Browsers and memory usage

brncao

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 4, 2013
Messages
231
Before I added in 16GB of RAM, I had 8GB of RAM. With a bunch of tabs open, both in firefox and chrome, my memory usage was around 5GB out of 8GB. Now with the 16GB of RAM added in, it's now 9.36GB out of 24GB, exceeding the 8GB pre-upgrade. Can anyone explain this?
 
I've noticed this too. Windows and applications will make use of the extra available ram as buffers and caches, rather than too read from storage and process through the CPU, it can near instantaneously get it from RAM. Unused RAM is wasted RAM, as RAM can be flushed extremely quickly.
 
That's what I suspected. I plan to use RAMDisk to load certain read-only files faster. I'll need that extra space.
 
This is very common. I noticed this myself when I did an upgrade from 8GB to 16GB, but nothing as much as yours. I don't have as many tabs open as you I bet, but the OS is designed to maximize the amount of system RAM available, hence improving system performance.

More RAM utilization isn't always a bad thing. At 8GB my after boot idle usage was between 1.5-2GB on 8GB and about 3-4GB with 16GB's.
 
That's what I suspected. I plan to use RAMDisk to load certain read-only files faster. I'll need that extra space.

Hi, brncao,

When you create the RAMDisk Windows will allocate the needed RAM to it and away from processes that are not using the RAM they were allocated. You will have "... that extra space ..." when you have something that needs it like a RAMDisk.

You can also do a forum search on Windows memory usage and handling to get more information.

Hope this helps.
 
Microsoft is engineering Windows to take advantage of as much ram as possible. This is a good thing.

What would be the point of having 8 or 16 GB or more if Windows was engineered to only use a GB or 2 and no more...
 
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