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Windows 11 can run better on PCs with 8GB now, Microsoft says – here’s why
Tech > Services & Software > Operating Systems > Windows > Windows 11
The latest updates to Windows 11 offer improvements in speed, performance, and memory management.
The more memory your Windows PC has, the faster it should perform, especially when juggling multiple apps, files, and other data. My laptop has 32GB of RAM, while my desktop has a hefty 64GB, and both are absolutely zippy. Does that mean computers with only 8GB of memory, or even less, are also-rans? Nope, not according to Microsoft.
In a new blog post published Tuesday, Microsoft touted the gains in speed, performance, and memory management in Windows 11 achieved by the latest updates. These especially impact PCs with just 8GB of RAM, which can now run multiple apps and files faster and more efficiently than before.
To reach this goal, the company said it had three notions in mind.
The first was to make better use of the existing memory on each Windows 11 PC. The second was to protect the tasks that need to feel instant even as more memory gets used. And the third was to ensure that key apps and Windows require less memory. Yes, a computer with 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB of RAM can better handle more intensive activities. But Microsoft wanted to make sure that systems with 8GB could also keep pace.
Based on its own lab tests of PCs with 8GB of RAM, the company claims that Windows is now 20% more responsive and that multitasking is 40% faster than before the latest updates. Here’s how.
As more memory gets allocated, Windows must move inactive apps and files from RAM to the hard drive. When you need to access those apps and files again, you have to wait for Windows to move them from disk storage back to RAM. Normally, PCs with less memory have to do a lot of this disk swapping.
One way Windows eases the pain of this process is through compression. Here, the operating system shrinks less-active data into a smaller format so it can remain in memory. Though Windows has used compression for many years, Microsoft has fine-tuned the technology to determine how much to compress, when to move data from RAM to your drive, and when to fetch it back, especially on PCs with 8GB of memory.
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