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is 11 GBs too much ram?

K

Keebler

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Jun 20, 2005
2,965
249
Canada
Hi folks,

I use DVDStudio Pro, Toast, Final Cut Pro, Fotomagico (slideshow app) and bitvice often.

I have 3 GB and am thinking of filling the rest of the slots with 2 gb sticks for a total of 11 GBs.

Is that overkill? I just have the stock vid card as I'm waiting for a new one to come out?

Cheers,
Keebler
 
Is $1.000,000.00 too much money? Seriously More RAM = better, always when using video/audio apps.
 
I have 10 GB and I am running multiple CS3 simultaneously and doing some Handbrake encoding and moving among Spaces or between apps is much smoother than when I had only 2 GB.
 
Are you glass half full or glass half empty?

Some people would say, it's not maxed out yet, I could go for 32gb.

Some people would drool at 11gb...

Well more typically is better, especially with video editing.
 
Is 11GB too much? No.
Is 8 cores too much? No.

Now stop asking these questions before my wife finds this forum and realises what a ridiculous system I have ordered!
 
I run FCS 2 to edit and export HDV in SD and Blu-Ray. I have a 10gb ram in my new mac pro.

When doing a 2-pass export to SD DVD with compressor istat pro tells me I have 6 gig of ram free. Do I have more ram than I need?
 
kingkezz said:
I run FCS 2 to edit and export HDV in SD and Blu-Ray. I have a 10gb ram in my new mac pro.

When doing a 2-pass export to SD DVD with compressor istat pro tells me I have 6 gig of ram free. Do I have more ram than I need?
Click to expand...

ok folks....i get it...11 GBs will be nice ;)
thanks.

Kingkezz....you really need to look at bitvice for mpeg2 compression.
I really don't try to push anything on these forums, but man oh man...i'm telling you compressor SUCKS compared to bitvice in terms of quality.
www.innobits.com

if you are producing for clients, you need to check it out...you own your clients at least a test. :)
the default settings for SD are remarkable. the colour, brightness and depth of compressor literally pales in comparison.

i know you didn't ask for my opinion, but i felt i needed to tell you, as a colleague in this world.

btw, your extra 6 GBs means you've got extra space to play with other apps while compressor (or hopefully, bitvice :) is running.

Cheers,
Keebler
 
Keebler said:
Hi folks,

I use DVDStudio Pro, Toast, Final Cut Pro, Fotomagico (slideshow app) and bitvice often.

I have 3 GB and am thinking of filling the rest of the slots with 2 gb sticks for a total of 11 GBs.

Is that overkill? I just have the stock vid card as I'm waiting for a new one to come out?

Cheers,
Keebler
Click to expand...

11 GB the way you are doing it doesn't work.
You have to have even numbers.
The only 11 GB combination that works is 4- 2 GB sticks with 2- 1 GB sticks with 2- 512 MB sticks.
I am guessing that you have 3- 1 GB sticks.
You could add 4- 2 GB sticks and 1 GB stick for a grand total of 12 GB of memory.
Or you could add 5 more 1 GB sticks for 8 GB of memory.
Or you could add 2- 2GB sticks, 1- 1GB stick, and 2- 512 MB sticks for 9 GB of memory.
Mac Pro Memory.jpg
 
Topper said:
Okay, you are right, good point.
As a matter of fact, it sounds likely.
Click to expand...

yup...newtech is right. shipped with 2x512's.

but thanks for your diagram b/c i was just about to hunt for it! :)

I've always liked the #11 anyways so it's good to go ;)

Cheers,
Keebler

Topper said:
11 GB the way you are doing it doesn't work.
You have to have even numbers.
The only 11 GB combination that works is 4- 2 GB sticks with 2- 1 GB sticks with 2- 512 MB sticks.
I am guessing that you have 3- 1 GB sticks.
You could add 4- 2 GB sticks and 1 GB stick for a grand total of 12 GB of memory.
Or you could add 5 more 1 GB sticks for 8 GB of memory.
Or you could add 2- 2GB sticks, 1- 1GB stick, and 2- 512 MB sticks for 9 GB of memory.
Click to expand...

btw, any chance you'd have one of those for a powermac G5 dual 2.0 (summer 2004)? I can't find one on apple's site.
 
Keebler said:
yup...newtech is right. shipped with 2x512's.

but thanks for your diagram b/c i was just about to hunt for it! :)

I've always liked the #11 anyways so it's good to go ;)

Cheers,
Keebler
Click to expand...


I have the same config actually in my macpro

2 x512mb
2 x 1gb
4 x 2gb

To be honest I just filled up the slots because I had a spare bit of cash in the business account that needed spending (either that or the taxman would have taken it anyway) so I upped my ram.

Works great, but I have yet to use more that 5gb and that was only when I was working on a massive photoshop project.

Oh well :) Enjoy
 
MacRumorUser said:
I have the same config actually in my macpro

2 x512mb
2 x 1gb
4 x 2gb

To be honest I just filled up the slots because I had a spare bit of cash in the business account that needed spending (either that or the taxman would have taken it anyway) so I upped my ram.

Works great, but I have yet to use more that 5gb and that was only when I was working on a massive photoshop project.

Oh well :) Enjoy
Click to expand...

Same here...running happily with 11GB of RAM. Had the stock 2x512mb from Apple, then bought 2x1GB from Crucial. Then this December, prices had dropped so much that I picked up 4x2GB of OWC (for about the same I paid for the Crucial!!)

I too have only used about 5-6GB at once with a large PS project open.

It's nice to not have to worry about memory. :p

Can't do this as easily with Windows!! :apple:

-Kevin
 
Another vote for Bitvice

I have been using Bitvice for a while now and can honestly say the M2V's it produces are very good. I like compressor for H.264, but for Std. Def DVD encodes you just can't beat Bitvice.

YMMV.
 
Just having 2gb stock was a nightmare for me and I only use iphoto, imovie, itunes, VMware Fusion (XP ideally set to 1gb ram), Visualhub and safari

I upgraded to 6gb and then to 10gb, now it flies! I have however noticed that the majority of the time 6gb would have been sufficient, but i do not regret getting 10gb as it was cheap enough anyway.

If you have the cash, get 11 (or rather 10).
 
I jut got my mac and added ram to total 14GB. I figured it would be overkill but was amazed to find to I consistently use all of my ram. I use Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop Lightroom. I think Photoshop uses extra ram as scratch. In the future I'll max out my system whenever possible...32GB would be nice:D
 
thanks for the feedback folks. I'm excited to have it jacked up enough that i won't need to worry :)
 
boot camp 2 Gb RAM limitation

New MP with 16Gb RAM (further specs below), boot camp seems to limit RAM recognition to 2Gb. I have a work-critical program that requires WinXP for medical image manipulation and performs much better with more RAM; do parallels or fusion allow greater RAM recognition in WinXP or am I going to have to wait for some Apple upgrade (firmware or otherwise) to recruit more of the RAM? Funny, they don't publicize the RAM limitation in any press or sales releases...
 
mkrad said:
New MP with 16Gb RAM (further specs below), boot camp seems to limit RAM recognition to 2Gb. I have a work-critical program that requires WinXP for medical image manipulation and performs much better with more RAM; do parallels or fusion allow greater RAM recognition in WinXP or am I going to have to wait for some Apple upgrade (firmware or otherwise) to recruit more of the RAM? Funny, they don't publicize the RAM limitation in any press or sales releases...
Click to expand...

Leopard is a 64-bit OS, which in addition to a few other things means that it can support an ungodly amount of RAM.

You're probably using a 32-bit windows OS, which will only see up to 3.25GB on a PC, regardless of how many physical sticks are installed.

A 64-bit version of a windows OS in Boot Camp would be able to recognize all of your RAM (The 64-bit Windows compatibility was very recently added).
 
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