I wrote this little test program:

using System;

namespace GCMemTest
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            System.GC.Collect();

            System.Diagnostics.Process pmCurrentProcess = System.Diagnostics.Process.GetCurrentProcess();

            long startBytes = pmCurrentProcess.PrivateMemorySize64;

            double kbStart = (double)(startBytes) / 1024.0;
            System.Console.WriteLine("Currently using " + kbStart + "KB.");

            {
                int size = 2000000;
                string[] strings = new string[size];
                for(int i = 0; i < size; i++)
                {
                    strings[i] = "blabla" + i;
                }
            }

            System.GC.Collect();

            pmCurrentProcess = System.Diagnostics.Process.GetCurrentProcess();
            long endBytes = pmCurrentProcess.PrivateMemorySize64;

            double kbEnd = (double)(endBytes) / 1024.0;
            System.Console.WriteLine("Currently using " + kbEnd + "KB.");

            System.Console.WriteLine("Leaked " + (kbEnd - kbStart) + "KB.");
            System.Console.ReadKey();
        }
    }
}

The output in Release build is:

Currently using 18800KB.
Currently using 118664KB.
Leaked 99864KB.

I assume that the GC.collect call will remove the allocated strings since they go out of scope, but it appears it does not. I do not understand nor can I find an explanation for it. Maybe anyone here?

Thanks, Alex