Subscribe to our newsletter. As the demands for higher performance drive the memory industry, manufacturers are creating more and different types of RAM memory modules to accommodate faster processors. Unfortunately, the proliferation of new terms and acronyms will make you think that PC stands for personal confuser instead of personal computer. This week, I provide a quick guide to the new memory types and formats to sort out the confusion.
RAM memory is to the computer as short-term memory is to a human.
All of the programs and data which the computer needs to operate are stored in RAM, just as a math professor might store the details of a math problem in his or her head. To carry out the comparison to a human, a math professor might use a chalkboard or a notebook when his or her short term memory isn't good enough to store all the details. Expand the short term memory, and the professor can solve more complex problems without relying on paper or chalk. Even RAM itself is slow compared to the computer's processor. Modern RAM chips, called Dynamic RAM s, have a latency of about 50 nanoseconds.