Do I need more RAM based on this usage?

[GoodEnough]

I tracked the RAM usage as I opened each additional program.

Does this PC need a RAM upgrade, based on wanting to keep 5-6 programs open at once?

Can anyone explain to me when my 2GB of RAM is getting used up,
and then the PC resorts to the paging file (which should slow down performance)

Why does RAM used never seem to exceed 1.8, even after open a bunch more programs?

I saw that free RAM was already at 0 right after opening Outlook!

The 3 colored numbers need clarification for me.
1) Blue 8. How does free memory go UP when I open yet another program?
2) Red 156. How does Avail memory go UP when I open yet another program?
3) Green 165. Paged went up. Is this when a page file finally kicked in?
4) Last row, RAM used actually went down! Yet, nothing was closed, and more was opened.

 

[GoodEnough]

Anyone?

 

[fralexandr]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2160852

Windows actively swaps programs into and out of RAM. When opening programs when RAM is near full, RAM is made available to accommodate the new program. Old/infrequently used data is moved to the pagefile, and more space is created in RAM. This is what causes the seemingly odd events you listed.

Having more RAM helps most when programs frequently require more data than can be loaded into RAM. This occurs typically when playing games, or using programs like Photoshop that request more RAM than one might have.

Theoretically whenever free physical RAM reaches 0, having more memory would have some beneficial effect, however, available physical RAM is a much better indicator, since Windows may use extra RAM to prepare frequently used data (SuperFetch/prefetch). I believe this makes that "extra" RAM available, but not free.
For example on my laptop I have 4gb of RAM installed. At desktop with nothing that demanding open (firefox and some background processes) I have 2.4GB available, and 115MB free. Likewise on my desktop i have 8gb of RAM installed: ~6GB available & 3GB free. I also maintain an athlon fx dual-core windows 7 desktop with 2GB RAM that has ~900MB available, almost nothing free.

So, when available physical RAM becomes TOO low, performance may noticeably suffer. If you feel the slow down from offloading into and loading from pagefile is unsatisfactory, you would benefit from more RAM (i.e. when switching programs it might take a bit of time to load i.e. ~1 second, since it was pagefiled).

 

[ClockHound]

To re-frame an old response, if you have to ask, the answer is: YES!

If you only have 2GB, the answer is definitely yes. If you have 4GB, the answer is probably yes. If you have 8GB, then maybe you can squeak by. Modern browsers are huge RAM hogs. Modern webpages even more so. And Office? Oh, yes...

When peeps say the fastest way to speed up your system is to install a SSD, they mean after having GBs of seemingly excessive RAM.

RAM -> SSD -> Spindle drive.

Final answer: for your needs, 4GB would be the min. to maintain reasonable productivity. And with a few more extra browser tabs, 6GB wouldn't be out of the question.

 

[GoodEnough]

That seems extreme. I have about 20 browsers open, and my RAM usage is 4.4GB. I think for email, web browsing, MS-Office, there is absolutely no need for anything more than 6GB. I have never gone over that. Sometimes, I have 30 browsers open.

 

[ClockHound]

As another old one goes....one man's extreme is another man's just good enough.

When I'm working....I wish I could use as few as 30 open browser tabs.

Whatever amount of RAM you have now, remember to never say never. ;-)