RAM plays a very important role in the computer. As we know, Windows is a memory-hungry monster, it can eat up whatever memory you have installed in your system. And both Windows XP and Windows NT are especially notorious for that. Without decent amount of ram, you might wait ages to launch a single application or even "boot up" your operating system. The current mainstream memory standard is DDR DIMM ram which is designed to replace the SDRAM. Current available DDR DIMM ram formats you can buy in the market are DDR266, DDR333 and DDR400.

Without redesigning the whole production line, the Ram manufacturers can now produce these DDR DIMM ram which has the ability to perform 2 data opertaions in 1 clock cycle, that is twice the throughput of SDRAM. In the heydays of Windows 98, 128 Mb ram is enough for most of the working situations. But for the "modern" Windows XP users, you would better equip your system with at least 256Mb ram if you make your living by computer. Graphic designers might be the people who need ram most since most graphic applications such as Photoshop and CorelDraw have a very strict memory requirement for "smooth operation". If you can not afford to buy another piece of ram for your system, try "unloading" something in your taskbar or background environment by the following steps:

1. "Start" - "Run" - type "msconfig" - uncheck the programs you don't need to open during the boot up process from the "Startup" panel.

2. Download one memory management software such as FreeMem Pro or Ram Idle Pro which can automatically defragment the memory fragments when your system hits the targeted memory level you define.

3. Never open too many browser windows when you surf the Internet.