How much RAM do I really need?

[M Zorin]

The story so far:

3.33Ghz Six-core on order (First Mac: woo hoo!)
3GB RAM (planning on upgrading via OWC)
1TB HDD (planning on adding OWC SSD)
ATI 5770

I'll be running Aperture 3 and Adobe Audition 4.0

Aperture library will have around 10GB worth of RAW files.

I'll run a RAID scratch disk (planning on WD RE4-GP) for both applications.

So how much memory do I need?

Options seem to be
12GB: 3 x 4GB
16GB: 4 x 4GB (losing triple channel)
16GB: 2 x 8GB (if they work)
24GB: 3 x 8GB (if they work AND I can afford them)

[Hellhammer]

If those are the only apps you are going to run, 12GB is more than sufficient. You can always add more later on but I doubt you're going to max out that 12GB

[VirtualRain]

Aperture seems very happy with 6GB on my machine. Page-outs are minimal, even with lots of other apps running.

[nanofrog]

....(losing triple channel)...
I wouldn't concern myself with triple channel, as precious little software can actually utilize it. The software you've listed can't. So sufficient RAM capacity is more important.

As it doesn't seem like you'll need more than 16GB with the software you've listed, the SP Hex core would be a really nice machine for your usage. :)

I'd stick with 4GB DIMM's, as you can max the RAM out if needed in the future. As a bare minimum, you could start out with 8GB, but it may be better to go with 12GB (as the kits are more common). Then if the capacity gets to be an issue, add another 4GB DIMM to the 4th slot to reach the max capacity of 16GB. ;)

Just a thought at any rate. :)