Will 8GB RAM speed up Final Cut Pro X on MBP 13" 2010?

[pjny]

I am using FCP X on MBP late 2010 13" 2.4 GHZ core 2 duo with 4gb RAm, an OWC 110 GB SSD(main drive) and 500gb 5400rpm drive to edit 1080p video from Nikon D7000 and iPhone 4s.

I would like to speed things up with render time and exporting. Will 8GB of ram speed things up? Right now it's taking 20 minutes to export a 2 minute video.

 

[The-Pro]

exporting video is, as far as I know, CPU dependent. So I dont think it will speed that up, maybe by seconds. 8GB will definitely make everything smoother when your working on a project though as it doesn't have to write to the disk. If I were you I'd buy 8GB. Its really cheap and your entire system runs smoother when you have all your stuff open. Its really worth it.

 

[pjny]

Thanks, I've heard FCP only uses max 2.5GB of RAM. Also, does OS X Lion recognize full 8GB of RAM. Just wondering because Windows had max 3.2GB out of 8GB usable.

Also, they say the ratio of Page in(mine is 1.11gb) vs. page out(24kb) should be less than 1/4 if you have enough ram. Is this true?

Thanks.

exporting video is, as far as I know, CPU dependent. So I dont think it will speed that up, maybe by seconds. 8GB will definitely make everything smoother when your working on a project though as it doesn't have to write to the disk. If I were you I'd buy 8GB. Its really cheap and your entire system runs smoother when you have all your stuff open. Its really worth it.

 

[The-Pro]

Thanks, I've heard FCP only uses max 2.5GB of RAM. Also, does OS X Lion recognize full 8GB of RAM. Just wondering because Windows had max 3.2GB out of 8GB usable.

Also, they say the ratio of Page in(mine is 1.11gb) vs. page out(24kb) should be less than 1/4 if you have enough ram. Is this true?

Thanks.

I dont know anything about that, but 2.5 wouldnt make any sense, if it were 32 bit it would still recognize around 3.7.
yep the full 8GB is recognized and usable. Windoes does it differently, you need the 64 bit version to accept more than 4GB. OSX has been able to recognize and use more than 4GB for ages despite being 32 bit natively (since 10.6, 64bit). OSX can technically support terrabytes if RAM.
yeh its like a general rule kind of thing, if you have pages outs you. eeed more RAM. however youd find if you had 8GB installed you will always find yourself using more than 4GB once sou start using the macbook. your system can put. more data into the RAM so your system will feel smoother!