We Doubled His RAM and the Percentage Barely Moved
We moved a client from 8GB of RAM to 16GB. Running the same workload, his memory usage went from 80% to 72%. He wanted to know if that was all his money bought.
Written by Pinchos Bernikier · Originally posted on LinkedIn ↗
Yesterday a client asked me a question I've asked myself more than once.
We had just moved him from an older computer with 8GB of RAM to a new one with 16GB. Running the exact same workload, the percentage barely moved.
80% down to 72%.
"Did I spend all that money upgrading all my computers just for that 8%?"
I immediately said, "Chrome."
Where the memory was going
We opened Task Manager, and sure enough, Google Chrome alone was using almost 6.5GB. And that was before counting Teams, ChatGPT, and several other programs that are basically browsers under the hood.
At that point the answer seemed obvious. Chrome saw the extra RAM and said, "It's free real estate."
That explained the where. It didn't explain why the upgrade still mattered.
The percentage barely changed but the computer's ability to keep everything ready changed a lot.
Why the upgrade still mattered
On the old computer, more than 80% of its 8GB was already in use, leaving less than 2GB free. When Chrome or another program needed more, Windows had to kick less-used data out of memory and reload it the next time he needed it.
The new computer still had more than 4GB free. Same workload, twice the room to breathe. Chrome could keep more tabs and data ready, and Windows still had space for background activity and whatever he opened next. Things could stay loaded instead of constantly getting shoved out and brought back in.
So yes, the extra RAM was helping.
That's the part most people miss when they only watch the percentage. What the upgrade costs is a separate story, and RAM has gotten a lot more expensive lately.