Thread: Computer/program help

Originally Posted by Bruno

That is indeed correct. Sorrage (HDD or SSD) is how much permanent storage you have for pictures, documents, programs, .....
Memory is what the computer uses when it's working on something. If you open a picture for example, the contents are loaded in memory where the CPU can perform operations on it.

How much memory you need depends on what sort of things you generally do with your computer.
It pays to keep in mind that your computer is also doing a gazillion things in the background. Behind the scenes, memory is allocated (reserved is a way to think about it), used, resized, de-allocated again etc. Having a lot of free memory helps a lot because the memory manager doesn't have to do much effort to find free blocks whenever some program or the operating itself needs a block. You can think of your compute rmemory as a big parking lot for 1000 cars. Logically, you can fit 1000 cars. But if there are only 500 cars, finding a spot is easy and if occasionally, someone needs to park a semi or a winnebago, the parking lot manager doesn't need to reshuffle the cars to make that possible. So even if you only ever need to park 500 cars and the occasional semi, having space for 1000 cars means there is never a hassle.

So to take that back to the discussion at hand, I would say 8 GB is the very minimum. But I advise 16 GB because if you are a regular, casual computer user, 16 GB is more than enough to never experience issues. And I would make sure there are free slots for adding memory at a later stage in case you ever need to for some reason. I would make sure of this because adding memory is the single best upgrade you can do if you run into performance issues, in terms of bang for the buck.

That said, if you choose a computer now and going from 16 to 32 now for only 50$ in case of special deals or whatever, I would do that and be done with it because it means your computer has enough resources to outlive you.

Something to know: Computer memory (RAM) comes in "sticks" -- longish (but not very tall) PCBs (printed circuit boads) -- that fit into slots on the computer's "motherboard". These "sticks" (actually, called "memory modules") must all be the same "size" (memory size; that is 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, etc). There are, usually, four such slots. Here's the "tricky" part: Many times, the seller will advertise a computer as having, say, "8GB RAM", but use four 2GB modules. What's the problem? This: Since all modules must be the same size, if you want to, say, double the RAM, you'll have to remove all four sticks, and replace them with 1x16 or 2x8 or 4x4 (and not all motherboards support using a single memory module).

IOW, ya gotta do yer homework (and/or post a link to the computer ya wanna buy, and ask for feedback... before ya "pull the trigger").