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Whats the point of having RAM on your computer

I know RAM is short term data storage and when you switch the computer off the memory is wiped and ROM is storage that stores your data in secondary storage (i think) so its there for a long time. Whats the point of having RAM what would happen if you made your own computer and only had ROM on your computer and did not have RAM storage on your computer? Im sorry if this question is stupid or something, but i dont understand the point of RAM.
Reply 1
Avatar for Crijjkal
Crijjkal
3
ROM is the bios, even tho not really nowadays
You would never have any currently running processes for one. So that would be a thing.
Original post by ThatOldGuy
You would never have any currently running processes for one. So that would be a thing.


Can you explain further?
Original post by Anonymous1502
Can you explain further?


If you had to store all temporary data on the hard disk, things would run incredibly slowly.
Fast memory for storing files that may need to be loaded quickly like game assets.
Reply 6
Avatar for IWMTom
IWMTom
20
It's incredibly fast temporary data storage - the alternative would be to use standard data storage methods, but they're incredibly slow in comparison to RAM.
DDR4 average access time (true latency) of 14 nano seconds (1.4x10^-8) vs the fastest NVME ssd on the market with a random read op (true latency) of 1.21 milliseconds (1.21x10^-3) = RAM is about 87000 times faster.
Original post by Anonymous1502
I know RAM is short term data storage and when you switch the computer off the memory is wiped and ROM is storage that stores your data in secondary storage (i think) so its there for a long time. Whats the point of having RAM what would happen if you made your own computer and only had ROM on your computer and did not have RAM storage on your computer? Im sorry if this question is stupid or something, but i dont understand the point of RAM.


RAM sppeds up the computer. If the hard drive did everything, I can't see the computer working very well, if it stored every single piece of data.

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