I just bought a brand new Lenovo Ideapad Slim 3 (15.6" AMD Ryzen 5, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD). Installed Steam, everything seemed fine, but I checked the task manager out of curiosity, and the memory usage was sitting at 70-80% even with no apps open.
This doesn’t seem right. Should I think about returning it? I tried some tips from YouTube to lower memory use, and now it’s down to 30%, but I still feel like something might be wrong with the hardware. Is this normal for a new laptop?
Are you sure it’s a new laptop?
With Ryzen laptops, 8GB might not be enough, since the integrated GPU (iGPU) takes up some of that memory.
Check under ‘Hardware Reserved RAM’ in Task Manager to see if it’s being used there.
Yeah, 8GB is on the lower side these days. I think your laptop has 4GB soldered on, plus a 4GB stick. You could replace the 4GB with a 16GB stick to bring it up to 20GB, or just exchange it for a model with more RAM if possible.
Honestly, 8GB RAM running at 70-80% usage is pretty typical with an iGPU.