This is a fairly common misconception. Since you said you know little about computers, I’ll try to present things through analogies, but obviously somewhere the analogy breaks down. If this is too basic for you, I apologize, but someone may find it useful (this is how I explained it to my Mom, and she got it).
RAM (or memory) lets a computer store information in a quick-access format. Think of it as the stuff the computer is currently thinking about.
Hard drive space (or disk space), on the other hand, is all the knowledge the computer has available. But it’s in a slow-access format. Think of it as the file cabinet in the corner. Sure, the info you need is there, but you don’t want to have to walk across the room every time you need it.
Both of the above are measured in the same units (bytes, KiloBytes, and now MegaBytes and GigaBytes), so it can be a bit confusing.
For an example, Windows XP uses around 100 MB of RAM while running. That means that to have the operating system, you need at least 100 MB of RAM in your computer. However, it needs around 1 GB of space to install into. That means that all the data associated with it takes up 1 GB of space, but at any given time your computer is only “thinking about” 100 MB of it.
If you don’t have enough RAM, then your computer will sort of fake it by pretending to use part of a hard drive for its memory. This is called virtual memory, but can be very very slow. Think of it as having to pull a phone number out of your file cabinet, but only being able to remember 2 digits at a time. You have to make 5 trips (we use ten digit dialing in this land of make-believe) across the room, each with two digits in your head (memory).
Now, in the above situation, if you increase your memory by a factor of 5, you will experience a factor of 5 speedup! More memory makes things go faster!However, what if you now double your current memory so that you can remember 20 digits? Well, unless you need to think about two phone numbers at a time, things won’t have speeded up at all.
So, memory helps your computer do many things at once, but as long as you aren’t trying to do too many things, the amount of memory won’t make an appreciable difference in speed.
I have 512 MB of RAM in the box I’m on right now, and I just tested to see what I’m using. I’m running Windows XP, two web browsers, Winamp, mIRC (a chat program), Trillian (another one), Microsoft Word with a small document open, and Outlook Express. Other than Windows XP, the programs I’m running take a total of about 100 MB of memory. If we assume that Windows XP takes around 100, then I have a good 300 MB to spare. Enough to run lots more programs. I hear that Photoshop is a real memory hog, so if you plan to do image editing, can’t hurt to pile on the RAM. RAM, though, is pretty easy to add later, just make sure you have empty slots on your motherboard.
Memory also comes in several different speeds. While I’m not sure what the fastest is right now, you should get the fastest you can afford. Because the speed of memory (not the size) does greatly improve performance.
Processors, which measure their speed in the number of cycles per second they go through (think of it as the number of times in a second that the computer can add two numbers together. It isn’t, but think of it that way ;)). Current processors are around 2 GHz, which is 2 billion cycles per second. Odds are that unless you are doing video processing or really snazzy games, any processor you buy will be fine to deal with most stuff. I’m running on a 1.2 GHz Duron processor, I run lots of modern software, and I’ve never felt like my computer should be running “faster.”
On the Mac vs. PC issue, I use both, and like both for different things. Basically, it comes down to what you are comfortable with and who is around to help you out. On the whole, I don’t feel that Macs are any simpler than PC’s, but there’s lots of things I’d never figure out on both if I didn’t have someone around to ask about it.
