Are we sure it's a bad thing when RAM usage goes up?

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Originally Posted by Malatesta

To add to krohnjw's excellent explanation, there is a whole other area of cache and allocation of that--in short I devote a lot of my RAM to cache (file system, file system filter, GDI/font, etc),which is variable to a certain extent. In turn I have a "faster" device but consume more RAM; however just because certain areas of the OS are pre-cached doesn't mean it is being acted on by the CPU when not being called up for a process.

Remember, RAM is just volatile memory--it's a temporary storage area for data to be accessed quickly but not written to storage. The RAM chips themselves, AFAIK, are powered by the system regardless of what is being "held" in memory at the time and it is only when that information is called or acted upon does the CPU need to be used.

At least that, in my non-engineering background, is how I understand it.

Is there a specific way in which one goes about this?