What type of RAM do I have on my Computer?

The addition of Random Access Memory (RAM); also commonly referred to as Memory, is one of the easiest and fastest upgrades that you can carry out to immediately boost the performance of your computer. Random Access Memory is a type of computer memory that is volatile. What this means is that it loses all the data that is stored on it when the power is turned off. Read on to find out more about how you can check the type of RAM that is installed on your PC.

Discover the Amount and type of RAM that is Installed on your PC

RAM is where the data on the programs that you are working on on your PC at any given moment is stored. The great thing about it is that it can be accessed quickly and none sequentially, thus allowing the processor to retrieve information at a rate that is way faster than it would have been able to had it had to fetch the same data from the much slower Hard Drive. So, how do you find out the type of RAM that you have installed on your PC? There are a number of ways through which you can discover the amount and type of RAM that is installed on your computer;

Check type of RAM using Windows Task Manager

• In Windows 10 (and previous iterations of Windows), you can see the type of memory that is on your computer by opening Task Manager.
• To do so, all that you need to do is right click on the Task Bar and select the Task Manager option.
• You can also open Task Manager through Command Prompt. Simply type in “taskmgr” and press enter and you will be taken to the Task Manager window.

In Task Manager, all that you need to do in order to see the amount and type of RAM that is installed on your computer is click on the performance tab.

As you can see in the above screenshot, my laptop has 3.0 GBs of DDR3 RAM.

Use Crucial.com to check your computer’s Memory

You can also easily find out the amount and type of RAM that is on your computer by visiting the Crucial website. Once there, you use either their advisor tool (if you know your PC’s specifications) or you can download and run their System Scanner.  

The great thing about the crucial utility is that it not only gives you important information about your system, but, it also tells you the maximum amount of memory that can be installed on your computer.

Use CPU-Z to see type and amount of RAM on a Windows 10 computer

Another utility that you can use to discover the amount of RAM that is installed on your computer is CPU Z from CPUID. Downloading and running this utility gives you a wide range of useful information about your system.

As you can see in the screenshot below, I have 3GBs of DDR3 Random Access Memory (RAM) on my computer. The great thing about CPU-Z is that not only does it give you information about the amount and type of RAM that is installed on your PC, but it also provides you with detailed information on other useful parameters.

This includes information about the type of CPU that is installed on your computer and the speed at which this is clocked. You also get information about your Motherboard and your computer’s graphics.

What to do with the information about your computer’s Memory

Now that you have discovered all the information that you can find about the amount and type of RAM that is on your computer, there are a number of ways through which you can exploit this knowledge;

Use the information to upgrade your RAM

As mentioned earlier, memory is one of the cheapest and easiest upgrades that can be made to a computer. It is important for you to know the type and amount of RAM that can be supported by your computer before making any purchases. You can read this article to find out whether or not you should really upgrade your PC’s random access memory.

The one thing that most beginners do not know is that there are limitations to the amount of RAM that can be installed on any given computer. (You can seen in the crucial screenshot above that my laptop is limited to 8GB.)There are also issues of practicality; at some point, the amount of benefits that can be derived from adding memory to a computer begin to wan

Use the Information When Purchasing RAM Modules

Although it is possible to have RAM modules from different manufacturers on a single computer, this, in most cases, is not advised. A number of issues that may arise as a result, making it important for you to have detailed information about the memory that is already installed on your PC before making any purchases.

Summary: How to check RAM on a Windows 10 Computer

Having information about your system gives you an edge, as a beginner, and allows you to know what you can and  cannot do to boost the performance of your computer. Random Access Memory is one of those important components on a PC that, if you are daring enough, you can even upgrade on your own.

Need to speed up your PC? Why not read my article on some of the things that you can do to immediately boost your PC’s sp