Windows 8 never uses more than 8 GB memory although 16 GB are apparently available

5

I have Windows 8 64bit PC with 16 GB memory installed. All the memory is properly recognized on my Asus motherboard and also by Windows as shown in the picture below.

I like to have many browser tabs open while watching videos in the background etc. so I expected someday to max my memory.

But I have never observed a memory usage over 8GB. What is going on? Is Windows not configured to take advantage of all that memory, or is it some sort of memory management?

Task manager showing the max memory usage observed

Sébastien

Posted 2013-10-02T19:35:52.330

Reputation: 475

2Most your memory is using as a cache which is good. – Ramhound – 2013-10-02T19:43:06.270

2Windows rarely needs more than 8GB of RAM. So it can handle your tabs and the video. If you will render something etc. Than possibly you will reach the max-memory usage. – Christian – 2013-10-02T19:45:03.820

Answers

5

What you're seeing is totally normal. Windows never maxes out it's memory unless you have the page file disabled while running seriously memory-intensive tasks. It's actually surprising that Windows is even using 8GB, I would expect less, given at the time you took this screencap it was only using 40% of the processor and disk activity was low.

Watching a web video is not an intensive activity for a system with 16 GB of RAM. If you really want the number go up just for peace of mind, turn off the page file and run a really complex 3D render. Even then, you probably won't approach maximum utilization because Windows manages memory (fairly) well.

Moses

Posted 2013-10-02T19:35:52.330

Reputation: 10 813

Nope, that's a really problem.Heavy-weight applications (like Intellij Idea) are moved to pagefile if I don't use them for an hour or two. They become very laggy when I return to them. – babay – 2015-10-12T17:58:46.967

Well I tend to really open a lot of browser tabs that I intend to read later... also I am trying to push that 8 GB limit ;) – Sébastien – 2013-10-02T19:55:28.480

2@Sébastien If you're using Chrome, you can press Shift + Esc to see just how much usage each tab has. Add em all up and you'll see how much memory chrome tabs are taking up. – Moses – 2013-10-02T19:58:44.090

1Cool tip @Moses, thanks. I use Chrome occasionally but these days I'm mostly using Opera Next (which is based on Webkit but does not yet have that feature). – Sébastien – 2013-10-02T20:16:00.987

I was able to make 64 bit version of Opera (the previous version with Presto engine) use about 3 GB when I had many open tabs. – Alexey Ivanov – 2013-10-03T12:45:44.873

Asked: 2013-10-02T19:35:52.330

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Active: 2014-07-09T09:54:24.030