Upgrading your computer's memory is probably one of the easiest and cheapest ways of boosting its performance. More memory translates into faster computing. Compare the situation with your own work desk. As your work load increases, so does your paper work. If your desk were to remain the same size despite the increased paper work, it would take you much longer to find a particular document when required. But if you got a bigger desk, it would obviously accommodate more paper. RAM is the place that temporarily stores all the instructions needed by the computer to act. If RAM is too cluttered, it will have to retrieve information from the hard disk drive more often, causing delays in processing each time this happened.

Upgrading RAM is particularly useful for people who run multiple applications at the same time or use memory hogging applications such as graphics, music or games.

When is it the right time to upgrade RAM?

There are several indicators of insufficient memory – the computer working slower than normal, the hard disk drive audibly working ‘hard', you having to wait long for applications to start. RAM is also known as ‘physical memory' whereas hard disk memory is called ‘virtual memory'. Access time of physical memory is much lesser than access time for virtual memory. When there is a shortage of physical memory, the computer has to use the virtual memory, and this significantly reduces the speed of the system.

Will I be able to browse the internet faster if I add more RAM?

The speed of Internet browsing is dependent upon numerous factors, RAM being just one among them. Some of these other factors are your connection speed, the amount of traffic on the site you are visiting, and some of the components in your system. Hence, the answer to the above question is, yes, perhaps your Internet browsing will be faster with more RAM, and perhaps not so much, depending on the other factors. However, additional RAM is certainly beneficial if you are working with large files (such as photo, audio or video files) of if you like to alternate between your browser and other applications often.