The more memory your system has, the more documents you can have open and the more programs you can run at the same time.
RAM is fast but temporary.
When you turn off the power to your computer, everything in RAM disappears. For a higher-end machine, 32MB of memory is adequate for running lots of applications at once or playing 3D games. If your computer is a graphics workstation dedicated to video or photo editing or computer-aided design, adding more than 32MB of RAM will significantly speed up performance. When buying a new system, it's important to balance CPU speed and the amount of RAM on a system. A moderately fast chip with enough RAM can outperform a faster chip with inadequate memory.