Citing data from Devil Mountain Software’s community-based XPnet, Craig Barth, the company’s chief technology officer, said that new metrics reveal an unsettling trend. On average, 86% of PC’s running Windows 7 are using 90-95% of their ram, as a result there is bottlenecks and decreased performance as systems are forced to turn to disk-based virtual memory to handle tasks.
While Vista was known for using a lot of RAM while it was idle, Windows 7 hasn’t been plagued with the same issues. However according to the pool of XPnet computers, the number of Windows 7 PCs using 90-95% of RAM is double that of the number of XP computers that run at memory “saturation” point. XPnet have more than 23,000 PCs in their pool and a recent snapshot shows that only a mere 40% of XP machines were using high amounts of RAM.
The vast majority of Windows 7 machines over the last several months are very heavily-memory saturated,” “From a performance standpoint, that has an immediate impact on the machine.”
said Barth today. What is also more worrying is that Windows 7 PCs generally have more RAM than XP Machines. The average Windows 7 Machine sports 3.3GB while Windows XP machines have approx 1.7GB on average.
“Windows 7 machines have almost twice as much memory to work with, but the numbers show just how much larger and more complex Windows 7 is than XP.”
However, there is another side to this data collected by XPnet.
Barth acknowledged that XPnet’s data couldn’t determine whether the memory usage was by the operating system itself, or an increased number of applications, but said that Devil Mountain would start working on finding which is the dominant factor in increased memory use.
It may just be that the Windows 7 machines running at the time were using more RAM because of the number of applications they were running etc…. Also if your machine has 1GB or 20GB of ram, I think you will find that there is a good chunk of it being used. No it’s not because the Operating System is a resource hog, it’s just being sensible.
You see RAM is “Random Access Memory” which means it’s used for “Random” tasks. Your computer doesn’t know that you are about to open up your browser or that you want to open up a photo editing program. So instead it stores information in the RAM which can be quickly accessed once you call for that program. Allowing your PC to load up a application quicker than it would straight from a hard drive.
So basically just because your system happens to be using a lot of RAM doesn’t mean it your PC is a resource hog, it’s just being sensible, any unused RAM is just going to waste. It’s when your RAM is maxed out that you get system bottlenecks and crashes, which has never happened to me to date on my laptop. I’m running Windows 7 64 bit with 4GB ram, and I do plenty of multitasking. Right now I have a browser with 10 tabs open, iTunes, Messanger, Microsoft Word and a Photo Editing program and my RAM is just at 50%.
I rarely notice any slowdown with my system since upgrading to Windows 7, and I when my system is idle I generally use about 35% of my RAM. Only on rare occasions like when playing Call Of Duty do I see it spike up to about 75-80%.
So to wrap it up, I wouldn’t be worried in the slightest if your PC is using anything up to 70% of your RAM, Windows will automatically reallocate RAM to where it’s need as you approach 100% and it’s only on systems with very low amounts of RAM that you will get system crashes and freezing if it fails to do this.
I would take this data from XPnet with a pinch of salt, unless I hear different from you guys. What is your current RAM usage at and how much available memory do you have installed? What is it at Idle and do you ever max it out?
Let us know in the comments
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Same here, I’m only using 35% of my RAM. Its probably those computers that only have like 1.5GB or 2GB that are using so much and that’s probably why its reporting so much being used.
Oh yeah, your RSS feeds aren’t working for your main site. The last post it says is the eMazzanti Tech post back on 2/10.
Dude, Windows 7 uses 550mb of RAM when you have 1gb and about 1gb when you have 4gb. That must be some advertising for Mac or something lmao
Also, OEM PC owners that bought their PCs with Windows 7 + OEM softwares, remove those OEM softwares crap and see.
Are those people retarded? don’t they knowW7 caches the data for later faster use? that RAM is not “gone”, it is available any time. I though we talked about prefetch/superfetch many years ago already.
It is a good thing to actually use all the(expensive) memory to speed up the PC. and BTW, most laptops for $ 550 already have 4 GB, so where is the issue in the OS using 1 GB or more?
People should be able to read the task manager before they found a software forum and post nonsense. I have 8 GB, have 3.3 GB “free”but 6 GB “available”the difference is what it pre-loaded because I typically use other software. If i do, it will start that software faster. If it needs that memory for something unexpected, it dumps what it had pre-loaded and uses the RAM. So easy, so efficient. I can’t believe people make it into the news with such nonsense.
My system only has 2gb of ram, and yet I have no issues with “too much ram” being used. Right now, my ram count sits at 29% WITH Firefox running. Strange how we see these 90-95% numbers being thrown around.
desktop has 512MB -> normal usage upto 75% to 90%
laptop has 3GB -> normal usage upto 25% to 35% (while playing games may go upto 60 70%)
when i had 2 gb normal usage is 30 to 37 %and i was usuing trend micro .now im have 3 gb and eset and its showed 30 to 35 % and about 40 when i playing pes 2010
When idle, my Acer Aspire 8930G (32bit Win7, 4GB Ram) is using 31%, and even when I have several app.’s running, it have never exceedet 50%. The machine was born with Vista, and at that stage it used 52% when idle.
Perhaps manufacture’s should stop loading their PCs with unnecessary programs and trials that run on startup. The average computer user does not know what to delete/how to shut them off. If I buy a laptop/desktop from a manufacture usually the first two hours of my time with it are spent deleting the junk.
I have Windows 7 64bit with 8gb Ram. Currently got Outlook, Firefox (4tabs), media player, MSN and a fair few folders open and currently my ram usage is at 25%.
When idle, it generally uses about 5-10% less. I can normally have loads going on and notice no slow down (i.e. firefox, convertxtodvd, nero *burning a cd* msn, outlook, photoshop etc)
I have windows 7 32 bit and 4gb of ddr2 ram. Even when I game it never goes above 70%. It is usually idle at 25%-30%. I have never gotton 90% or higher.
RAM is meant to be used. If I’m multitasking away like usual and my machine is working just fine, then I don’t care how much RAM is being used, cause that’s what it is there for. On the other hand, if a program is eating up RAM, then the issue is with the application and not the OS. You can’t blame an OS for a crappy applications use leaking of memory.
I built a beast gaming machine. It worked PERFECTLY for 7 months, but then randomly i try to turn on my computer nd use it and hey, look, my ram is maxed out. Went from using around 50% of 2gb to 90+. I know 2gb isnt alot but it was running GODLY before and there is no real reason that it should be different, one day from another.
The only reason i am able to post this is because i’m in safe mode atm. Does anyone have an idea whats up with that?