Help me add up my MBP's RAM

[Zaylor]

I have a simple question, to which there is probably a simple answer. I don't understand the way my Macbook Pro handles RAM.

When I start up my computer (nothing running but Activity Monitor), I see about 6.3 GB RAM free (Out of 8). in Activity Monitor I look under "real memory," and I see that my active processes don't total more than 1 GB. The largest of which is the kernel, at around 500MB. So that's 6.3 free + 1 = 7.3 GB RAM accounted for.

My question is, where is the rest of the RAM? It doesn't add up. There is about 700MB RAM that I can't account for.

Thanks,
Z

 

[simsaladimbamba]

First you have to take into account ALL PROCESSES and then, if you have an MBP running on an integrated graphics processor (IGP), it also takes away some RAM, up to 768 MB in some scenarios.

Using Activity Monitor to show you CPU and RAM usage​

 

[Zaylor]

Right, I am using all processes in Activity Monitor.

I have the i5 which has integrated graphics, as well as an nvidia graphics processor.

So you're saying my igp could be consuming that ram I am unable to account for?

Thanks for the reply

 

[mfram]

Also, the operating system will use Free memory as disk cache so that it doesn't have to slow down your computer by reading the disk all the time. That memory won't be "free", and it won't be accounted for in the list of processes.

Remember, "free" memory is wasted memory. If the RAM isn't being used for anything else, you want it used for disk cache.