM is maxed out), we should really be concerned about installed footprint. Really, does any version of Windows *need* 10+GB of space? A comparable Linux installation can be had in under 6GB (typical Ubuntu) or even less if you know how to tune out packages you don't care about.

Ideally, I'd even like to see Windows go the route (since Metro is now here to stay) of allowing you to *not* install all of the Metro apps by default and instead just get what you need from the store. This is the same approach Google ended up having to take eventually with Android and ChromeOS.
 
Windows 7 has significantly fewer processes running than 10. However, the next Windows 10 build is supposed to include a memory compression technology that may help use less overall.
 
Ram is so cheap now a days, is this really still a concern? When 16gb is under 100 bucks, this seems like a waste of time to worry about memory usage.
 
actually ... you want your OS to use as much ram as possible .. idle ram is wasted ram... we're not talking about WinXP anymore :)

Yea, you're talking the mantra Microsoft shills preached when Vista came out. With Win8 Microsoft reverted to less ram used means more ram for your apps/games/progs. Same should be true of Win10 but I don't use Win10 so don't know for sure.
 
I guess my memory issues are because I use a lot of java based applications and they are memory and resource hogs. And 12gigs is barely enough. Really. So, I wasn't trying to blame Windows for my memory problem, even if it sounded like I was. Even if Win10 uses half a gig less RAM that would all the more reason to update, especially since it's free. The only thing that's really holding me back is the 'spyware' issue.
 
actually ... you want your OS to use as much ram as possible .. idle ram is wasted ram... we're not talking about WinXP anymore :)

..that being said, they have the same hardware requirements .. a little less hard drive space is needed for windows 10 though for a 64bit install. 12Gb is plenty for your setup ..

No, you want your OS to use as little ram as possible to have it free for your apps. Don't confuse app caching to the OS.
 
I think that these days with Windows behaving more like UNIX (eg, not going to swap until RAM is maxed out), we should really be concerned about installed footprint. Really, does any version of Windows *need* 10+GB of space? A comparable Linux installation can be had in under 6GB (typical Ubuntu) or even less if you know how to tune out packages you don't care about.

Ideally, I'd even like to see Windows go the route (since Metro is now here to stay) of allowing you to *not* install all of the Metro apps by default and instead just get what you need from the store. This is the same approach Google ended up having to take eventually with Android and ChromeOS.

Much of the space on a 64-bit installation has to do with 32 bit legacy code for compatibility. Additionally, depending on how much RAM you have installed, up to 64gb or more can be taken up for the default hibernation and pagefile settings. The Metro apps really don't take up that much space by comparison, probably ~200-400 mb at most for the default installed apps. I think realistically this number is closer to ~100 mb, trivial compared to the rest.

Yea, you're talking the mantra Microsoft shills preached when Vista came out. With Win8 Microsoft reverted to less ram used means more ram for your apps/games/progs. Same should be true of Win10 but I don't use Win10 so don't know for sure.

What he's saying is that the OS should be caching and prefetching as aggressively as possible.
 
if your sig is correct and your motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-790XTA-UD4, the specs say you can upgrade to a maximum of 16GB of RAM. (Is it really a thing that they can't take 8GB DIMMs? I have no idea, someone else will have to comment.) 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR3 kits cost about $90 on newegg; 8GB (2 x 4GB) kits cost as low as $35 each so two of those would be $70.

So, for $70, you can increase your RAM by 4GB, which would almost certainly be more than whatever you might gain or lose by going from Win7 to Win10. You may be able to recoup some of the cost by selling the old RAM.
 
My board can handle 16GBs. It's just that if I'm going to upgrade, I might as well do a complete mobo/cpu/ram overhaul. I have a rule that if it isn't broken or isn't twice as powerful by some meaningful gauge then I don't upgrade. So, in order to upgrade my RAM, I'd need 24GBs.

more than whatever you might gain or lose by going from Win7 to Win10.

Upgrading to win10 is free.
 
I think that these days with Windows behaving more like UNIX (eg, not going to swap until RAM is maxed out), we should really be concerned about installed footprint. Really, does any version of Windows *need* 10+GB of space? A comparable Linux installation can be had in under 6GB (typical Ubuntu) or even less if you know how to tune out packages you don't care about.

Ideally, I'd even like to see Windows go the route (since Metro is now here to stay) of allowing you to *not* install all of the Metro apps by default and instead just get what you need from the store. This is the same approach Google ended up having to take eventually with Android and ChromeOS.

You can strip a lot of the bulk junk out of windows if you desire. rt7lite and nlite have tools that can do this. I have a superlite version of Win7x64 I created that installs using only around 3-4GB. 95% functional, most people would never tell the difference.
 
You can strip a lot of the bulk junk out of windows if you desire. rt7lite and nlite have tools that can do this. I have a superlite version of Win7x64 I created that installs using only around 3-4GB. 95% functional, most people would never tell the difference.
That's awesome that there are tools to do it but my fundamental argument is that windows should allow such granular installation by default without the need for extra tools and know-how.
 
No, you want your OS to use as little ram as possible to have it free for your apps. Don't confuse app caching to the OS.

This.

Also ram is not limited by cost but by actual system limitations. Most motherboards can't support more than 32GB without getting into expensive server boards. That said, 8GB+ is usually enough now days. 1-2GB for OS, 1-2GB for misc apps, 4GB for Firefox. :D
 
Ram is so cheap now a days, is this really still a concern? When 16gb is under 100 bucks, this seems like a waste of time to worry about memory usage.

Not all devices are upgradable. I've got a tablet that's got a fixed 4Gig of ram, non-upgradable. Having said that, 10 is a lot like 8.1 in that it's got qutie good memory management. (better than Win 7's)
 
This.

Also ram is not limited by cost but by actual system limitations. Most motherboards can't support more than 32GB without getting into expensive server boards. That said, 8GB+ is usually enough now days. 1-2GB for OS, 1-2GB for misc apps, 4GB for Firefox. :D

You don't seem to understand how these memory management techniques work. These days, Windows is very similar to Linux in how it treats RAM.

That is, it will prioritize pre-caching of applications or keeping your data in memory for as long as possible. If you only have one application (and its data) in RAM and there's lots of room left over then it loads more of the kernel into RAM. As soon as you load another application, some of the kernel space is freed to make room for your application.

This is what you want because it means the application you're actually using right now is more responsive. You want swapping to disk to be reserved for when it's absolutely necessary. I know that Windows users aren't used to this based on how Windows has operated historically but this is all a good thing and is how other UNIX-like operating systems (eg, BSD, Linux, MacOS X) have operated for 30+ years.
 
You don't seem to understand how these memory management techniques work. These days, Windows is very similar to Linux in how it treats RAM.

That is, it will prioritize pre-caching of applications or keeping your data in memory for as long as possible. If you only have one application (and its data) in RAM and there's lots of room left over then it loads more of the kernel into RAM. As soon as you load another application, some of the kernel space is freed to make room for your application.

This is what you want because it means the application you're actually using right now is more responsive. You want swapping to disk to be reserved for when it's absolutely necessary. I know that Windows users aren't used to this based on how Windows has operated historically but this is all a good thing and is how other UNIX-like operating systems (eg, BSD, Linux, MacOS X) have operated for 30+ years.

I'm talking about the actual ram usage that windows needs to operate, not the caching. Windows is much heavier than it used to be and needs a few gigs to itself. That is ram that is not available to applications.
 
I'm talking about the actual ram usage that windows needs to operate, not the caching. Windows is much heavier than it used to be and needs a few gigs to itself. That is ram that is not available to applications.

Show me a memory profile that shows the kernel using gigabytes of RAM? I am no Windows fan (I use Linux almost exclusively) but I help manage Windows servers that are doing near constant compilations of code for my company and I rarely see the Windows kernel (or its required helper processes) consuming more than ~512MB
 
Show me a memory profile that shows the kernel using gigabytes of RAM? I am no Windows fan (I use Linux almost exclusively) but I help manage Windows servers that are doing near constant compilations of code for my company and I rarely see the Windows kernel (or its required helper processes) consuming more than ~512MB

I ran with only 4GB of ram once in win7 (was troubleshooting an issue to see if other sticks were bad) and I barely had enough to do much. Constantly getting low memory warnings if I opened more than one app as Windows was using most of it. Windows becomes more bloated and heavier in resource usage after each update. There are exceptions though, Vista was a huge pig compared to 7. So they did do improvements there. XP is also a pig compared to 2000. As time progresses Windows generally uses more ram and other resources, this is a pretty basic well established fact.
 
I ran with only 4GB of ram once in win7 (was troubleshooting an issue to see if other sticks were bad) and I barely had enough to do much. Constantly getting low memory warnings if I opened more than one app as Windows was using most of it. Windows becomes more bloated and heavier in resource usage after each update. There are exceptions though, Vista was a huge pig compared to 7. So they did do improvements there. XP is also a pig compared to 2000. As time progresses Windows generally uses more ram and other resources, this is a pretty basic well established fact.

Again, I'd like to see the memory profile. Often when I hear of cases like this is not actually Windows but device drivers and their helper apps that are causing this.
 
Again, I'd like to see the memory profile. Often when I hear of cases like this is not actually Windows but device drivers and their helper apps that are causing this.

Well I would consider drivers part of the OS, your computer wont work without them. I'm at work right now so have better things to do than try to prove stuff but if I have time I will setup a VM at home and show you ram usage of a basic windows installation compared to say, Linux. Or even just compare 2000 to 7.
 
Well I would consider drivers part of the OS, your computer wont work without them. I'm at work right now so have better things to do than try to prove stuff but if I have time I will setup a VM at home and show you ram usage of a basic windows installation compared to say, Linux. Or even just compare 2000 to 7.

That's fair, but those drivers are often not authored by Microsoft. Do you punish Microsoft because Creative Labs insists on including their over-bloated Audio Control Panel software that is both large and buggy? Similar argument could be made for just about every single Logitech peripheral out there.
 
Here's my experience on a fresh installation with no drivers: W10 uses about 30% more ram at idle compared to W7.
 
This.

Also ram is not limited by cost but by actual system limitations. Most motherboards can't support more than 32GB without getting into expensive server boards. That said, 8GB+ is usually enough now days. 1-2GB for OS, 1-2GB for misc apps, 4GB for Firefox. :D

Chrome is the ram hog not Firefox. That being said.

Windows 10 uses about 450-500mb on boot for me. Windows 7 was like 700 before the switch to 10. I would say it does a better job. Nothing in my Startup either but CCleaner. So no extra programs running.
 
I'd say Chrome and Firefox are on the RAM hog. But I don't mind. Whatever it takes to make everything blazing fast.
 
I'd be more interested in the diff between 8 and 10, since 10 is basically 8.2 -- even though some swear "oh no the 10 kernel is totally different, they re-did everything". Yarite.
 
I'd say Chrome and Firefox are on the RAM hog. But I don't mind. Whatever it takes to make everything blazing fast.

Well, I think they use up so much RAM because today web sites are applications when they used to be just essentially static pages, what browsers were originally designed to handle. So there's a sort of disconnect between what a browser is good at and what it is actually doing. Ideally, a site like Facebook would be its own independent application like MSN Messenger was. At least, IMO.
 
Well, I think they use up so much RAM because today web sites are applications when they used to be just essentially static pages, what browsers were originally designed to handle. So there's a sort of disconnect between what a browser is good at and what it is actually doing. Ideally, a site like Facebook would be its own independent application like MSN Messenger was. At least, IMO.
Putting aside the dramatic escalation of development costs which would effectively bar all but the largest players from participating in the market, and the resultant reduction in diversity of content, you would then have a huge disparity of quality in development, for essentially the same services, from different vendors.

Thanks, but no thanks.

I like the direction we're headed in, even if I do seem to riding in a hand-basket.
 
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