How much memory is needed for Windows 7?

[dannyual767]

We just picked up my wife's first new laptop since Windows 98 . Its an inexpensive Toshiba Windows 7 machine from Best Buy and it came with 2 gigs of RAM. I remember when Vista came out and the low end laptops were shipping with as little as 512 megs of RAM.

Anyway, should we seriously consider adding more RAM? From what I understand, 2 gigs is really about the bare minimum for Vista and more is preferred. Is Windows 7 pretty much the same?

 

[Nubbleet]

You can run Windows 7 with 1GB of RAM, but it will run much smoother with 2GB.

 

[Lexluethar]

2 gigs is plenty for 7. I have 2 in my laptop (remember i'm sharing video memory too) and at bootup idling my os will use 29% of that. Vista used 40%.

Windows 7 requires 1 gig for 32 bit, 2 gig for 64 bit. 2 gig is plenty IMO.

 

[dannyual767]

Thanks for the good news, guys! This Toshiba only has two memory slots and I'm sure they're both loaded with inexpensive, 1 gig sticks. We'd have to shell out 45 bucks for a 2 gig stick just to end up with a total of 3 GB. Keeping this machine inexpensive is the name of the game these days!

 

[KSoD]

http://www.techist.com/forums/f9/windows-7-thread-faq-172024/

Lots of useful info on the first page...

 

[dannyual767]

http://www.techist.com/forums/f9/windows-7-thread-faq-172024/

Lots of useful info on the first page...

Yeah Mak, I'd read that before I posted my question. Even though I'd read that the minimum requirement was 1GB, I still wanted to know if the "in-practice" amount was higher.

Like I first posted, some early, low-end Vista laptops were being shipped with 512 MB. I know. I'm on a laptop that was one of those (but now happily converted to XP!) My daughter has a Vista Compaq that came with a paltry 512 MB of RAM as well.

So far, my wife's new Toshiba Windows 7 laptop is working great and is fun to use. We're real happy with it.