Is This Ram Usage Normal?

[ipodlover77]

I won't lie, I'm not very familiar with the super technical side of computers.

That being said, I picked up an extra 4gigs from a great MR member here. Once I loaded it up (going from 4 to 8), i noticed the improvements IMMEDIATELY. But as I checked my activity monitor, while I have a good amount of free ram now, Im wondering if my "memory used" is larger than its supposed to be while having no programs open.

When I had only 4gb's, my memory used would be around 3.87 with no programs open. Even just having itunes open would slow safari down to a crawl. Don't get me started with iPhoto. It would take a good 20 second for it to load.

So even though I had a good amount of free ram now that I have 8g, Im wondering if there might be a kernal problem that is making my kernal_task so high?

 

[dan1eln1el5en]

you should use "active RAM" to compare with.
unused ram is wasted ram.

a kernel task should release ram as necessary, and will occupy extra ram for more performance.

optimal would be where almost all ram is taken, but kept running for "tedious tasks" e.g. kernel task or host or cache etc.
you have too little ram if most ram is eaten by the applications you use e.g. Photoshop or Xcode.

(my opinion, others may differ)