What is physical memory?

Question

Just wondering?? Sorry for askin this if its a stupid question. My task manager says I'm using 66% of it. oh yeah and what is the average cpu usage?? what shoudl i keep my cpu usage to if i wanna keep my comp healthy??

Answer 1

Physical Memory or primary Random Access Memory (RAM) is an actual physical device or devices in your computer that temporarily stores data for fast access by the processor to run programs and processes.

This is contrasted by much slower "virtual" memory (also called "paging files") where data is temporarily stored on the hard disk drive for access by the processor. Virtual memory is usually used for secondary data storage when the primary physical memory is near or at its capacity.

The more physical memory you have, the quicker most programs can be processed without having to set up and access virtual memory paging files. This difference can especially be seen in games where the screen images, sounds and responces to mouse/joystick movements are constantly changing or in the quick updating of data for programs such as Excel, Word, Photo Shop and other such programs where changes are often made in a short period of time.

Answer 2

Physical memory is the installed RAM on your computer. If it gets too full it will use what is called "virtual memory" which is using hard drive space instead of RAM to store information. Virtual memory is horribly slow, because the hard drive is so much slower than RAM, so you want to avoid its use by having enough physical memory that it never needs to use virtual.

Average CPU usage is an estimate of how much of the processor's calculation power is being used. If you aren't running any programs it should hover around 1% or 0.

Answer 3

Physical memory or Random access memory {RAM} are used to temporarily hold programs and data. RAM is stored in ICs that plug into the system board, or into an expansion card which in turn plugs into slots on the system board.

CPU usage depends on the program you use. If there are lot of programs running then the usage is high.

Answer 4

K ill make this simple. physical memory is how much ram memory you got... 1gb, 2gb, 512mb, etc.

cpu usage id keep it under 70%. but that all depends on how good your comp. is. my desktop is not very good so i keep it under 50%. use it for simple apps like aim, itunes, internet, email.

and my labtop which is very good. use stuff like photoshop, gaming. etc.

also not using a lot of cpu usage isnt gona keep your comp. healthy. its going to go down, after its done opening an app or internet or whatever, its not going to be always like that.

Answer 5

physical memory is the RAM inside your computer it stores temporary info, so your computer can access it quickly. you dont need to worry about what your cpu usage is at, you cant keep it at certain level even if you wanted to. you dont really need to worry about these things unless you think your computer is running slow in that case you should check for viruses/spyware and then look into upgrading your computer.

Answer 6

Right click "My Computer"
Select properties, click the general tab

Towards the bottom it will tell you your processor and RAM amount.

THAT amount is the physical RAM in the PC, on sticks in the motherboard

Answer 7

Hi. It is the RAM stick total capacity. http://ask-leo.com/can_i_use_a_usb_ram_stick_to_increase_system_memory.html