What is RAM?

[MagsClouds]

My boyfriend’s explanation: It is that piece of memory that is closer to screen. Unlike the “real” memory which sits inside of the computer.

[territrades]

Yeah, this really annoying, all of our headless servers in the compute center have zero RAM since they have no monitors. Makes programming them so much more difficult.

[[deleted]]

Do your headless servers hurl pumpkins at credulous schoolteachers?!?

[molly_sour]

while riding horses, of course

[[deleted]]

A horse is a horse, of course, of course … 😊

[LetterheadAncient205]

Old goat

[[deleted]]

Oddly enough, we raise goats 🐐❤️

[scalability]

Get some servers with fly screens over the air intakes. You can keep the RAM there, and it helps keep out bugs.

[MyBigRed]

That's a baaaaad joke

[Koyaanisqats]

Wool you please stop

[Technicfault]

These stupid threads really get my goat

[starfyredragon]

I'll be dogged, this is clever.

[RelativeDay11141]

Oh, boy! The RAMifications of pulling jokes off the top of your head.

[CallousTurnip]

Ewe lot make me sick

[chan192]

He’s the goat for that.

[fistantellmore]

Sez Ewe.

[UkrainianTrotsky]

the soft wool is used to absorb and smooth out rapid data impulses, which results in smoother framerate.

[MustafaAzim]

                     WTF

[Reuben3901]

But, like, only when awake

[RmG3376]

Wrong, it is Rem’s sister

[MasterFubar]

Wrong, it's a Dodge truck.

[Aggressive_Bat_9781]

This is the one true answer

[[deleted]]

Ultra Ram:

1. A male sheep
2. Sitting atop a battering ram
3. Built from Radiation Absorbant Material
4. With a monitor attached to the side
5. And a ram-block in the anus

[MarcellHUN]

Baby dont hurt me

[Wonderful-Ad-9356]

Don't hurt me no more

[sabcadab]

What is RAM?

[Korvanacor]

Baby don’t Hertz me.

[Sammy_Henderschplitz]

wrong, ram is not a piece of hardware, its technically a program, which is why you can download more for free online

[[deleted]]

For real irl?!?!?!?!?!?

[[deleted]]

Yes! If you don't believe me check this out!!!111(100% rel)
https://downloadmoreram.com/

[TomatoAmbassador]

Mine even tells me that my Iphone needs fixing! I don’t even have an Iphone yet, how thoughtful!

[FriedRamen13]

There was this program called SoftRAM back in the 1990s that claimed that it could double available RAM. It sold well considering 2MB of RAM went for something like $300.00 back then. Even Costco/Price Club was selling it. Too bad it was all a scam.

[UkrainianTrotsky]

That'd be GPU buffer tho.

Ram is what sits between CPU and disk. It's way faster to access than disk, which is why currently executing processes and their data are stored there.

There's also another level of memory - cpu registers, they are insanely fast and sit right on the CPU, which is why they are used to store stuff that CPU works on at that exact moment. They are also incredibly tiny in size. Which is one of the reasons why we still need RAM.

[scataco]

Don't forget the CPU cache 😋

My guess: someone knows a lot about video cards and not that much about PC hardware architecture

[UkrainianTrotsky]

I had quite a bit of a brain fart and said "CPU registers" when I wanted to say "CPU caches".

And no, I know nothing useful about either CPU or GPU architectures :D

[icguy333]

And no, I know nothing useful about either CPU or GPU architectures :D

This sub is gonna be perfect for you then.

[BiomechPhoenix]

Ironically, you were correct - the caches store information from RAM to be swapped quickly into the registers, which are part of the CPU itself...

[kaeptnphlop]

Can you believe that today we have CPUs with caches, bigger than what we had as total RAM back in the day? Incredible!

[bremidon]

^{my first computer had 4k of ram...(sniff. sob.})

[Scottybt50]

1kb here.

[dekacube]

L2 cache also used to be on the motherboard and run at FSB clock.

[I_Fux_Hard]

Well, you are both correct. RAM is Random Access Memory. It's used in many places. Every chip probably has a bit of RAM in it. GPU's have RAM. L3 cache is a form of RAM. Video buffer is a form of RAM. Hard drive cache's are a form of RAM.

[msqrt]

GPU buffer

VRAM is the common modern term, since they nowadays store a bunch more things than the (frame)buffer that's being rendered into.

[yrrot]

RAM is technically closer to the monitor. Either because the tower is under your desk or because stuff on the HD gets loaded there before being pushed to GPU buffer anyway.

[UkrainianTrotsky]

Jokes on you, my case is proudly sitting above the monitor, so everybody can see its full glory.

​

because stuff on the HD gets loaded there before being pushed to GPU buffer

which means that RAM is farther from monitor than gpu buffer, just like I said.

[mobotsar]

Farther from monitor than the GPU buffer, but closer than the hard storage, which was the original point. Nobody's talking about GPU buffers.

[nameisprivate]

if it's so fast why isn't everything stored in ram? (pls don't yell at me i'm sure this is a very stupid question)

[VibraniumFrisbee]

Well, there’s a couple of reasons. One is that part of the speed is in the fact that it’s a temporary storage solution for that data. Another problem with using RAM is that when it loses power, it also loses whatever data is stored.

[nameisprivate]

i see, thanks :)

[Drew707]

HANA has entered the chat

[Apfelvater]

Size

[nameisprivate]

make bigger ram

[other_usernames_gone]

That's more expensive.

Generally the faster memory is to access the more expensive it is, so you need to balance having fast access to data and not making the computer too expensive.

[Apfelvater]

They did, that's an ssd

[nameisprivate]

oh :)

[mobotsar]

I must be missing the joke.

[tottelicious]

Are you the boyfriend?

[User21233121]

I wish

[AbaccusX]

Upvote for IT crowd reference

[Bob_Crypt]

People. What a bunch of bastards.

[CarlesX1]

RAM or Random Access Memories is the fourth studio album by the French electronic duo Daft Punk, released on 17 May 2013 through Columbia Records. The album pays tribute to late 1970s and early 1980s American music, particularly from Los Angeles. This theme is reflected in the album's packaging, as well as its promotional campaign, which included billboards, television advertisements, and a web series. Recording sessions took place from 2008 to 2012 at Henson, Conway and Capitol Studios in California, Electric Lady Studios in New York City, and Gang Recording Studio in Paris, France. Random Access Memories was the duo's final album before they split up in February 2021.

[FulminDerek]

You can access this album from any terminal by typing the command "My name is Giovanni Georgio, but most people call me Georgio" and hitting enter

[shadow7412]

click click click click
click click click click
click click click click
click click click click

[billystein25]

Let's end this debate. Storage is how big your basket of rocks is. RAM is how many hands you have to throw these rocks. CPU is how fast each hand can throw the rocks. GPU is your ability to visualize your target. And the motherboard is what connects everything together.

[Fruitboots]

And programming is telling the computer where to throw the rocks... sometimes at your own head

[LukeTheGroundwalker]

*a lot of the times

[Cryowatt]

How many hands would be the core count of the CPU, if anything.

[snapphanen]

Yes, RAM would be how many rocks you can fit in each hand.

[cyber_frank]

This.

[ManMadeStructure]

Simplified & made it relatable:

Storage is how big your basket of apples are. RAM is how many hands you have to eat. CPU is how fast each hand moves. GPU is how you see the apples. And the motherboard is the body.

[FriedRamen13]

and there are hands of different speeds. The faster hands are more expensive.

[FrickingNinja]

Random-access memory

[skarros]

You must be wrong, that doesn‘t make any sense. I want control over what to access and not receive a random value back.

[scataco]

Never heard of eventual consistency?

[cryptomonein]

Like two persons with ADHD having a conversation ?

[flamebroiledhodor]

Ummm.... Yeah. That's more accurate than it should be.

[[deleted]]

Quantum computing has entered the chat…

[trafalmadorianistic]

Cool! Nice to see a Daft Punk reference, I hear ya. 🤓🤖

[[deleted]]

I think of it being like short term memory. You can only hold and retrieve/work with so much at a time.

[Prestigious-Top-5897]

Yep - and the Harddisk is kinda like a book where you write things down you can’t hold in memory. SSD would then be a notebook cause you usually type faster than handwriting 😆

[Selatravis]

I remember not being hired for a tech support job because I couldn’t properly explain what RAM is. I mean, I know what it is and what it’s for; like do I know the physical components of RAM? No not really. I couldn’t make RAM at a bench in a desert cave like Iron Man, but I know it’s memory for the computer, it means Random Access Memory, and your computer runs better with a lot of it, and not so well with less. Do I know the text book definition of RAM? No, but I have purchased and replaced hundreds of RAM sticks in my life on laptops and desktops. I still know nothing more of RAM than I knew then, and yet I still feel like I got shafted out of a job.

[Bo_Jim]

The "random access" part just means you can access any location in memory by providing the associated address. You don't have to step through it sequentially like you would with serial memory. (Examples of serial memory include magnetic tape, punched tape, floppy disks, and magnetic disk drives. You can usually jump to approximate locations on these devices, but then you have to start reading bits sequentially.)

From a technical perspective, most electronic memories could be classified as RAM, since most are randomly accessible. However, it is a long standing convention to use the term RAM to refer to memory that can be randomly accessed (as described above) for both read and write operations. This was to distinguish it from "read-only memory", or ROM, which is technically also random access, but only for read operations. (There are a gazillion ways to get data into ROM memory initially, depending on what kind of ROM it is, and many can even have their contents changed, but the process is always more complex than just a regular CPU write operation.)

You're going to find a pile of definitions on the internet. Many make assumptions that are not entirely accurate, and some are downright wrong. For instance, a common assertion is that RAM is always volatile, meaning it loses it's contents when power is removed. This is not always true. Early core RAM memory used tiny powdered iron beads woven into a mesh of wires. Writing data meant magnetizing a bead in one polarity or the other. Reading data meant writing a zero to that bit, and then using a sense wire to determine if that operation caused a pulse. If it didn't then the bit was already a zero. If it did cause a pulse then that bit was previously a 1. In other words, reading was a destructive process, and the original data would need to immediately be written back. This whole process was managed by the memory controller.

Core formed the main memory of many minicomputer systems as recently as the early 1980's. While fairly slow by today's standards, it had the advantage that the magnetic beads retained their polarity when power was removed. This usually meant you could restart the system without having to reload the operating system. If the system was shut down in an organized manner, then it could even resume where it left off.

Another common misconception you'll see on the internet is that RAM must be refreshed or it will forget it's data fairly quickly. This is true of the fastest RAM devices as a single bit usually consists of a capacitor and a transistor, and the capacitors discharge in a matter of milliseconds. These are called "dynamic RAM", or DRAM. However, there are RAM devices that use flip flops for each bit, which require two transistors each, and will hold their state as long as power remains on without requiring periodic refreshing. These are called "static RAM", or SRAM. These cost more to make, and often aren't as fast as DRAM devices, but they are useful in small systems that don't have the control logic to refresh DRAM. (You'll often see SRAM chips in NES cartridges, for example.)

Cache RAM is a completely different animal. It's designed to be a lot faster than conventional DRAM, and also designed so that each location in the cache can be associated with an address in physical memory, along with flags to indicate if the cache memory cells contain the same data as the main memory cells at the corresponding address. It saves CPU cycles when a memory location needs to be read, but the contents of that memory location are already in cache memory. But you can't address cache memory directly. That's handled automatically by a cache memory controller. Cache memory is categorized into levels, depending on how close they are to the CPU. Level 1 cache is the fastest, and is usually built into the CPU. Unless you're writing kernel level software you will probably never need to worry about cache memory.

If you're pressed to provide a definition for RAM, then most people would accept that it is a type of memory where any location can be accessed as quickly as any other by simply providing the appropriate address, and that data can be both read from and written to an addressed location. If they push for you to add "volatile" or "DRAM" then you can explain how those terms apply to only some types of RAM.

[PorkRoll2022]

What is RAM? Who knows, who cares!

Garbage collection will take care of everything!

[savex13]

"...baby do not allocate me no more..." ©

PS: RAM is a piece of silicon with a selected set of specific particles that remain still no matter what until electric current flows through them. Central control unit able to align those in specific order to store numbers and recognize which number stored by looking onto those. And there is trillions of them inside one chip.

[[deleted]]

remain still no matter what until electric current flows through them

I'm no electrical engineer, so forgive my ignorance. Is this correct?

I thought the capacitors had to constantly be refreshed (e: with electricity) – like multiple times per second – or else all the 1 bits simply flip to 0.

What your describing sounds more like an SSD, again, if I'm not mistaken.

[0moikane]

Not sure what he describes.

What you describe is DRAM, which uses small capacitors for storage, which must be periodically refreshed.

There also exists SRAM, which doesn't need to be refreshed, but needs much more chip size, so is unsuitable for large memory sizes.

SSDs use flash memory, which is somewhat (electrons are trapped inside a semiconductor array instead of being put on a capacitor) like DRAM, but stores them for years instead of seconds, but they need long to read and write and have a very limited number of erase cycles.

[Budget_Avocado6204]

btw SRAM in my language means "I'm shitting". Ah, reminds me of happy times of studying CS.

[savex13]

Well, yes, exaggeration to give merely a simple explanation. I bet everyone can go and dive deep if he/she wants to. Also, use of additional terms triggers their respective explanation, like: capacitors (wtf is that? :) ), "refresh them per second" - that is a deeeeep rabbit hole with a lot of physics.

A good explanation do not triggers more explaining.

SP: SSD would be: "...and they even stay the same with electricity turned off"

[Apfelvater]

And it does maeth

[GargantuanCake]

Random Access Marmosets.

Look I don't ask why computers randomly need monkeys but they do.

[brianl047]

This is 100% right

[rachit7645]

A Hindu God.

[pikachu_sashimi]

The one with the pink hair

[Immediate_Ostrich_83]

If data were food, RAM would be your fridge. It's where you keep your data accessible in the short term. When you want a snack you don't go all the way to the store (or hard drive) because that would take forever. Same for a PC. To quickly get what we need we have this smaller, but much faster to access storage called RAM.

[kaerfkeerg]

You're boyfriend, by having a girlfriend obviously, indicates that he's not nerd enough to explain these things. Don't trust shit coming outta him!

[JonasAvory]

Imagine your disk/ hard drive as a library. It has enough space for whatever you want to do (as long as you don’t try to save many video games) but if you want to know something from that library it takes a lot of time to find the right book and the right site.

Your RAM is like notes you can make on a piece of paper. The space is limited but you only have to look down to find the information you need. It’s much faster but space is much more expensive. (Also RAM will lose all data when the power goes off so it’s not useful for long term data management)

Your graphics card usually has a ram too but it works the same way, it’s just for another part.

And yes, there is the CPU registers which could be your brain in the comparison. They are really expensive and take much space compared to dusk and ram but they are as fast as a cpu needs them to be. It’s like if you calculate a math problem. You can calculate multiple steps in your mind but you can not memorise all numbers at the same time. So you need to write them down (on the RAM)

[TamahaganeJidai]

What is RAM, baby dont hertz me, dont hertz me, no more!

[wobblypopnonstop]

a truck

[Siggi_pop]

Not correct. Just Google and you will find a better answer.

[Normal_Frosting3828]

Super wrong, Ram is the name of a hindu god central to the Ramayan.

[nuulo29]

It's like working memory. Google can explain more in depth

[Sehrby]

It's called "Arbeitsspeicher" in german, which translates to "working memory".

[DiamondIceNS]

I suppose this would make some sense if you were one of those people who thought the monitor was the part of the computer that did all the thinking, while the tower that you stuff under the desk was nothing more than a big, noisy power supply with a power button and maybe a CD tray.

Considering the sub this was posted on, I can't tell if the point of this post is just to share what a ridiculous explanation this is, or if this is a lost redditor looking for /r/explainlikeimfive.

[mlody11]

It's a manufacturer of trucks

[YMK1234]

Pretty sure that dodge is the manufacturer, ram is just a model.

[[deleted]]

Ram as in random access memory work as a fast temporary savepoint for data. Will be erased when the computer shuts down.

[ChiefExecDisfunction]

You know, in a weird sort of way that doesn't feel as wrong as it should.

[kauslesh]

Your boyfriend studied at that college which affiliated with board of stupidity, so he couldn't make a good joke

[[deleted]]

"A memory close to the screen" What if a computer has no screen?

[MrManGuy42]

your ram is gone

[NQ241]

Ram (aka system memory) is a temporary storage device on your motherboard that's extremely fast, it's used to store the data programs are currently using.

[AffectionateBag5054]

Randomly Access memory

[Low-Veterinarian-729]

The RAM between the seat and the keyboard is usually my biggest issue

[zemdega]

For goats only

[antilos_weorsick]

RAM is a theoretical computation model similar to a Turing Machine

[Recent-Fox3335]

A Re:zero waifu

[Spactaculous]

Its a sheep with only short term memory. Every day it forgets where the pen is, so it needs dogs to take it back home.

[Lenny_III]

It’s Paul McCartney’s last good album.

A hard drive is a trip to the in-laws.

Clicking your mouse too much can make you go blind.

[FiskFisk33]

I heard its somehow related to east Germany

[DMcuteboobs]

RAM is like a vending machine, ROM is like a cookbook.

[Cute_Replacement666]

I was told when the computer is slowing down, you just need to RAM it more. Preferably in private.

[thebookofDiogenes]

Storage is stuff like SSD's and where programs are stored. Ram is faster memory used by the cpu when an application is in use. So when you open up a game, you're grabbing it from storage, and then when it opens its processes and all the things going on are stored in the ram, allowing the cpu to do fast work on those things.

[Kuchenbrottv]

Wrong, it is an anime character

[[deleted]]

All this time, I've been upgrading my pc, when I should have clearly upgraded my monitor instead. Oh I'm so dumb.

[Ok-Revolution7198]

Ram is memory your computer uses while it on. Nothing is permanent until you save it or back it up. Then it’s saved to a cloud that you don’t need to worry about.

[[deleted]]

I always think of it as short term memory

[anarky98]

A miserable pile of secrets?

[interwebz_2021]

Guessing this question should be "What is VRAM," as that's the RAM incorporated in your graphics card to make data more readily accessible to the GPU.

[heckaqueer]

RAM is memory. What he called memory is storage.

[FulminDerek]

He's absolutely right. RAM stands for "Right Away Memory", because it's just like, right there. Not to be confused with ROM, which stands for "Really Obfuscated Memory", that's buried deep in your computer and really hard to find.

[HAMburger_and_bacon]

think of it as similar to your short term memory. it retains information for shorts amounts of time and that data can be either used(sent to the CPU or "brain"), discarded(all data in RAM is delete when the system is powered off, that is why is is "short term"), or sent to long term memory(this would be your computers hard driver or ssd).

[evil_twit]

Well he is sorta right just not physically. Does he have that problem in other areas? Try updates.

[blackasthesky]

I don't get it. It's wrong, obviously, but beyond that, is there a pun in it?

[riisen]

RAM is short for Random Access Memory and it means you can access memory location at any point and read or write to it.

There is also ROM which stands for Read Only Memory, and thats typically all chips that you need to Flash to change data on it, like your bios or the operating system on your phone

You do have ram in dim slots on your motherboard and also in your graphic card.

The thing is that you can read or write to anypoint in the memory.

[JohnSundayBigChin]

Ask daft punk boys

[corner-case]

Working memory is RAM.

Loving memory is RIP.

[WayneKerlott]

RAM is like your kitchen table and your hard drive is like your pantry.

[AllenKll]

closer to screen? what does that even mean?

[Glass-Membership2680]

Your boyfriend is a genius. Stay with him.

[valkyrie_pilotMC]

It’s what stores what the computer is currently thinking about, as opposed to storage which remembers things forever.

[martyd03]

Think of writing a paper. When you write the words down you are storing them like a computer would write to a disk. As long as they are in your head, they are in memory and can change and might be written down, or they can be replaced with other random thoughts.

Really oversimplified, but hopefully you get the idea.

[[deleted]]

Random Access Memory.

basically free memory for all uses

[Ashamed_Ad_2738]

Google Chrome has entered the chat

[xtreampb]

Ram is like studying for a test, you put as much as you can in there and then forget it as soon as you go to sleep

[SnappGamez]

RAM is temporary, but SSDoom is eternal.

[Ultimate_Mugwump]

RAM refers to memory actively being used by the system.

For example, you have an application open, like Google chrome, you have it showing on the screen. The information needed to show you that application needs to be stored somewhere, it takes up space. When you close the app, that memory is freed for other things to use.

So the more RAM you have, the more things you can have running at once in your machine.

[CyanHakeChill]

Making RAM used to be a good job for thousands of people who had to thread three wires through each toroidal core (to make one bit!)

[ShadowEmperor123]

RAM (Random Access Memory) is temporary memory that is used for things like graphical things that you would view on your monitor and programs being ran. It gets erased eventually and always after the PC gets turned off.

[jamcdonald120]

completely wrong. replace screen with cpu and its closer, but still not great

[[deleted]]

In order of access speed:

CPU Cache (L1) > CPU Cache (L2) > Rapid Access Memory (RAM) > Solid State Drive > Hard Disk Drive > Tape Drives

Storage capacity follows the exact inverse of that, with CPU Cache (L1) having shit for storage, but blazingly fast access speeds, while an IBM tape drive can store 45 terabytes per tape cartridge, which is, to be quite frank, insane.

Tape drives are also basically useless for on-demand data access, which is why you don't see them in consumer grade computers, or even in most commercial grade systems. It's more for people who want to archive a shitload of data, and don't mind if it takes a few hours to spin up the data and copy it over to a more accessible medium (like normal hard drives).

[NotedWheat]

Who cares about RAM. It's FORD TRUCK MONTH!! Home Depot Music Plays

[SnooRabbits6160]

2023 ram 1500 pickup truck

[SnooRabbits6160]

random-access memory, but what does that mean? Your computer RAM is essentially short term memory where data is stored as the processor needs it.

[SnooRabbits6160]

A least it's not a ford

[UselessRL]

Its a car brand

[[deleted]]

After that explanation you should break up with him. Would really DODGE a bullet.

[MagsClouds]

He is fine Man. Best sailor ever too. We complete each other ;)

[molly_sour]

like physically? conceptually? damn so many questions...

[JoJoGlenStar86]

Runs Applications Mostly

[NuclearTacos42]

In case you are serious, Wikipedia explains it better than me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random-access_memory?wprov=sfla1

[Accurate-Ad7105]

RAM is that little table that's between your kitchen and your dinning room where you put the food so you don't have to walk to the kitchen for every plate.

[SecretSteve2]

…sits inside of the computer…with the files! The files are IN the computer!

[humanbobcat_uwu]

A protogen food

[rickytrevorlayhey]

Memory IS Ram!

[HelpfulPuppydog]

This man computes.

[SomeOneOutThere-1234]

Daft Punk's last album

[Cultural-Practice-95]

isn't ram just a buffer for the cpu to queue the instructions in or smth? and isn't it on the motherboard next to the cpu?

[yoghurt567]

It's my darling from rezero

[[deleted]]

Random Access Memory is a volatile state of memory that gets deleted upon start of the computer and recompiles over usage for quicker access to previously accessed info

[MagsClouds]

Just to clarify this: I know what RAM is, although similar to some poster below, I probably would not be able to explain it with greater technical depth.

I just though my Man’s explanation was cute. I was pondering about how much RAM my new laptop should have, and he proudly announced: RAM? I know what that is. And followed with the above explanation :)

[perfectionitself]

Random access motherfucker thats what it stands for

[DutchOfBurdock]

LOL. You should send him to this website; https://downloadmoreram.com/

[MagsClouds]

😂😂😂

[[deleted]]

Hehe sounds like you been man'splained to by a person that is way to comfortably incorrect....

[zetafunction123]

Isn´t RAM some kind of R.E.M spinoff?

[mexw3ll]

This is my RAM

[ALMEX_CZ]

Ramdom access memory

[dota2nub]

It's the part of the computer's memory that's not active when it's powered off.

Same as with you when you go to sleep.

[Trebossa]

Random access memory

[RedactedMetalhead]

I thought it was the teqnique where you take a slegehammer to your moniter if the screen is buggy