RAM is one of the most important factors for computer speed and performance. If you feel that your system is slow while you’re already using a good system including a fast SSD drive, you should probably check how much RAM you have in your system and if it is enough to fulfill your needs.
Quick Summary
- 1 What is RAM memory?
- 2 How do you see how much RAM is in your computer?
- 3 How to check RAM speed?
- 4 How do you check what type of RAM you have? DDR3 or DDR4?
- 5 Checking the complete RAM details using WMIC command
- 6 Get RAM details using systeminfo command
- 7 Get RAM details using PowerShell
- 8 Continue Reading:
What is RAM memory?
RAM or Random Access Memory is a fast and temporary storage used by the processor to hold data that is currently in use. This includes running Operating System files, device drivers, application data etc.
The data in RAM is deleted once the system is powered off.
How do you see how much RAM is in your computer?
You can easily check the details of RAM in Windows 10 using the Task Manager. The task manager performance tab shows a majority of memory details including the total amount of RAM, how much is in use, committed/cached and paged/non-paged amount of RAM, RAM speed and frequency, form factor, hardware reserved and even how many slots are being used in the system.
To check how much RAM you have on your computer, open Task Manager by pressing Ctrl + Shift + Esc keys and go to the Performance tab. Select Memory from the left hand pane. The right hand pane will open RAM details.
If the RAM usage is more than 90%, you should think of upgrading the RAM capacity in your system, reducing the memory load, and bringing it below 80% for optimal performance.
To check how much RAM you have using command-line, open Command Prompt and run the following command:
wmic MEMORYCHIP get BankLabel, Capacity
This will show the RAM capacity of all RAM modules separately and in bytes.
If you want to check the total RAM capacity in your system, you can run the following command in Command Prompt:
systeminfo | find "Total Physical Memory"
This will show you the total physical memory installed in Megabytes.
If you are using PowerShell, you can run the following command to get RAM size:
Get-WmiObject Win32_PhysicalMemory | Select-Object Capacity
How to check RAM speed?
Windows 10 Task Manager gives the option to check RAM speed with ease.
To check RAM speed, open Task Manager by pressing Ctrl + Shift + Esc keys and go to the Performance tab. Select Memory from the left hand pane. On the right hand page, you should see the Speed of RAM in MHz.
Please note that if you have multiple RAM modules, Windows 10 will report the operating RAM speed which is the lowest of all installed modules. If you want to check the speed of each individual module, just hover your mouse cursor over the slots used. This will show a pop-up with the speed of each module.
To check RAM speed using command-line, open Command Prompt and run the following command:
wmic MEMORYCHIP get BankLabel, Speed
This will show the speed of all installed RAM modules.
If you are using PowerShell, you can run the following command to check the speed of RAM modules:
Get-WmiObject Win32_PhysicalMemory | Select-Object Speed
How do you check what type of RAM you have? DDR3 or DDR4?
Unfortunately, the Task Manager doesn’t give very useful information about the RAM type. We can use PowerShell commands to accurately determine the RAM type.
To check the RAM type from command-line, open PowerShell and run the following command:
Get-WmiObject Win32_PhysicalMemory | Select-Object SMBIOSMemoryType
This command will give you a number. This number corresponds to the appropriate RAM type. Here are the codes and their corresponding RAM types:
| Code | RAM Type |
| 26 | DDR4 |
| 25 | DDR3 |
| 24 | DDR2-FB DIMM |
| 22 | DDR2 |
For more information on these codes, you can refer to Microsoft documentation here.
You can also use wmic MEMORYCHIP command in Command Prompt to check memory type:
wmic memorychip get memorytype
Please note that wmic MEMORYCHIP is an old command and does not always detect the correct RAM type. If you see 0 as a memory type code, it means MEMORYCHIP command was not able to determine the RAM type.
Checking the complete RAM details using WMIC command
- Type CMD in the Start Menu and open the first result you get.
- A Command Prompt window will open. Type the “wmic MEMORYCHIP get BankLabel, DeviceLocator, Capacity, Speed ” command to have the complete information about your system’s RAM. Then press Enter after writing the command.
- The three columns will be shown in front of you. BankLabel column will tell you which slots the RAM chips are installed in. Capacity columns will tell you that how much large each module is expressed in bytes. DeviceLocator is another entity to tell which slots the RAM chips are installed in.
- You can also get the MemoryType and TypeDetail column for your RAM to get some extra details of your RAM. To do this, enter the following command:
“wmic MEMORYCHIP get BankLabel, DeviceLocator, MemoryType, TypeDetail, Capacity, Speed”.
- MemoryType tells you the type of your physical memory. In my case, I get 24 which means DDR 3. The value comes from TypeDetail member of the Memory Device structure in the SMBIOS information. I got a 128 which says my RAM TypeDetail is synchronous.
- To get complete details about the memory modules, run the following command:
wmic memorychip list full
This command may not give you a user-friendly list of details but it will definitely give you complete details about the hardware.
Get RAM details using systeminfo command
Here is another way to find the RAM details for your system through systeminfo command.
- To find the total physical memory of your system, enter the following command. The following command easily displays the total amount of memory which is on your system.
systeminfo | findstr /C:”Total Physical Memory”
- If you want to get the information about the available memory of your system then run the following command and immediately get the result.
systeminfo |find “Available Physical Memory”
Get RAM details using PowerShell
If you want to get complete RAM details, you can use the following PowerShell command:
Get-WmiObject Win32_PhysicalMemory | Format-List *
This command will give you a wealth of information about your memory.
Using commands is a very handy and time-saving approach for any purpose. Just enter a command and you are done with what you want to do. So enter commands like I mentioned above and get detailed information about your RAM. If your RAM is not suitable or RAM is less, upgrade it to have a fast and speedy system to perform all operations smoothly and quickly. Thank you.
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It is simple. Open the Start menu, click the Run button and enter “CMD” in the pop-up window, then confirm or press ENTER. In the Command window, enter “WMIC memphysical get Maxcapacity” without quotation marks and then hit enter. The computer then gives a list of kilobytes of digits. We’ll convert this number to our common GB units. The conversion method is: “The obtained number/(divided by) 1024/(divided by) 1024” My Computer gets the number of 16777216K bytes, then I divided by 1024 and divided by 1024, is equal to 16GB. This mean the motherboard can support ram maximumly up to 16GB.
Thank you man , been looking for that. Hope the number is correct
How do I know the amount of ram I can add to my system, it’s 64bit and 2G ram Toshiba with Windows 10 installed buh I want to upgrade, how I know the amount if slots available for me
You will need to check with your vendor website citing the specific computer model you have. If you can share the full model no. of your computer, I’ll be able to help you out in this matter. BTW, most old laptops come with 16GB RAM maximum limit.
Hey! thanks for the great article. Loved the command line.
BTW there is a typo: infromationSpeed for informationSpeed
Many thanks, Deftoner, I have corrected the typo.
The result is pr. slot though. Lenovo T450 with 2 slots a max capacity of 32Gb returns 16777216¨
HTH
Hey,
Question please, does it return [under “Speed”] the RAM’s frequency declared by the manufacturer OR the actual frequency at which it operates?
I mean, if I plug in a 3000Mhz dimm into a mobo that only supports up to 2666Mhz [and auto downclocks it] – will I see 3000Mhz OR 2666Mhz?
It is the frequency declared by the manufacturer. A 3000Mhz RAM should work fine on a 2666Mhz slot only if it is compatible. Anyways, it is not recommended to do so.
Where is my original post? anyways, I know it’s not recommended to use a RAM which is not within the motherboard’s compatibility specs, the question was in general.
The question again [since it’s not under the comments section]:
“Does the command return the frequency declared by the manufacturer OR the actual frequency at which it operates?
For example, if I put a 3000Mhz RAM in a mobo that only supports up to 2666Mhz [and auto downclocks it] – will I see 3000Mhz OR 2666Mhz?”
So, just confirming, given the scenario I provided, you’re saying what I should expect to see is the frequency declared by the manufacturer [3000Mhz], even though the RAM only operates [due to motherboard limitations] at 2666Mhz. Correct?
In that case, is there a certain way to determine the speed at which the RAM operates within a system?
Thank you
Sorry for the confusion. I think the comment is not shown because of the cache. It’ll show up after a while. Anyways, I have checked one of my lab systems which has two different types of RAM installed, one is 2400MHz and the other is 2666MHz. Windows is showing 2400MHz for both of them which means the RAM is running at a maximum of 2400MHz maximum. When I checked in HWiNFO tool, it gave me the details about both the modules of RAM with the manufacturer frequency and the operating frequency separately.
Hey, still can’t see any of my previous comments…
Anyways, I’ve had the chance to check a 2666Mhz dimm [the only dimm in the system, for the sake of the test] in a motherboard that only supports upto 2400Hmz [by manufacturers specs].
Task manager shows => 2666Mhz
WMIC command => 2666Mhz
HWiNFO [under ‘current speed’] => ~1197Mhz [which, I guess, is for a single channel so actually it’s ~2394Mhz]
Since you got 2400Mhz for a 2666Mhz [with WMIC], one of these tools is not accurate… Now I’m even more confused.
Nothing is showing on that side of my task manager what will i do to see the no of slots?
Which version of Windows 10 are you using?
how do I set memory percentage eg I want to display info on memory that is close to 85%
So i have DDR4 with 3200Mhz With CMD and Bios it is 3200Mhz byt when i check Task manager it says 1600Mhz… can anyone help me with info or know why it is on 1600Mhz in TM
Do you have multiple RAM modules? Does your motherboard support 3200 Mhz RAM? Windows will show the RAM speed at which the RAM is running at the moment.
DDR means ‘Double Data Rate’ so when your RAM is showing 1600 it means 3200 (ie doubled).
Some programs read your memory clock at half effective speed, 1600 in your case, but it’s still a reflection of the RAM’s DDR.
How can i read the whole memory of ram.. I mean as a programmer if i gave a memory slot to a variable named x and give it a value 10. How can i actually see that the value of x is stored in the ram.. Or even how can i see that the ram slot is provided to x.????
in
wmic MEMORYCHIP get BankLabel, DeviceLocator, Capacity, informationSpeed
its not “informationSpeed”
and it’s “Speed”
Thanks a lot for pointing out the typo. I’ve corrected it :-)