RAM is short for “Random Access Memory”, and is possibly one of the most important parts of your computer.

When purchasing a computer, people can easily get lured in by the size of a Hard Disk Drive (HDD), but you can never over estimate the importance of how much RAM the system has. While HDDs stores the files and programs, RAM is the memory that handles everything on your computer that is currently being used. So, the more RAM you have, the more programs you can have open at any given time, or the smoother they will run.

Windows Vista greatly increased the amount of RAM that the operating system requires to run, and the minimum suggested requirement for smoothly running it is 2 GigaBytes (GB). Whenever a program tells you the minimum amount, they are being serious that really is the minimum amount you should work with, so if Windows Vista is saying you need 2 GBs, you should try for at least 3 – 4 GBs installed in the system so your programs will run smoothly.

Another thing to consider in your RAM calculations is what type of graphics card the system has.  If there is no information about the amount of dedicated video RAM, then you have to assume your graphics will be using space inside of the primary RAM.  This also can sometimes be listed as “shared memory” meaning that the video system and the main computing will be sharing the same memory.

As much as a higher number on the processing speed is nice, if you don’t have the RAM to go with it, it won’t matter how fast it says the processor is.  Always try to budget as much as possible for your RAM memory.