Where is my ram ?

J

jrason7

n00b
Joined
Oct 31, 2010
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Everytime i start windows 7 about 1.5 gb of ram is use already in use with no significant program running. This is just something i have just noticed after installing a new samsung SSD on my rig and i did some tweaking like turning of prefetch, superfetch.
What is going on ?
 
System : Win 7 64 bit, Corsair DDR3 6GB RAM, Gigabyte EX58, i7,

Superfetch was turned off to save ram according to some people but apparently it didnt help much. Anyways turning it on wouldnt help or would it ?
 
I don't believe it matters, superfetch will use RAM you aren't using to cache programs you use the most of and if active programs need more RAM, Windows will take from the cache.

Its like owning a store, the sales floor is your RAM, the stockroom is your HDD/SSD. Having your sales' floor nearly empty while your stuff sits in the back making you go back and forth is a waste of time. Your RAM will still be faster than the SSD, but I can guess the SSD crowd will say you are unlikely to notice and pulling cache info to the RAM will slow your system a bit.

I'm still have yet to jump on the SSD band-wagon, but waiting for the prices to drop more.
 
ninjaturtle said:
I don't believe it matters, superfetch will use RAM you aren't using to cache programs you use the most of and if active programs need more RAM, Windows will take from the cache.

Its like owning a store, the sales floor is your RAM, the stockroom is your HDD/SSD. Having your sales' floor nearly empty while your stuff sits in the back making you go back and forth is a waste of time. Your RAM will still be faster than the SSD, but I can guess the SSD crowd will say you are unlikely to notice and pulling cache info to the RAM will slow your system a bit.
Click to expand...
That's about the best analogy of superfetch I've seen. It's spot on. I would expand that analogy and say that superfetch also is the sales manager and will decide to clear the shelves of old inventory (unused data) to make way for the latest product (programs you are currently working with). Why anyone would disable superfetch is beyond me. Its simply baffling as it adds huge performance benefits with nearly zero drawbacks. People seem to forget Superfetch always clears out the old to make way for the new when there isn't space available. If I have a shit ton of RAM, there is no reason why NOT load anything and everything into RAM so it doesn't have to be loaded later.
 
I`ve noticed that superfetch is a disputed subject in most forums. Some saying it is worth it and other not so much. Some even go further and claim any tweaks at all will cause regression. Clearly if RAM is faster it makes sense caching things there, i assume this logic is also applicable to prefetch,
However this doesn't solve my initial question...i would like to know where my ram is going cause this wasnt the case with my hdd.
 
Last edited:
jrason7 said:
I`ve noticed that superfetch is a disputed subject in most forums. Some saying it is worth it and other not so much. Some even go further and claim any tweaks at all will cause regression. Clearly if RAM is faster it makes sense caching things there, i assume this logic is also applicable to prefetch,
However this doesn't solve my initial question...i would like to know where my ram is going cause this wasnt the case with my hdd.
Click to expand...

How much was the OS using when you were on a HDD?
 
Go into task manager and look at the processes and find the things with the most and bam.
 
Be default, Windows 7 will disable Superfetch, ReadyBoost, as well as boot and application launch prefetching on SSDs with good random read, random write and flush performance. These technologies were all designed to improve performance on traditional HDDs, where random read performance could easily be a major bottleneck. See the FAQ section for more details.

Since SSDs tend to perform at their best when the operating system’s partitions are created with the SSD’s alignment needs in mind, all of the partition-creating tools in Windows 7 place newly created partitions with the appropriate alignment.
Click to expand...

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2009/05/05/support-and-q-a-for-solid-state-drives-and.aspx
 
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