Just curious about it, but can’t understand why is it like that.
In: 7
Dont take the numbers i give as exact, they are just ballpark to help understand the timing.
Simply put, the closer data is to a CPU’s core the faster operations can be run. Data in registers are what a CPU actually operates on, this is very small like measured in bytes. When you need data loaded to a register time is wasted to get it there. So the solution was to make multiple levels where you could hold more and more data but take more and more time to access . After registers the next level is cache on the chip which is usually kilobytes and takes nanoseconds to get. After that you get to RAM which is gigabytes in size but it take a microsecond to access. After that is harddrive which takes milliseconds to access but holds terabytes. Importantly if power is shut off the only one designed to maintain stored data is the harddrive.
Different programs need different amounts of RAM because some things operate on gigs of data like a high definition video game. But others operate on way less, like a text editor.
Computer Sciences studies the complexities of doing the above stuff and ways to do it faster.
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