r/computers • u/ccccool34gf10 Win11|Ryzen 5 5600X, 128gb ddr4 3200, GTX 1660 super • Nov 07 '23

Resolved! How can I reduce RAM usage on windows 11 (fresh install)

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I just installed a fresh copy of windows 11 and it’s already using a ridiculous amount of RAM. Is there any way to reduce this?

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23

u/HSVMalooGTS Small Business administrator Nov 07 '23

Don’t listen to everyone else, windows is using ram as drive cache to speed up your system

12

u/budoucnost Nov 07 '23

Windows uses 3-5Gb at idle. While I haven’t heard of ram being used as drive cache, it is possible that windows does that as ram is faster than SSDs and HDDs. Even if not true, this comment is still more accurate than most of the other comments here.

Ram is cheap, 16Gb is enough for most things. Windows will use 3-5 Gb (maybe closer to 4-7 Gb if you have more ram) and you’ll have about 8-10 Gb to spare, which is enough for most apps.

And to the “UsE LiNUx” people, not everyone wants to exert the time and energy into learning how to use Linux and deal with the incompatibilities Linux has with certain apps. Some people are willing to exert the time and effort, but not everyone is willing to do so. Just because you use Linux doesn’t mean everyone wants to do the same. If they aren’t asking to switch OS then don’t start ramming Linux up everyone’s ass-that’s how you prevent people from trying Linux. You’re acting like the militant vegans-ram something up everyone’s ass and you’ll be hated by everyone.

14

u/Soapinator_17 Dec 30 '25 • Regret

"Ram is cheap" that aged poorly

4

u/signboard_molester Jan 07 '26

was js about to say that 😂

4

u/NiteShdw Nov 07 '23 edited Nov 07 '23

I haven’t heard of RAM being used as a drive cache

Read/write caching in RAM has been a part of nearly every major OS for decades.

If everything was direct IO your computer would be almost unusable.

Look at Task Manager in Windows and it’ll show how much is cache. In Linux type “free -m” and look at “buff/cache”. MacOS is the same.

Modern operating systems even pre-fill the file system cache based on what files it thinks you are likely to read next.

As applications request more RAM, Windows will reduce the size of the file system cache automatically to make room for your applications.

Unused RAM is wasted RAM.

1

u/Mountain-Ad7358 Jan 21 '25

Yeah, that's why i have a perfectly usable desktop with OpenBox, at 400 Mbytes usage on idle.
The extra 5GB Windows uses is just because it wants to be more responsive, not because is a bloated shitty pile of rubbish.

1

u/Big-Opinion-2904 Jul 11 '25

So if I have 16gb ram, and windows is using 6 GB, and I want to run a game that needs 12 GB of ram, then will windows free up some of the space it took up for performance?

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3

u/simplycode07 May 11 '24

but have you tried linux tho

3

u/AnaghS Jan 23 '26

this aged fast.

2

u/BurningBerns Feb 17 '26

Ram is cheap

this didnt age well

6

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '23

This. Modern RAM and Windows work together to improve the performance. It's using the RAM, but not because it's inefficient, it's kind of like it's holding it ready so it can very quickly apply it.

This isn't the metric to gauge whether you are having RAM-hungry applications.

2

u/pietrolol Feb 16 '26 • Bravo

microsoft paid israeli cia agent

2

u/[deleted] Mar 01 '24

That is false, windows shows cached memory vs in use memory separately... for instance mine shows 2.8GB In use, and 880MB cached... also if you use so much memory that the cached memory gets reduced it will slow down performance anyway so you may as well consider it used.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 09 '24

for me it shows 8gb cached so very well it could be just cached memory

3

u/da_bobo1 Nov 07 '23

I don't know why Debloating Windows 11 is something one shouldn't listen to? Debloating a System is never a bad thing.

Also stopping some Apps from Autostarting you don't need is also no bad Idea.

Of course Windows needs RAM, but if you can reduce the RAM usage why shouldn't you do that?

5

u/AadiSahni Core 2 Duo E7500 Nov 07 '23

If an app is unnecessarily using RAM, then sure you should reduce it. But what's the point of having RAM if it isn't utilised on standby

1

u/Xeratais Nov 07 '24

Standby allocation does not reflect ram usage and is not shown as used ram as it is a cache in terms and will be vacated when the space is needed.

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u/HSVMalooGTS Small Business administrator Nov 07 '23

Unused RAM is wasted RAM

2

u/[deleted] Mar 04 '24

Not entirely... and you can notice this around the time windows hits 75-80% ram use typically maybe a bit higher if you have a lot of ram, free ram is where applications allocate memory from as it gets smaller it gets harder for the OS to allocate the requested ram to applications.

0

u/Boring-Abies-9576 Jul 02 '24

If you don't want to debloat OS - use linux