How much RAM is good?

[CrackBookPro]

How much RAM is wise for heavy video editing in Final Cut Pro & 3D in Maya?

I have 4GBs currently with a powerful GPU & CPU, but am thinking about bumping up to 16GBs of RAM...

Is 8GBs enough(cheaper), or is 16GBs the way to go?

[poisondeathray]

It would depend how complex your projects are and how much your concurrent processes consume. Monitor your actual RAM usage with a typical project. Some projects require more than 16GB . Either get as much as you can afford now, or save up and plan for a complete system upgrade . What's "powerful" today usually isn't so powerful next year.

[redwudz]

Your operating system, whether 32bit or 64bit makes a big difference. 32bit OSs can only address a bit less than 4GB RAM. More is useless. 64bit OSs can address quite a bit more.

From one article on 64bit W7 RAM limits: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/max-memory-limits-for-64-bit-windows-7/4254

Starter: 8GB
Home Basic: 8GB
Home Premium: 16GB
Professional: 192GB
Enterprise: 192GB
Ultimate: 192GB

Video editing, and particularly graphics editing programs, may make better use of larger amounts of RAM as they can hold the graphics data in RAM for faster manipulation. But the OS used, 32 or 64bit, is still one limiting factor.

And welcome to our forums.

[CrackBookPro]

Your operating system, whether 32bit or 64bit makes a big difference. 32bit OSs can only address a bit less than 4GB RAM. More is useless. 64bit OSs can address quite a bit more.

From one article on 64bit W7 RAM limits: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/max-memory-limits-for-64-bit-windows-7/4254

Starter: 8GB
Home Basic: 8GB
Home Premium: 16GB
Professional: 192GB
Enterprise: 192GB
Ultimate: 192GB

Video editing, and particularly graphics editing programs, may make better use of larger amounts of RAM as they can hold the graphics data in RAM for faster manipulation. But the OS used, 32 or 64bit, is still one limiting factor.

And welcome to our forums.

Thanks, I have been on MacRumors forever, but this forum looks great with all the different functions, how-to's, etc. Had to join

I am running 64bit Mac OS, and I am more or less debating on jumping to either 8GB or spending the money for 16GBs of DDR3. The video editing & Maya projects will be demanding nonetheless in the coming months. I want to make the bump soon...

Part of me thinks 8GB will be fine.

[redwudz]

Maya may be the determining factor. I would check with them for RAM quantity suggestions. 16GB is probably a good number as that is often the max RAM that motherboards can use, at least in the PC world. If you have four RAM slots, four (4GB) RAM modules may be a good option. Most times, you want all modules to be matched for best performance.

It would be helpful to fill out your computer details so we know what OS and capabilities your computer has. We also have a Mac forum for Mac specific questions.

[edDV]

If you aren't using Maya and FCP at the same time, the Maya recommedations dominate. These will depend on your project resolutions and number of frames/textures you need to directly access from RAM. Best way to figure this out is to monitor a typical project for RAM usage and disk access delays.

[CrackBookPro]

Maya may be the determining factor. I would check with them for RAM quantity suggestions. 16GB is probably a good number as that is often the max RAM that motherboards can use, at least in the PC world. If you have four RAM slots, four (4GB) RAM modules may be a good option. Most times, you want all modules to be matched for best performance.

It would be helpful to fill out your computer details so we know what OS and capabilities your computer has. We also have a Mac forum for Mac specific questions.

Will do... I think I may have to buck-up for 16GBs.

[CrackBookPro]

If you aren't using Maya and FCP at the same time, the Maya recommedations dominate. These will depend on your project resolutions and number of frames/textures you need to directly access from RAM. Best way to figure this out is to monitor a typical project for RAM usage and disk access delays.

How do I monitor disc access delays?

[poisondeathray]

16GB is probably a good number as that is often the max RAM that motherboards can use, at least in the PC world.

"16GB max" is only for dual channel consumer boards. s1366 boards are triple channel , so 6x4GB = 24GB . In the mac world , Mac Pro's can use ECC and 8GB sticks , same with PC workstations. So 48GB or 96GB is pretty common for graphics workstations - and they usually have more slots per channel for memory. But filling more memory banks per channel usually forces the memory to run slower e.g. instead of DDR3-1333 you would be running DDR3-1066 or even DDR3-800 if all banks, so higher density sticks are usually preferred (but cost way more in terms of $/GB)

[redwudz]

How do I monitor disc access delays?

Probably a Mac specific question. Quick and easy, watch your disk access light. But I believe Macs have a OS program for disk monitoring. I haven't used my G4 Mac in quite a while, so not up to speed on that.

I'll move this thread to our Mac Forum and the Mac users there may be able to give you more help.

[poisondeathray]

How do I monitor disc access delays?

I primarily use PC's but you can check the Activity Monitor , if disk IO is a bottleneck and you have high memory consumption, it suggests you are using the page file (writing to virtual memory on the HDD) - in this case adding more physical memory (RAM) would help to relieve that bottleneck and improve performance

[lordsmurf]

1 terabyte SSD as ramdrive?