High memory utilization on a network device, such as consistently reaching 95% of its capacity, can lead to degradation in the device's performance, potential system instability, and an increased risk of crashes. This can cause network slowdowns, increased latency, or failure in properly handling network traffic. Application throughput is the rate at which an application can process requests, not a direct indicator of memory utilization. Port speed relates to the rate of data transfer on a network link, and high discard rates indicate a different problem, such as congestion or a malfunction that causes frames to be discarded, but do not directly correlate with high memory utilization.