Can someone please explain cached memory?

[Will2K9]

Hi I have been using windows 7 ultimate 64bit and have noticed in task manager that 28% of my ram is being used and with further looking I noticed most of this ram was under cache. Does windows 7 cache applications I use most frequently into ram?

Screenshot Attached

Thanks for any help

 

[Venths]

Hi,

Welcome to 7 forums

Please refer the below link for complete details about the Cache Memory:

CPU cache - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Tews]

Yes, Windows 7 makes intensive use of pre-fetch/cache.. my system uses almost 50% of my available RAM ... This is completely normal...

 

[Will2K9]

Thanks

Thanks both of you for the help windows 7 memory management sounds much improved and i'm guessing windows 7 will release the ram to applications which require it such as games

 

[Dwarf]

That is correct. The memory management routine built in to Windows 7 is an improvement to the routines in earlier versions of Windows. Unused memory is wasted memory, and in order to speed your system up, Windows makes use of the free space to store data which makes your system run faster. When called for, this data is then retrieved from RAM instead of the much-slower HDD. Should you run an application (including games) that require this memory space, then the management routine relinquishes that space and it is made available for your application.

For example, here is mine. I am running Windows 7 (64-bit) with a single instance of IE8 (64-bit) with 2 tabs and Office Outlook 2007 for my email.