It can be challenging to provide an accurate answer, as the specific memory usage depends on various factors that can only be determined through benchmarks for a particular task with a specific build.

There are multiple factors that can influence memory usage ranging from 1 to 2 GB:

• The version of Chrome: different V8 engines have varying memory limits.
• The platform of Chrome: whether it is 32-bit or 64-bit.
• The operating system itself: Chrome may be compiled with different flags for different platforms.
• Changes in Chrome versions: there have been discussions about recompiling Chrome with certain compilation flags to increase memory usage, but such changes have been revoked by developers for unknown reasons.
• Video memory: some content on pages may require video memory, and if the video adapter has insufficient memory, Chrome will utilize general memory which can impact overall usage.

Currently, with Chrome version 47 on Windows 8.1 64-bit, I am able to use up to 1.8GB of memory with one tab before experiencing crashes.

Update:

Recently, there seems to have been a change in memory limit. With Chrome version 63 on x64 Windows 10 OS, I was able to allocate up to 3.5GB of memory while parsing a large JSON string and displaying it on the page. These measurements were taken from Chrome's Task Manager and Process Explorer's Private Bytes metric.

There was a discussion on a similar topic that you might find helpful. Check it out here

If you're looking to improve Chrome's performance, consider the following steps:

1. Right-click on the Chrome icon and go to properties. You should locate Chrome in this directory:

"C:\Documents and Settings\%USER%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" 

Replace %USER% with your PC username.

2. Add --purge-memory-button at the end of the line. It should look like this:

"C:\Documents and Settings\%USER%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --purge-memory-button 

After completing these steps, pressing shift+Esc while using Chrome will give you access to a "Purge Memory" option that frees up RAM by removing tabs not in use.

Additionally, you can experiment with different memory models by including one of these lines:

- Keep memory active at high levels:

--memory-model=high  

- Reduce working set when switching tabs voluntarily:

--memory-model=medium 

- Automatically reduce working set when switching tabs or when browser is idle:

--memory-model=low 

You can include multiple lines after the target directory

"C:\Documents and Settings\%USER%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe"

as needed. For example, if you want to enable both "Purge Memory" and "Low Memory Model," add them like this:

"C:\Documents and Settings\%USER%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --purge-memory-button --memory-model=low 

To achieve an accurate answer, it is important to benchmark on a specific platform with a particular version. The results obtained will only be relevant to that specific platform and version of Chrome due to numerous factors that can influence the outcome including:

1. Chrome Version differences in v8 engines, varying memory limits, and implications of 32-bit vs 64-bit architecture when conducting benchmarks. The default heap size may also vary across different v8 versions.

2. The system configuration on which Chrome is run; factors such as graphics memory/video memory availability can impact memory usage, potentially leading to increased internal memory utilization.

3. The memory allocation process itself, where each thread requires memory for bookkeeping, particularly its stack. While 32-bit processes are limited to addressing 4 GB of memory, 64-bit processes face challenges with actual allocations. However, typical programs, including Chrome, should not reach these limits or be concerned about them.

An anecdote involving exporting a large database from PHPMyAdmin using Chrome resulted in a crash due to the 1.22GB size of the database. Interestingly, performing the same task with a file export worked without issues.

In relation to the v8 engine, it imposes a memory limit of 512MB on 32-bit systems and 1434MB (1.4GB) on 64-bit systems. Given that Chrome relies heavily on v8, this limitation significantly influences memory usage.

To enhance the memory limit of my desktop application based on nw.js (chrome), I successfully implemented the following command line options:

For Node.js: node --max_old_space_size=12288 script.js
For Google Chrome: chrome.exe --js-flags="--max_old_space_size=12288"
For NW.js: include "js-flags": "--max_old_space_size=12288" in the package.json.

You can adjust the value 12288 (equivalent to 12GB) based on your specific requirements.

If you happen to be using 32-bit Chrome, your memory allocation is limited to 2 GB due to the restrictions of a 32-bit Windows process. On the other hand, 64-bit Chrome users can allocate up to 4GB of memory. Keep in mind that Chrome does not support allocations exceeding 4GB.