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32GB Memory

Y

youradhere4222

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 16, 2007
323
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So... probably a one-in-a-million shot, but here goes.

Does anyone here own/has used a Mac Pro with 32GB's of memory? I know that's the max amount of memory you can have for a Mac (any consumer computer, to my knowledge), so I was wondering how incredibly fast it is... :D
 
youradhere4222 said:
So... probably a one-in-a-million shot, but here goes.

Does anyone here own/has used a Mac Pro with 32GB's of memory? I know that's the max amount of memory you can have for a Mac (any consumer computer, to my knowledge), so I was wondering how incredibly fast it is... :D
Click to expand...

I got 10 and it's fast, 32gb's just must be silly. :D:apple:
 
Running 10 virtual machines can make 32GB disappear quickly.

BTW, there are workstations from Dell and HP that can take 64GB.
 
I've got 9 Gigs and I have serious trouble using it all.

The highest I've ever used was when I was running a bunch of Aperture previews, 8 different Motion 3 projects (All in HD1080i and 1000+ frames), Color, iTunes, MS Word, Safari, DVD Studio Pro (which is a major RAM hog for some reason), AND UT2k4!!

(And I still had 400mb of free ram ;)).

So, I really doubt that you would see an observable increase over 10Gigs or so of RAM. If you go that high, then it won't be your Memory that will be holding you back but your GPU and processor speeds.
 
Depends on what you run.

We have run some tests using After Effects (multi-processor mode) and Compressor (using Qmaster). Both spawn sub processes that can grab up to 3GB each. On an 8-core Mac Pro, that can add up to 24GB in a hurry. That's where the 32GB would come in handy.

Also, if you are running Photoshop CS3, it has an "agreement" with Mac OS X to let it use any unused memory as a virtual scratch disk. In our testing we ran a RAW photo file through the Retouch Artists photoshop benchmark. With only that one app running, Activity Monitor showed 14GB of our 16GB in use just before it started doing major hits on the hard drive scratch area. If we had 32GB, we would have not experienced hard drive hits.

The only downside we saw (other than the cost) with 32GB installed was that the fans run faster to keep the memory cool. That means the Mac Pro runs noisier.
 
barefeats said:
We have run some tests using After Effects (multi-processor mode) and Compressor (using Qmaster). Both spawn sub processes that can grab up to 3GB each. On an 8-core Mac Pro, that can add up to 24GB in a hurry. That's where the 32GB would come in handy.
Click to expand...

Does anyone know if the Qmaster processes vary depending on the number of defined instances?



contoursvt said:
OMG on the next page where the specs are, it says 128GB ! Thats just mental.
Click to expand...

:eek:
 
32 GB is as fast as 128 MB if you don't use all of it. Actually, it'd probably be a bit slower...

Anyway, more memory doesn't speed up your computer unless you actually need that much. Otherwise, absolutely nothing changes, except that maybe you'll cache more in RAM instead of the HDD for paging, which isn't really very likely past the 16 GB mark (or even before).

If you're hitting the scratch disk in photoshop when working with a monster file, then yep, more RAM helps... otherwise... nope =)
 
RAM doesn't equal speed, it allows you to have more applications open at any one time.

It'll help in High end apps to RAM render previews etc, but i can't think of any applications that can take advantage of more than ~8GB RAM, FCP doesn't. Does Shake? After Effects might i suppose?

If you're on a machine thats got 32GB (or more!) RAM then i'm guessing you didn't buy it yourself.
 
fluidedge said:
It'll help in High end apps to RAM render previews etc, but i can't think of any applications that can take advantage of more than ~8GB RAM, FCP doesn't. Does Shake? After Effects might i suppose?
Click to expand...

In the end, it depends on whether the application is 32bit or 64bit. 32bit apps are limited to 4GB of RAM, the end. Adobe gets around this with Photoshop by allowing the application to ALSO use RAM for its scratch space. But that's not the same as being 64bit. No commercial Apple applications are 64bit, yet, as far as I know.

How do you tell? Easy. This is where becoming familiar with your UNIX CLI is really handy. For instance, the Chess.app game that comes with OS X 10.5 is 64bit:

zr1$ cd /Applications/Chess.app/Contents/MacOS/
zr1$ file Chess
Chess: Mach-O universal binary with 4 architectures
Chess (for architecture ppc): Mach-O executable ppc
Chess (for architecture ppc64): Mach-O 64-bit executable ppc64
Chess (for architecture i386): Mach-O executable i386
Chess (for architecture x86_64): Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64
(emphasis added by me)

But, Final Cut Express HD, for instance, is not 64bit:

zr1$ cd /Applications/Final\ Cut\ Express\ HD.app/Contents/MacOS/
zr1$ file Final\ Cut\ Express\ HD
Final Cut Express HD: Mach-O universal binary with 2 architectures
Final Cut Express HD (for architecture ppc): Mach-O executable ppc
Final Cut Express HD (for architecture i386): Mach-O executable i386

That mean the most RAM that FCX can access is 4G.

Having more RAM will always help, if you run a bunch of applications simultaneously. Each application may be limited to 4G, but that means that EACH application can access 4G of RAM, and the machine won't be forced to page.

jas
 
eschulist said:
Thats nothing, if your in the Post Production industry working on 4k film files and massive 3D scenes you can pick up a Boxx computer that would smoke even that.

http://www.boxxtech.com/Products/APEXX/apexx8_TechSpecs.asp

Check out the specs for this thing, 32 cores and 256gbs of ram
Click to expand...

Pfft. that's nothing. If you have a time machine and superhuman abilities, you can zip to the future, collect the entirety of this supercomputer, and come back with your 67.1 million-core system with 32 PB (PetaByte) RAM.

http://www.dailytech.com/IBM+Proposes+One+Computer+to+Run+Entire+Internet/article10612.htm


:D
 
eschulist said:
Thats nothing, if your in the Post Production industry working on 4k film files and massive 3D scenes you can pick up a Boxx computer that would smoke even that.

http://www.boxxtech.com/Products/APEXX/apexx8_TechSpecs.asp

Check out the specs for this thing, 32 cores and 256gbs of ram
Click to expand...

who the hell would need that? If you're working in Animation/Post you send animations out to a render farm. I don't see the guys at pixar using 32 core, 256GB machines do you?

Film? They can do all they need to on a top end MP - post houses spend money on hardware like HD I/Os and render servers exactly for the reason so they don't have to have buy stupid machines like that one.

How would you keep that from melting as well, the cooling system for that box is as big as the machine itself
 
jasonvp said:
For instance, the Chess.app game that comes with OS X 10.5 is 64bit

But, Final Cut Express HD, for instance, is not 64bit
Click to expand...

WTF!!!
Who the hell decides these things anyway?
It's not like these people didn't know that 64bit OS and processors were coming out for years.
What a ridiculous set of priorities and crap planning.:mad:
 
Luis Ortega said:
WTF!!!
Who the hell decides these things anyway?
It's not like these people didn't know that 64bit OS and processors were coming out for years.
What a ridiculous set of priorities and crap planning.:mad:
Click to expand...

yeh i'm sure thats what they're thinking - We MUST make chess 64bit before anything else.

The fact, a good programmer could turn chess into a 64bit app in his (or her :)) lunch break, whereas much midnight oil will be spent turning the Pro Apps into 64 bit has nothing to do with it i'm sure.
 
fluidedge said:
yeh i'm sure thats what they're thinking - We MUST make chess 64bit before anything else.

The fact, a good programmer could turn chess into a 64bit app in his (or her :)) lunch break, whereas much midnight oil will be spent turning the Pro Apps into 64 bit has nothing to do with it i'm sure.
Click to expand...

Right. I think Chess.app was an experiment, or proof-of-concept, more than anything. I randomly selected a bunch of other default OS X apps, and they're all 32-bit. That includes Safari, iTunes, Calculator, iCal, Quicktime, etc. My suspicion (not backed by any facts, mind you) is that the OS X apps will be turned into 64-bit apps before any of the Pro apps are.

Hopefully I'm wrong. I have FCX4 on order. When it arrives, one of the first things I'm going to do is check and see if it's 64-bit. But I bet it isn't (anyone have FCX4 and can check?)

jas
 
330toSRT8 said:
Running 10 virtual machines can make 32GB disappear quickly.

BTW, there are workstations from Dell and HP that can take 64GB.
Click to expand...

I'll have 10 GB on my MacPro when all the parts arrive. I figured I'd run Windows in a 4GB VM, and Linux in a 2GB VM...

That leaves plenty for macosx from my needs.
 
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