Why Do You Need Plenty of RAM? - Part 1

Processor - CPU
Memory - RAM
Hard Drive
The way these parts interact is important to understanding how a computer works, & ultimately to understanding why you require RAM for your programs. Around the Web & in Magazines you can find recommended RAM amounts for typical users. You also will find lots of places proclaiming RAM as the best performance for your dollar upgrade. I don't disagree at all, but I require you to understand what RAM actually does, & why it can be such a valuable upgrade.
The article is divided in to sections, covering:
1. The functions of the three components we are discussing and their relative speeds
2. Why you need RAM and what takes up RAM
3. Multitasking and how RAM improves performance
4. How much RAM you need
In the event you are editing a picture, the CPU will first look in RAM memory to see if it is there, because RAM is speedy. If it is not, the CPU will go to the hard drive & edit the picture there. Because your hard drive is so slow, this takes a much longer time than if the picture had been in RAM.

Again, the CPU only stores a little miniscule little miniscule tiny little bit of knowledge, so it is to get it from somewhere to operate on. If the CPU has knowledge to method, it will do so as speedy as it can, but if it doesn't, the brain of your computer fundamentally sits & waits doing nothing. Only after it finds & retrieves the knowledge it needs can it method it.

So ideally, you require your CPU to find knowledge in the quickest place feasible. As you can see, if the knowledge is in RAM you are much better off than if it is in your hard disk because RAM is a lot faster. take a glance at the graph below. It shows the time it takes to access each memory type in nanoseconds.

Clearly, your hard drive is slow, but when you look at the above graph, & you see the numbers it is based on below, you recognize how slow it is. Each is an approximate access time in nanoseconds:
CPU 1 ns

RAM 60 ns

Hard Drive 10,000,000 ns

It ought to be clear why the bars for your CPU & RAM do not even show up on this graph, your hard drive is fundamentally slow.