Can someone explain why I would need 12 GB RAM over 6 GB...

H

HORNO

Weaksauce
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Mar 25, 2010
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I'm just trying to figure out if I need 6GB or 12GB.

I have read countless posts in various forums about people choosing 6 GB or 8GB or 12GB or 24 GB... I've gotten the impression that most people believe that generally you only need 6GB for Windows 7 64 bit. I've heard that 12GB is excessive and in most cases, unnecessary.

Now, I do quite a bit of video rendering in both After Effects and Adobe Premiere. Also from time to time I render 3D animations in Cinema 4D and Vue. I know that the extra RAM would help in all these programs... but how exactly, I don't know.

Would going from 6GB to 12GB speed up render times in those programs? Or would the extra RAM just allow "bigger" projects to be rendered?

Basically, what are the benefits of adding extra RAM with those types of programs?

Thanks for any responses!
 
As with all things, the components you use depend on the application; only needing 6GB globally is not true. I'd recommend measuring your memory usage throughout all uses of your system. Some things on my system never will touch 100 megs, others will hit 4, 5, or 6 gigs easy. My approach is to get an amount greater than the sum of all things I could be running at once.

That's the best I can recommend.
 
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more RAM for those programs means that real-time scrolling and effects can be smoother since once it renders previews it can keep them in memory and make your looking though the video a less choppy experience.

In the 3d animation programs it allows you to store more textures, again making previews less choppy.

As for the actual rendering time, more RAM doesn't do anything for video, it may improve speeds slightly if you are using huge/lots of textures in the 3D program.
 
If ya have to ask... :p

The basic gist of the situation is this: you can get tremendous benefits from having such massive amounts - read: not necessarily excessive depending on the usage - of system RAM, even amounts that are way above what you think you'd need, but only if you take advantage of the available RAM.

There aren't any apps that by default automagically adjust themselves to provide absolute maximum potential performance, not on any OS, not on any system, not on any platform. That's application tuning and the only one that can get it done in any given situation is going to be you, the end user.

Even Photoshop, probably the most RAM hogging application that's ever existed simply because image editing can be an incredibly memory consuming task doesn't adjust itself even in spite of Adobe's best efforts to make it more intuitive to a given machine's setup.

Performance can always be improved, sometimes to small but noticeable amounts, and ofttimes to truly dramatic ones that knock your socks off.

My basic advice is, when thinking about the many variables in a computer you're going to build or upgrade, there's one true Golden Rule:

You can never, ever have too much RAM.

Everything else in moderation based on the budget, but when it comes to RAM, my recommendation is grab as much as you can possibly afford and max that puppy out, each and every time.

After that it becomes a situation of putting it to use. I could go into a long diatribe about RAMdisks but, that's a complicated - but incredibly rewarding - option for such massive amounts of system RAM. You can, with all seriousness, sometimes double or even triple the outright performance of any given application just by using a RAMdisk for some purposes. It's truly amazing what can be accomplished when a machine is fully tweaked in that respect; most people will never know just how fast their machines can be because they never "open 'em up" in terms of giving them room to breathe, which is RAM.

More than anything else in a system, RAM will determine performance. You can have wicked fast processors that choke when they get throttled by bad RAM performance. You can have stupifyingly fast SSD hardware in RAID setups for HD video work but, when it comes to processing the frames, etc, the RAM is what really determines how fast things are going to move around, etc.

3D rendering apps like the ones mentioned will be more than happy to make use of massive amounts of RAM, and so will Photoshop if and when you tune it to do so because it can't do it by default.

If you can afford it, there's no reason not to get 12GB over 6GB, not one that I can think of. The biggest reason to get 12GB?

Getting the 6GB and realizing "Crap, I should have..." because that's the worst feeling evarrrr for a geek - not getting the best you could afford when you had the chance. :)
 
ctl-alt-del when doing rendering. look at your memory usage. If it is > 80% then yeah, you will benefit.
 
For my 12 GB reason, its easy. Each of my VMware take 2 GB of memory and a hd. So thats my reason. I usually run up to 5 OS. I like to separate and modular my install. That way my host computer is so clean of anything except the essentials.
 
i do bioinformatics research -- 12GB is much better than 6GB so I don't have to optimize code another level :) -- i'm at 85% utilization at this rate, so i went with 3x4GB sticks in the event that i need to go to 24GB (went with mushkin 1600mhz, 998776 kit)

hope this helps!
-nick
 
More RAM won't make things go faster. It stop the computer from becoming slow. If the speed increase it means you were running out of RAM.
 
I think that if you aren't sure that you need it then you probably don't.
 
You may also think about whether your mobo supports two DIMMs per channel at high memory clock frequency.

For example, if you install two DIMMs per channel on a Tyan S7010 board, all memory will be clocked down to 1066MHz. However, if you have Intel S5520SC board, it can take two DIMMs per channel at 1333MHz.
 
Cyant said:
More RAM won't make things go faster. It stop the computer from becoming slow. If the speed increase it means you were running out of RAM.
Click to expand...

Well, higher bandwidth RAM will definitely speed things up. Triple channel RAM also speeds thing up.
 
Machupo said:
i do bioinformatics research -- 12GB is much better than 6GB so I don't have to optimize code another level :) -- i'm at 85% utilization at this rate, so i went with 3x4GB sticks in the event that i need to go to 24GB (went with mushkin 1600mhz, 998776 kit)

hope this helps!
-nick
Click to expand...

I am doing bioinformatics too. I am bulding my HPC now. I plan to have 48GB (6x8GB). Hopefully it will be enough. If not, then 96GB here I come....
 
Despite what people say 12GB is overkill, so probably is 6GB because you can hardly use more than 3GB. However if you like me and play BFBC2 in 3D, CIV 5 and watch porn at the same time then 12GB is the way to go.

Its like why do people buy Ferrari ENZO when you can get from A to B in a Ford Taurus.

If you want the meanest baddest puppy out there ...go for IT,

The only people that say 12GB is overkill is POOR people.

I have a i7980x and I wont be seen dead with 4GB RAM....thats just the way it is...
 
lextheimpaler said:
Despite what people say 12GB is overkill, so probably is 6GB because you can hardly use more than 3GB. However if you like me and play BFBC2 in 3D, CIV 5 and watch porn at the same time then 12GB is the way to go.

Its like why do people buy Ferrari ENZO when you can get from A to B in a Ford Taurus.

If you want the meanest baddest puppy out there ...go for IT,

The only people that say 12GB is overkill is POOR people.

I have a i7980x and I wont be seen dead with 4GB RAM....thats just the way it is...
Click to expand...

12gb isn't overkill if you are running 3d applications. Between max and photoshop it hit around 10gb all the time.

Horno:
Get 12 if you work with multi million poly scenes.
 
lextheimpaler said:
Despite what people say 12GB is overkill, so probably is 6GB because you can hardly use more than 3GB.
Click to expand...
??
However if you like me and play BFBC2 in 3D, CIV 5 and watch porn at the same time then 12GB is the way to go.
Click to expand...
you're probably fine with 6gb if you're just gaming and watching porn...


The only people that say 12GB is overkill is POOR people.
Click to expand...
??

I have a i7980x and I wont be seen dead with 4GB RAM....thats just the way it is...
Click to expand...
??
are you drunk?
 
The biggest reason why I went with 12GB over 6GB in my current main rig is that I have been using Premiere Pro CS5. Although it works adequately with 6GB, that program actually thrives with 12GB or more.

In other words, I went from "okay" to "good", not "poor" to "average", with this upgrade.
 
Bahamut said:
Even Photoshop, probably the most RAM hogging application that's ever existed simply because image editing can be an incredibly memory consuming task
Click to expand...
Image editing pales in comparison with any kind of 3D physics modelling. I run 3D electromagnetics simulations and the limiting factor on how good a result you can get from such software in a reasonable timeframe (if it swaps you've basically had it) is definitely ram. 48GB feels limiting with that stuff.

But anyway i'd get the 12GB, then get another 12GB if my apps appeared to be swapping. Buying small modules that you are likely to end up throwing away later (especially as due to the recent transition to DDR3 you can't really demote your user modules to older systems) always seems like a false economy to me.
 
Wow... I posted this in May. Just surprised to see this thread back up at the top. I already have my system up and runnin' with 12GB. Thanks for the input though!
 
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