Windows 11 gets faster on 8GB PCs: Microsoft promises up to 40 percent better performance

Memory has been in short supply for some time, and prices have been particularly high. This has prompted many PC manufacturers to once again equip desktop and laptop systems with less RAM. That was one of the reasons Microsoft announced in March that it would speed up Windows 11 on PCs with less memory. The company still considers 8GB of RAM sufficient for many everyday tasks.

That's why Windows developers have spent the past few months optimizing various parts of the operating system. One key area is improved memory compression. By compressing data in RAM more efficiently, Windows 11 can now keep up to 2GB more active data in memory instead of moving it to slower storage drives. As a result, applications and browser tabs need to be reloaded less frequently when switching between tasks.

General system responsiveness has also been improved to deliver greater speed and efficiency. According to Microsoft, the Start menu, Search, Settings, Snipping Tool, and File Explorer now respond up to 20 percent faster. This is partly possible because Windows now gives even higher priority to the processor resources used by currently active applications while scaling back background processes more aggressively than before.

Further improvements affect Microsoft Edge, Teams, and Microsoft 365. For example, new Edge windows now open up to 33 percent faster when the browser is already running in the background. Teams also runs up to 20 percent faster on 8GB systems. Meanwhile, the individual Microsoft 365 apps have been optimized to reduce their combined memory footprint.