New Mac Pro vs new iMac (27 i7) for Graphic Design

[AZREOSpecialist]

That figure came out due to the fact that the largest capacity DIMM that's been out awhile, was 4GB. But 8GB sticks are shipping now (so 32GB is currently possible), and 16GB sticks are announced (so the technical limit will be 64GB in a Quad). Of course, the current price on 8GB sticks is the cost of a base '09 MP, and the 16GB sticks will be worse than 2x, given the low demand.

So for large memory requirements, the Octads do make more sense financially as you can use smaller DIMM capacities to achieve the total memory capacity. Even if the additional cores won't be used.

Are you sure the Mac Pro memory controller can handle 8 GB sticks?

 

[nanofrog]

Are you sure the Mac Pro memory controller can handle 8 GB sticks?

Yes. Intel designed the IMC to work with up to 16GB DIMM's (as well as non ECC, Unregistered, and Registered types). But the DIMM capacity is limited in certain types.

In the case of ECC, you must keep the type the same (UDIMM or RDIMM; i.e. if you're adding to existing memory, you have to use UDIMM). You cannot mix them and have expect the system to POST. The larger (8 & 16GB sticks) are typically RDIMM, so you'd have to pull the existing memory to use them.