Just curious about it, but can’t understand why is it like that.
In: 7
The CPU can only be used with a program, data that will literally instruct it what to do. The CPU makes a clear distinction between memory that serves as a program and data that will be processed (e.g. “an image”). Physically, it uses the same RAM. A computer has (part of) the program and (part of) the data in RAM.
A computer will use more memory when there is a lot of data to process (e.g. a video) or when the program is big. Sometimes the data is already bundled with the application (e.g. with fonts or error messages) and sometimes this comes from other sources (e.g. the internet or disk).
Then there is the concept of cache. Cache is memory to temporarily store data or program (in order to avoid the costly endeavor of getting it from its slower source like a disk). RAM is often used as cache too.
The result is that, after a while, most computers use all memory available for the above functions: cache, program and data.
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