Microsoft Claims Windows 11 Multitasking Is 40 Percent Faster on 8GB PCs

Microsoft says multitasking on Windows 11 machines with 8GB of RAM is now up to 40 percent faster, according to figures the company released alongside an update shipping today. Responsiveness on the same hardware has improved by up to 20 percent in Microsoft's own lab tests. The numbers are the company's, not an independent lab's, which is worth remembering before anyone budgets for a memory upgrade they may no longer need.

Windows chief Pavan Davuluri put the claims plainly. "On 8 GB PCs, Windows is now up to 20 percent more responsive, and multitasking is up to 40 percent faster in our lab test," he said. Last month Microsoft had already described Windows 11 as "more responsive" on 8GB machines; today's update extends that work with further memory improvements.

How does Microsoft get 8GB to behave like more?

The main lever is compression. Windows now compresses active data so aggressively that it can hold roughly 2GB more of it in memory rather than shuffling it off to slower storage.

"As a result, Windows can now keep up to 2 GB more of your active data in memory instead of moving it to the disk, so an app or tab you left open is less likely to reload when you return," Davuluri said. The change matters because compression lets Windows avoid writing data to a virtual memory paging file on disk, a fallback path that has slowed applications on low-RAM machines for decades.

The comparison is familiar: it is the same trick smartphone operating systems have used for years to make modest hardware feel adequate.

Where do the savings come from?

Microsoft itemized the reductions across the operating system, its browser, and its office suite. The company says improvements across Windows, Edge, and Microsoft 365 apps cut "committed-memory growth by up to 900 MB."

The specifics break down as follows:

• Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook together account for 360MB of RAM savings.
• Windows 11 no longer loads widgets on 8GB PCs until the user opens the widgets panel, saving around 200MB.
• Inactive tabs in Edge now sleep after 15 minutes, trimming memory consumption further.

Widgets sleeping until summoned is a small dignity. For years, low-RAM PCs have quietly paid a tax for features their owners never opened.

What comes next?

The update shipping today is not the end of the effort. Microsoft says it will keep refining RAM usage over the coming months, and Davuluri indicated the compression machinery itself will become "smarter and more efficient" in that window.

Windows features and applications will also begin sharing more common components. Widgets and search, for instance, are set to share a single web engine rather than each maintaining its own.

The more consequential work sits below the operating system. Microsoft is cooperating with PC makers and chipmakers to optimize how much memory a PC must reserve for its hardware, which would free more capacity for Windows itself. Reserved memory has long been a silent consumer on budget machines, and reducing it would effectively hand users RAM they already paid for.

For the 8GB installed base, the practical payoff is fewer tab reloads and fewer stalled applications. Microsoft's lab numbers will face the usual scrutiny from users with real workloads, but the direction is clear: the company is treating memory efficiency as a shipping feature rather than a background concern, and further compression gains are promised within months.