Computer memory
'RAM', the Speed Memory
RAM, which stands for Random Access Memory, volatile memory used for data storage. Once the computer is shutdown, the memory data will be flushed off easily and hence this is called as volatile memory. Once the computer reboots, it reboots from this section of memory initially. The PC uses this memory as a working memory, if you like, when running a program or application.
Almost all temporary data will be stored in RAM and hence the entire application program that a user works on would be impossible without RAM. To have an effective speed in accessing the data stored in RAM, one should have a good RAM to withstand the weight or load stored in your computer.
When you are looking to increase the speed of program access and the speed of applications on a PC, the amount of RAM is one of the places to look at. The amount of RAM required will generally depend on the size and complexity of programs that you are wishing to run. Most OS systems, like Windows, and applications to suit, will come with recommendations for the amount of RAM required.
'Virtual Memory', the Helping Hand
Once additional RAM slots are installed, the computers may work faster. However, no one could make it sure that the demanded memory is been given to any sort of application programs. If the application program requires a memory size of nearly 64 MB, but you have a RAM chip that could afford only 32MB chip, in that case the computer would help the application program by accommodating nearly half of the application program in its virtual memory. This memory is virtually present and its work is nothing more than to create a swap file, so that RAM could store the temporary data easily. The virtual memory unit is managed well by a virtual memory manager. This manager will deal with the temporary data.
If temporary data is not needed for a while then it is stored in the hard disk until it is needed. When there is a need for that specific data then the virtual memory would swap the data in the memory with the data in the hard drive that is needed for the computations. This sort of swapping the needed data with the unused data might slow down the computer's computation process. Once users get additional RAM chips, the need for virtual memory to swap the files would become unnecessary and hence the system might not be sluggish and it would be optimized in speed and efficiency of computing any user requests.
Once you add a lot of RAM memory slots your computers performance would increase dramatically in an upper pace, but this point lies only in theory and not in practice. The increase of RAM memory capacity to any extent keeps your system's memory in only a single vantage point. Therefore, the user should think of the capacity of their user programs, the working of their computer and then decide on the capacity of the RAM memory.
SDRAM
Most of the desktop computers today use this SDRAM. The Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory generally is of two main types, SDR SDRAM (Single Data Rate Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory), DDR SDRAM (Double Data Rate Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory). The older memory was referred to as the SDR SDRAM, and the newer memory is now referred to as the DDR SDRAM. Sometimes the most powerful computers may use the DDR2 RAM or the so-called Rambus Dynamic Memory. Though they are asynchronous memory, they are different from that of the other memory types. They wait before responding to any event or input given. This wait cycle will be equal to one clock cycle. The bus speed and the processor speed is different and hence they should be equalized. In such situations, SDRAM is used. The general specification of the SDRAM is PC66, PC100, and PC133 and so on; the specification of the numbers after the PC indicates the clock cycle rate in megahertz.
DDR
Double Data Rate Memory is also similar to the SDRAM. The only difference lies in the transfers, it can transfer twice in one clock cycle. The specifications would be DDR-200/PC-1600. The 200 stands for the clock rate in megahertz and the 1600 stands for the bandwidth of the entire memory.