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Is 32GB RAM worth it or overkill?

DrRadon said:
32GB of ram will stop being overkill 2-3 years from now.

My 2007 Alu iMac (i think that was the first one came with 2GB of Ram, do the math yourself)
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but there comes a point when it won't matter, 2GB to 4 to 8 is a big jump for day to day activities, but 8 to 16 to 32 to 64...... year not so much


anything over 16GB of RAM for anything but intensive editing is useless for 99.9% of people and that's really not going to change
 
Aluminum213 said:
but there comes a point when it won't matter, 2GB to 4 to 8 is a big jump for day to day activities, but 8 to 16 to 32 to 64...... year not so much


anything over 16GB of RAM for anything but intensive editing is useless for 99.9% of people and that's really not going to change
Click to expand...

I totally agree. I have 16 GB of RAM and I do video/editing work on Adobe Premiere and its works great. I'd say put that money towards an SSD upgrade, you'll feel the difference more significantly.
 
This might be a dumb question but on a new Mac that already has 8gb (2 4gb sticks) would it be bad to toss in 2 8gb? This would bring the total to 24gb but it would also mean that it would have 2x 4s and 2x 8s. I think I heard in the past that mismatching sizes could actually hurt performance is this still the case?
 
I was just at the Apple store and had one of the genius reps answer my q's about the the iMac. For everyday use of your iMac, not Mathematics, CAD, hard core Movie/Photography editing, basically anything intensive, 16gb is NOT needed at all. 8gb's is more than enough. He did say, invest in the Quad Core i7 over the i5 due to the Hyper Threading and you will see a difference between the two processors. Fusion Drive is a no brainer

It really all just depends on the iMac user, but for me, I will stick with the 8gb and go for the i7 processor and fusion drive.
 
dukebound85 said:
FWIW, I think all i5 chips apple uses utilize hyper threading
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When reviewing the Intel Website and comparing the two that will be placed in the iMacs, I saw for the i5: Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology "No" and the i7: Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology "Yes"
 
Aluminum213 said:
but there comes a point when it won't matter, 2GB to 4 to 8 is a big jump for day to day activities, but 8 to 16 to 32 to 64...... year not so much


anything over 16GB of RAM for anything but intensive editing is useless for 99.9% of people and that's really not going to change
Click to expand...


I disagree. More resource open all kind of new doors. Sloppy coding because it works anyway (compare whats being don on PS3 today and how bad a computer from that time comes of today because so many PC games are coded sloppy for the always growing resources that are available), more gimmicks that constantly are rotating in the back of your computers mind and the growing need that will get created by bigger files comming in from off line (more Mega Pixels in Pictures, more full frame HD video from every cellphone ect.)

Keep in mind, 1999 the first iMac was released with just 32MB of Ram. 2007 we were at 2GB in the base Model and today you can´t even get an iMac below 8GB.
I know bringing my MacBook to Uni when talking to my Professors was not a good idea when it still was cracking on 2GB of RAM. That was outdated in less than 2 years when keeping up with current Software and source material.

Especially since we don´t know how costly building in New Ram will be... it seems like there is no way of opening the new 21 inch iMac at all.... more might be a good way to start out. I know i would be all over fusion drive and max ram if i had the money. Sadly i have to stick with the better of both 21 inch base models on my student budged.
 
nuckinfutz said:
I'm mulling over putting 32GB of RAM in the new 27" when it comes. At this point a $140 is a small price to pay.

I don't anticipate hitting the limits of 32 GB of RAM during the lifetime of the computer but what I've done is remove any doubt.

RAM in conjunction with fast SSD is going to allow me to not worry about leaving something like Aperture open while I edit in FCPX or some other large program.
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I run Aperture, Photoshop, Coda & Dreamweaver plus Safari and other browser windows, etc., simultaneously, all the time on 16GB and I am fine. When the pricing comes out on the 27" iMac and 32GB is less than a $200.00 upgrade from 16, yes I know that 3rd party is way cheaper, I will opt for 32GB. While we keep talking about hardware in this sub-forum don't forget that software developers develop/optimize for the latest hardware and not what is currently being used.
 
APPLE-FANATIC said:
I was just at the Apple store and had one of the genius reps answer my q's about the the iMac. For everyday use of your iMac, not Mathematics, CAD, hard core Movie/Photography editing, basically anything intensive, 16gb is NOT needed at all. 8gb's is more than enough. He did say, invest in the Quad Core i7 over the i5 due to the Hyper Threading and you will see a difference between the two processors. Fusion Drive is a no brainer

It really all just depends on the iMac user, but for me, I will stick with the 8gb and go for the i7 processor and fusion drive.
Click to expand...

I'm more than sure that a Genius Rep does not know everything..... Just uploading youtube videos can eat up Ram. The bigger the files in photography and video just eats ram up.

8gb is a great start but even normal/heavy users can benefit from 16gbs of ram.
 
In this day, why would you settle for 8GB? It does not make sense either economically nor for performance.
 
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Dornblaser said:
In this day, why would you settle for 16GB? It does not make sense either economically nor for performance.
Click to expand...

What are you talking about?

What process are you referring to that is a 'must have' at 32GB?

If what you are doing requires 32GB for adequate performance, then the iMac has NEVER been appropriate for you.
 
As noted above, it all depends on what you use the machine for.

As a developer, with similar usage to others above (MAMP, text editors, multiple browsers, Adobe Lightroom, Linux VM etc) I find that 4GB is 'okay' (well that's what I have), and would assume that 8GB would be 'good' and 16GB 'great'. This has doubled from 5 years ago, when 2GB was 'okay', 4GB 'good' and 8GB 'great'. Give it another 3-5 years and for my needs 8GB will be 'good', 16 'great' and 32 'unnecessary' :)

BUT, that's for my usage. If you're rendering The Hobbit then 32GB would make sense.
 
If I was rendering the Hobbit I would just copy-paste scenes from LOTR and call it a day..... using 2GB ram.
 
Going to your original question....

Your iMac model supports up to 32 gb of RAM in 4 sticks, 8 gb each one. Saying that, I am also saying that is not officially supported by Apple.

If you dont edit RAW video o very big RAW images, dont do big audio datasets or work with huge databases (examples of RAM consuming apps/uses) then, IMHO, you will be fine with 16 GB of RAM. But future proofing for something you will use/some OS Apple throws on us, the most RAM, the better, if you can afford it.

:):apple:
 
Currently have 24GB installed on my 2010 iMac. No complaints on this side :) Very hand for virtualisation.
 
DrRadon said:
32GB of ram will stop being overkill 2-3 years from now.

My 2007 Alu iMac (i think that was the first one came with 2GB of Ram, if you have a semi up-to-date system today it´s a pain to work with such little ram, do the math yourself)
Click to expand...

It depends what you're doing. After Effects alone can consume that much on some systems, especially in higher core count systems. 3d sculpting apps are a good use case for very large amounts of ram. if you're doing any texture/displacement work. In a lot of cases, you can work with 8GB or less. It's just that it can be extremely annoying. If it's cheap, there's no reason to put up with that if you're dealing with applications that push around a lot of data. I use 16 + a fairly large ssd. I do get pageouts, but they aren't quite as bad with the ssd.
 
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