How much RAM is ideal for FCP 10.1 or Premiere CC or Avid?

[Luba]

I mainly use Final Cut Pro X and I will be buying the new Mac Pro and can't decided if I should get 32GB RAM or 64GB. What's the ideal amount? Eventually, I'll probably get Adobe's CC suite, so I am also interested in the ideal amount of RAM for Premiere as well. And out of curiosity how much RAM is ideal for Avid?

I planning on ordering the Quad with D700s and 1TB SSD. The only question left is the RAM. If I should go 64GB then I would go aftermarket and buy Crucial 64GB RAM for $800. If I buy 32GB RAM, then I would order Apple's RAM for $450 (education price), which is about the same aftermarket price. So, an increase of $350 to get 64GB instead of 32GB.

 

[puckhead193]

I mainly use Final Cut Pro X and I will be buying the new Mac Pro and can't decided if I should get 32GB RAM or 64GB. What's the ideal amount? Eventually, I'll probably get Adobe's CC suite, so I am also interested in the ideal amount of RAM for Premiere as well. And out of curiosity how much RAM is ideal for Avid?

I planning on ordering the Quad with D700s and 1TB SSD. The only question left is the RAM. If I should go 64GB then I would go aftermarket and buy Crucial 64GB RAM for $800. If I buy 32GB RAM, then I would order Apple's RAM for $450 (education price), which is about the same aftermarket price. So, an increase of $350 to get 64GB instead of 32GB.

i ordered 32 on my system..(6 core, 1TB, D700) If I want more down the road, I could sell the sticks and add in aftermarket...

 

[Unami]

in my experience, fcpx uses as much as ram as you throw at it but still runs relatively fine with as little as 8GB - i 've got 32 gb of ram and the last time i've looked (which was about fcpx 10.0.3) it seemed average at 20gb.

can't tell you about premiere & avid, but with after effects more ram equals more ram preview (and more ram for multiprocesssor rendering).
but 32gig is still plenty and you can always upgrade later.

 

[Siderz]

The amount of money wasted on RAM on this site is phenomenal. If you're not sure how much RAM these applications need, then you probably don't need much more than 16GB, maybe even 8GB. The Mac Pro only goes as low as 12GB though.

I've got a 2012 iMac, i7, 650M, 16GB RAM, and often I'll be running Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Photoshop (All Creative Cloud), and I'll never be short on RAM.

What kind of work will you be doing? What kind of formats will you be using? Because the D700 is probably overkill as well especially for a student, heck the Mac Pro itself is overkill for a student. Avid doesn't even use the GPUs, Premiere Pro only uses the GPUs when exporting on the Mac Pro.

I would suggest going for the 6-core, D500s, 16GB RAM, and then upgrade the RAM another day if you actually need it, otherwise look at the 27" iMac and save some money.

 

[mBox]

GPU is the new sexi

Load what you can (RAM) afford.

But get the best GPU that fits your budget.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Are you currently running out of RAM on your 4,1 MP? RAM prices generally fall pretty quick and it's user upgradable so I wouldn't drop extra money on RAM unless you know you'll be using it from day one.

 

[Luba]

I was asking about RAM for the nMP (6,1). For the 4,1 I have 24GB and it seems fine. I don't really watch things on Activity Monitor so if 24GB isn't enough on the 4,1 I am not really sure, it doesn't feel it's lacking. I also haven't use 10.1 on any projects yet. Perhaps 10.1 wants more RAM?

Are you currently running out of RAM on your 4,1 MP? RAM prices generally fall pretty quick and it's user upgradable so I wouldn't drop extra money on RAM unless you know you'll be using it from day one.

 

[simonappheros]

I think that 32 gb is more than enough.

 

[LethalWolfe]

I was asking about RAM for the nMP (6,1). For the 4,1 I have 24GB and it seems fine.

Yeah, I was just wondering if you were maxing out the 24gig in your 4,1 and that's why you were asking about 64gig for your new purchase.


I feel like if you needed 64gigs of RAM you'd know you'd need 64gigs of RAM. If you select the Quad and then upgrade it to the 6-core it's only an extra $500. I'd go with the 32gig of RAM and then put the $350 you 'saved' towards upgrading the CPU. Most programs still depend the CPU and upgrading RAM down the line if you need to will be much cheaper and easier than upgrading the CPU.

 

[talmy]

I mainly use Final Cut Pro X and I will be buying the new Mac Pro and can't decided if I should get 32GB RAM or 64GB. What's the ideal amount?

When I run FCPX on my MacBookPro or iMac (each with 8GB of RAM) only 5 of the 8GB is ever used. So I'd say that 32GB RAM is about 6 times more than is "ideal".

 

[Miguel Cunha]

Avid RAM Requirements

And out of curiosity how much RAM is ideal for Avid?

Luba, for Avid Media Composer, you should be fine with 16GB, which is what I'm using. Depending on the complexity and formats you'll be working with, 8GB is a good place to start, but since MacPro comes with at least 12GB, you can discard this opton. If you intend to work with heavy formats and complex projects, 32GB should be more than enough. You can alway put 64GB in your machine, bit I'm not sure if you'll need it for the time being.

You can find more information here: http://www.avid.com/US/products/Media-Composer#specifications