We are in the middle of the RAMpocalypse and the news is still discouraging. Last week, Intel predicted its own CPU sales would fall 10 percent in 2026, and CEO Lip-Bu Tan said the company “does not expect a sustained recovery until memory availability improves and prices begin to normalize.”
Tan and other Intel executives declined to say when that will happen. But it could be years, which is why Microsoft is intervening. In a blog post, Pavan Davuluri, head of Microsoft’s Windows + Devices team, characterized the move as “making better use of available memory.”
In other words, simply making Windows appear faster and more responsive based on more efficient use of the PC’s memory. Specifically, Microsoft is using more compression and better anticipating what you’ll want to click to make your PC feel faster.
You’re already familiar with how this works, even if you haven’t thought about it. If you’re watching a soccer game, you probably have a table nearby with snacks that you can grab whenever you want. If you want to refresh yourself with a drink or grab another bowl of sauce, you have to walk to the kitchen. Obviously it’s faster to have everything you need nearby. Likewise, your PC keeps what you need immediately nearby in RAM and, if necessary, retrieves additional data from storage like your SSD on demand.
Microsoft cannot increase the size of its 8 GB of RAM, represented by the size of the snack table. But what you can do is tightly organize or even compress what it contains. Davuluri said that Microsoft is using compression to effectively increase the size of local RAM by up to 2GB. Through memory savings in Windows, Edge, and Microsoft 365, Microsoft said they can now reduce the increase in committed or actively used memory by up to 900 MB.
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Microsoft’s other improvements essentially free up background tasks that Windows would normally be working on to better anticipate your needs. One of the reasons Microsoft wants you to use its Edge browser is so it can command Edge to always run in the background. That eats up memory, but it also means it can boot up more quickly when you need it. But Microsoft is also putting tabs to sleep more quickly, so that you’re left with only one static page and one that consumes less memory.
