Computer memory makes your programs run better. Period.

Computer memory can be the best upgrade per dollar you can make. Computer memory offers good speed increases with relatively little outlay. Computer memory is often known as Random Access Memory. This computer memory is very fast, temporary store of data. Data in computer memory is only retained while power to the computer is on. The computer memory is lost when it is turned off.

More computer memory is better and for most of us the speed of the memory is set, and depends a lot on the processor you are using, and therefore, motherboard.

Computer memory, or RAM is where information your computer is using a lot is stored. It is much faster than your hard drive, but more expensive per MB. It is still not as expensive or fast as L1 or L2 cache on the computer processor.

When your computer is loaded, things that are being used are stored in memory to allow programs to work faster and fetch information quicker. When your computer is loaded for example, many things that the operating system, most likely Windows, use are loaded into memory. By keeping them there, it is able to run everything faster without having to access the hard drive, which is much slower. From that moment, programs that are in the system tray and any other program that you load, puts a certain amount of data in the computer memory.

There are two main kinds in use today and they are DDR and DDR2, they share a name, but there shape and makeup are different and are not compatible with each other. DDR is the older kind, and DDR2 is a newer, faster replacement for it. Although DDR2 is newer, there is still a huge market for DDR, which I still have in all my home computers.

Nowadays 256MB is the minimum computer memory, but I don’t recommend it unless you use a Linux OS like Ubuntu, which will work fine with that little. With 512MB of computer memory, Windows XP will work fine and load quite a large number of applications. If you intend to use Windows Vista, 1GB would be my recommendation.