Upgraded to 16GB, Problem?

[Gav Mack]

Why is that even surprising and what does it have to do with RAM? The dual CPUs in your Mac pro are 3x faster for multi-threaded applications than even the top of the line MacBook Pro i7 from 2010. It is also over 50% faster than the quad core i7 in the Mac Mini...

You obviously don't work with layered RAW images in Photoshop CS6. You need lots of RAM for it, even more than 16Gb. Some photographers I know use more than 48Gb on their Mac Pro's. Ditto Premiere but add pushing the GPU hard too.

8 Gig is fine for the OP and obviously you - but not for many other users including me.

Single Core the i7 mini is over 50% faster than my MP 3,1 - and CS6 isn't that well optimised for mulitcore even still.

 

[leman]

You obviously don't work with layered RAW images in Photoshop CS6. You need lots of RAM for it, even more than 16Gb. Some photographers I know use more than 48Gb on their Mac Pro's. Ditto Premiere but add pushing the GPU hard too.

8 Gig is fine for the OP and obviously you - but not for many other users including me.

Single Core the i7 mini is over 50% faster than my MP 3,1 - and CS6 isn't that well optimised for mulitcore even still.

I am not doubting that processing large images in PS benefits from more RAM. I am just questioning your conclusions from comparing those machines - as you do not control for other variables which can explain performance. I find lots of references to CS6 being heavily optimised for multicore architectures, and your Mac Pro, despite is age, has more number-crunching power than those other computers you refer to. Now, if you disable one CPU on your Pro and still get better performance, then yes, it is probably the RAM. Not to mention that your Pro has the 680GTX - and AFAIK CS6 supports GPU acceleration.

 

[Gav Mack]

I am not doubting that processing large images in PS benefits from more RAM. I am just questioning your conclusions from comparing those machines - as you do not control for other variables which can explain performance. I find lots of references to CS6 being heavily optimised for multicore architectures, and your Mac Pro, despite is age, has more number-crunching power than those other computers you refer to. Now, if you disable one CPU on your Pro and still get better performance, then yes, it is probably the RAM. Not to mention that your Pro has the 680GTX - and AFAIK CS6 supports GPU acceleration.

The benefits of RAM which is my sole reason of coming into this discussion. I replied to a poster who said 16Gb of ram wasn't enough for his case and I agreed with him. I have situations where RAM is paramount, and if not for the app itself having that much memory also avoids using the storage device as a scratch disk. CS6 has multi-core optimisation but only really for 4/6 cores. In fact in tests it runs faster on a 6 core Mac Pro than on a 12 core.

I had a Nvidia 8800GT when I first got this Mac Pro and noticed that for me RAM is king. Upgrading to a GTX 680 did also give it a very useful kick a** increase in performance too!

 

[0983275]

What exactly is the point of having 16GB of RAM? 8GB is sufficient for lot of stuff, including gaming.

16GB is an overkill.

There are tasks where having more than 8GB RAM is necessary.

Virtual machines, working with large images in Photoshop, video editing, etc.

 

[FrasierCrane]

And buying out my local Apple store would be cheap for David Koch. Your point? $200 is cheap to a lot of people. I really don't get most of you posters here.

I don't get you.

 

[snaky69]

The performance is marginal from 4GB to 16GB, I notice faster performance here and there but its not light and day.

Why is it using so much memory for the tasks I was doing before when I had 4GB and it was never using that much memory when I was at 4GB.

Unless you were often running out of RAM before, going from 4 to 8 or 16GB would not yield ANY performance gains whatsoever.

 

[majkom]

Dont use crappy chrome - problem solved