How do I know how much Ram my PC has | Do I have Enough RAM

How much RAM does my PC have? This is the most asked question by PC users today as Ram memory is essential for the operation of any computer, and depending on how much the computer has, you will be more or less limited to perform certain actions.

Here we are going to tell you how to know how much RAM your PC has, and is it enough. Let’s go there!

Fundamental role of RAM in your PC

The first thing we must understand is the importance of RAM for PC. The simplest explanation is that this Ram memory is designed to temporarily store all the programs that we have running, as well as the operating system.

See Also: Can we Use SSD as RAM

Intuitively, we think that the way to run a program is to locate it on the hard drive and constantly access it to retrieve or modify all the information we need.

This is a bad idea as hard drives and even SSDs are too slow for this purpose, plus the already prevalent SSDs degrade if we do a lot of storage on it.

So, the CPU (the brain of the computer) give advantage of its potential, we need that, when a program is executed, it is taken to a faster memory where it will reside temporarily, and all the changes that are made to it will be returned to disk.

RAM and hard drive are part of a memory hierarchy, where other types of memory with even less capacity and more speed such as cache are also saved.

Anyhow, let’s not talk about it and see how do we may know how much RAM my pc has.

How do I know how much RAM my PC has

The best way to know the amount of RAM on your PC in Windows 10 or Windows 11 is by entering the Task Manager. There are several ways to do it:

• By means of the typical keyboard shortcut “Control + Alt + Delete”, and once done by clicking on Task Manager.
• With the direct keyboard shortcut, which is “Shift + Control + Esc”
• By right clicking on an empty area of ​​the taskbar, that is, the bar where we find the open programs, where we will get the option to enter the Task Manager.
• Directly looking for Task Manager in the start menu.

Once you enter, check if you see multiple tabs in the program. If not, click More details at the bottom left.

When you see such a window, locate the Performance tab and click on it.

See Also: What is LPDDR5 Ram | What is it for

Then, you just have to click on Memory, and you will see the amount of RAM with which your PC is equipped. In addition to this you can see several interesting parameters:

• Memory in use and memory available for use.
• Committed memory, where you see all the virtual memory in use and the maximum virtual memory. Virtual memory is known as the sum of physical RAM and the page file, which is a region of the hard drive that is used when the physical RAM is full and it is necessary to leave some of the RAM temporarily on the disk (this causes a slowdown of the equipment).

An Alternative: The Computer’s BIOS

The great alternative that you can resort to know the RAM of your PC is directly in the BIOS of the equipment, where there is normally a summary of the basic components of the system such as the processor and RAM memory, etc.

To enter the BIOS, there are different keys that we can use, it is something that actually varies depending on the manufacturer of the computer board.

Another important thing is the way to enter it, which is not only hitting the right key, but doing it on time, before the operating system starts to load.

Many of us opt for the solution of hitting the key until the BIOS appears, but hitting it at the right time.

And which keys are the most used? Usually the Delete key, as well as F2, F10, F1, and sometimes keys like Enter or Escape.

Many times, the necessary key is indicated on the screen right when you turn on the equipment.

Types of RAM

Knowing how much RAM your PC has is not the only important thing we should know, in fact the task manager gives us a lot of information about the type of RAM we have installed as well.

See Also: DDR4 vs DDR5 Ram Memory | Which One is Better

Still, let’s see what an external program, CPU-Z, offers us to learn more about your PC’s RAM.

Once we install it, we can open it and go to the Memory tab, where the most interesting parameters will be:

1. Type: the type of memory (DDR3, DDR4, DDR5, etc) that we have.
2. Channel: the number of channels in use in the system, here we are talking about a dual channel memory.
3. DRAM Frequency: this is the frequency of the RAM memory, something very important because it has to do with how fast it is. We must multiply this value by two always due to how DDR or Double Data Rate memories works.
4. Then we have other values ​​corresponding to memory timings.
5. Then, in the SPD tab, what we can see is the specific data of each RAM memory slotted in the system.

This gives us much better information about exactly what RAM we have installed and whether it can be expanded or not.

Do I have Enough RAM

Once you have analyzed the amount of RAM you have on your computer, you may be interested in checking if you have enough memory installed.

The truth is that it all depends on how you are going to use the computer, so let’s see what experts recommend after seeing the RAM from 2 to 32GB.

1. 2 GB of RAM

If you have 2GB of RAM, then you probably have a fairly old computer. Currently, this amount of memory is insufficient to run Windows 10 fluently, as it is right at its minimum requirements.

You should check to see if you can upgrade your PC’s RAM, and do so, or use a lightweight Linux operating system.

2. 4 GB of RAM

Here we are already entering a field in which we can talk about an acceptable amount of memory, as long as the use of the equipment is VERY basic, and you are not going to have several tabs or several programs open at the same time.

It is enough to open a few browser tabs and without having to use other programs at the same time.

3. 8 GB of RAM

We move on to what is a comfortable amount of memory for basic PC uses. Here we can already enjoy acceptable multitasking if we only dedicate ourselves to using basic programs and browsing. We may have a problem playing heavy games.

See Also: RAM Memory Lifetime Warranty: What Does this Mean

But if we reduce the number of programs open at the same time, we can even use Photoshop without problems and can little heavy games as well.

4. 16 GB of RAM

We have already reached the amount of star RAM for the vast majority of PC users. In basic use, this allows us to have many programs open, while in professional use we can edit video and photos, render in 3D, play games without limitations using any other program at the same time, etc.

5. 32 GB of RAM or more

This would be a much more prepared amount of RAM for the future, or for professional video and photo editing.

For example, with high color depths or working with very heavy media. No “normal user” needs that much RAM these days.

Try it for Yourself

You can also take advantage of the task manager statistics to see, with many open programs (the maximum you know you’ll ever have), if your RAM is at its limit or not. This is a very smart option to know if the memory you have installed is enough.

Conclusion

We tried to teach you how to know how much RAM your PC has, where the easiest method is to simply check it in the task manager.

There are also other ways, such as consulting the computer’s BIOS, or using external software such as CPU-Z.

The fundamental thing in a PC is to have a sufficient amount of RAM memory to meet your needs, since if you fill up the available physical RAM the PC will use the paging file, which is a memory located on the hard disk, slowing down the PC strongly.