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The operating system will place actively used data in RAM, which is much faster than hard disks. When the amount of RAM is not sufficient to run all the current programs, it can result in a situation where the computer spends more time moving data from RAM to disk and back than it does accomplishing tasks; this is known as thrashing.
(For example, if a computer has 2 GB (1024 3 B) of RAM and a 1 GB page file, the operating system has 3 GB total memory available to it.) When the system runs low on physical memory, it can " swap " portions of RAM to the paging file to make room for new data, as well as to read previously swapped information back into RAM.
In computing, a memory module or RAM stick is a printed circuit board on which memory integrated circuits are mounted. [ 1 ] Memory modules permit easy installation and replacement in electronic systems, especially computers such as personal computers , workstations , and servers .
To emphasize the advantages of the DDR technique, this type of RAM was marketed at speeds twice the actual clock rate, i.e. the 400 MHz Rambus standard was named PC-800. This was significantly faster than the previous standard, PC-133 SDRAM , which operated at 133 MHz and delivered 1066 MB/s of bandwidth over a 64-bit bus using a 168-pin DIMM ...
The main determinant of a memory system's cost is the density of the components used to make it up. Smaller components, and fewer of them, mean that more "cells" can be packed onto a single chip, which in turn means more can be produced at once from a single silicon wafer.
Associated with speed, the more RAM there is in the system, the faster the computer can run, because it allows the RAM to run more information through to the computer's (CPU). Not only does adding more RAM to a computer help it run faster, it helps boots up a computer immensely faster compared to booting up a system with less RAM.
A test with DDR and DDR2 RAM in 2005 found that average power consumption appeared to be of the order of 1–3 W per 512 MB module; this increases with clock rate and when in use rather than idling. [14] A manufacturer has produced calculators to estimate the power used by various types of RAM. [15]
Ferroelectric RAM (FeRAM, F-RAM or FRAM) is a random-access memory similar in construction to DRAM but using a ferroelectric layer instead of a dielectric layer to achieve non-volatility. FeRAM is one of a growing number of alternative non-volatile random-access memory technologies that offer the same functionality as flash memory .