This is RAM or Random Access Memory. Need help with hard to understand words? Click here. This memory is where you store things temporarily while your computer works on them. RAM is electronic memory. This means it works at the speed that electricity moves. So when the Processor (CPU) asks for something it needs, the RAM can find it and deliver it FAST. RAM and the CPU are "talking" all the time so, the faster the CPU, the faster the RAM, and the faster they can talk, the faster your computer will be.

When you turn your computer off, all information in RAM is lost. This is why you have to save your work to storage devices: your hard drive, floppy disk, compact disk, or removable flash drive.

The more RAM the computer has, the less it needs to use the hard drive to find and deliver things to the CPU. So its a good idea to get over 256 MB of RAM.

To learn more, click on http://computer.howstuffworks.com/ram.htm