There used to be a time when you could even get away with 1 GB RAM in your system. Unfortunately, now you cannot. I have used a PC with 2 GB RAM in the past for about 10 years.
My PC has served me well, or at least it tried to. I used many programs to increase the performance of my PC but as everyone says, “You cannot compensate for lack of good hardware with software”.
I realized this concept a little late but I am glad that I did learn my lesson. Now, I have a pretty good system which does all of my work just fine.
The key lesson from my experience was that 2 GB RAM is not the minimum you can get away with in your PC. The short answer to the question is:-
You need a minimum of 4 GB RAM for basic daily usage on your PC. 8 GB RAM if you want to do light gaming along with it. 16 GB RAM is the sweet spot for most users such as creative professionals or gamers. You cannot get away with 2 GB RAM unless you are willing to bear with extreme discomfort while using your Computer.
There, you have your answer. If you want to click off this article right now, that’s fine but if you want to know more about what I just said above, keep reading.
Why is a minimum of 2 GB RAM not enough for your PC?
2 GB RAM is the minimum requirement for running Windows 10 on your PC. But it does not tell the entire story. I have run Windows 10 on a PC with the same amount of RAM I mentioned above.
The icing on the cake was the 1.1 GHz Celeron processor which came with my older PC. The experience was anything but smooth. The booting times exceeded 1 minute with no applications running on startup.
Even opening up Task Manager was enough to freeze the Computer for a while. Basically, I am trying to say that you should not have 2 GB RAM in your PC in 2021 as the experience would be terrible.
As 4 GB RAM is the bare minimum you need in 2021 for your PC. Even though most experts recommend getting at least 8 GB RAM on your PC.
However, If you have one and couldn’t afford to replace your existing one at the moment, don’t get disheartened. I have been in your shoes and have found a few tips and tricks which might give your PC a slight boost in performance.
Check this article for more information if you have a Windows 10 PC. If you want a few quick performance boosting tips, our next section of this article would come in handy for you.
How can you improve performance on a low-end PC for free?
There are a number of different ways to improve performance of your aging computer. If you have PC with 2 GB RAM or even 4 GB RAM and you are noticing extremely sluggish performance, you can do a few simple things to improve performance without upgrading your system:-
Disable Unnecessary Apps on Startup
- Go to the Task Manager
- Click on Startup
- Disable Unnecessary Apps (with High Startup Impact)
Disable Visual Effects
- Click on Start Menu
- Type “Advanced System Settings”
- Click on “View Advanced System Settings”
- Go to Advanced and Click on Settings under Performance
- Under Visual Effects, Click on Adjust for Best Performance
Increase Virtual Memory
- Click on Start Menu
- Type “Advanced System Settings”
- Click on “View Advanced System Settings”
- Go to Advanced and Click on Settings under Performance
- Click on Advanced
- Under Virtual Memory, Click on change
- Uncheck Automatically manage paging size for all drives(If it’s enabled, else skip this step)
- Under Custom Size, change Initial Size and Maximum Size to your preferred values
Note:- From my personal experience, I find that changing Initial Size to 2 times your Actual RAM and Maximum Size to 3 times your Actual RAM works best for me. Your experience may vary.
These are the common steps I recommend to users facing a shortage of RAM on their PC. For the most part, it works but there is only a limited number of things you can do without actually upgrading your hardware.
In the next section, we will discuss simple and cost-effective ways to upgrade some vital elements of your PC to boost performance.
What else do you need to make your PC run faster?
When you have tried all of the methods mentioned above and couldn’t notice any significant performance benefits, you should upgrade a few essential components on your PC.
If you have a PC with 2 GB RAM or 4 GB RAM, I would suggest you add another stick of RAM. Before doing that, make sure you know all about the RAM currently installed in your PC.
Such as if it’s a DDR2, DDR3 or DDR4 Memory, the speed at which it’s running and the RAM manufacturer. If you have already done this, I will then recommend you to get an SSD for your PC.
An SSD is just the thing you are looking for if you want a snappier and responsive PC. The best thing I ever got for my PC was an SSD, the booting times are quick, programs open up quicker and everything just feels more responsive.
Conclusion
There you have it folks, we have covered the question of “How much RAM do you need?”. In addition to that, we have also briefly discussed the various things you can do to improve your System performance.
You can pick any of the methods you like and get a noticeable performance boost on your PC. We have suggested various tips to increase your PC performance for FREE.
Along with them, we made a quick suggestion to get an SSD which wouldn’t cost much and that is completely optional. If this post was helpful to you, make sure to share this with your friends.
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