32 GB RAM - the new 8 GB RAM?

[sporkles]

All right; I've just been through a brief existential crisis, considering jumping ship and going for a Mac Pro (until I had a look at the price tag), and I think I've found a nice Windows system that's tailored for "quiet performance" - but as far as I can tell, it only supports up to 32 GB RAM, and , not wanting to make the same mistake twice: are 32 gigs the new 8 gigs?

Also, isn't DDR4 a thing now? Should I avoid buying into yesterday's tech?

[sporkles]

Bump? Fry? Bueller?

[Tarekith]

That's still a massive amount of RAM I think, can't imagine using most of that myself. I was happy when my new MBP got bumped up to 16GB

[sporkles]

For synth-based music, I'm doing fine with 8GB, but as soon as I start dabbling with several large Kontakt libraries for orchestral sounds, that RAM is eaten up in an instant. Also, when you're upgrading anyway, you might as well try to make sure you're set for all eventualities for a while.

[Donnie]

I wouldn't worry too much about DDR4, but I have found 32GB to come in handy quite a bit lately. If you multitask a lot its worth it, otherwise its just future proofing. It is becoming the new standard pretty quick though.

[wascal]

I've never managed to make my MBP struggle and thats 'only' (lol) got 16gb in it. If you decide to go for 32 gb I'd buy and install it yourself though to avoid Apple's ridiculously inflated memory costs.

[sporkles]

Well, the price tag on those Mac Pros is just too hefty for me, so I'm sticking with Windows. It's kind of weird - a Mac has been out of the question for me for so long, because so many of the applications I've been using haven't been available on MacOS, but now that I've realised that I don't actually use anything that doesn't have a Mac version, it's kind of a bummer to also realise that a Mac is just too damn expensive.

[XSIMan]

You only need loads of RAM for sampled instruments. If your project + OS and drivers takes up 3Gb of RAM the rest of the RAM is doing nothing so adding more RAM does
nothing to the performance. I use a lot of 1.5 - 2GB instruments so some mixes are as large as 7GB.

Intel is due sometime at the end of the year to bring out 8 core i7 CPUS that use DDR4 RAM. it will be priced far lower than the i7 based 8 core in the new Power mac. All the parts in the new mac Pro can be bought at a computer shop so you can build the same spec. The Mac Pro parts are all the best you can buy right now so it would still be mega expensive to build the same spec.

[H20nly]

32 GB is a lot of fucking RAM. to put it in perspective... a vast number of motherboards (especially more than 2 or 3 years old) don't even support that much RAM.

if it were me i wouldn't sweat it... if it were a 16 GB max that would be a little bit of chin stroker.

if you're running out at 32 GB... the real question here is "why do I need a program that requires so much RAM"

[sporkles]

"why do I need a program that requires so much RAM"

LOL @ your puny program that does't need so much RAM!

But seriously: like I mentioned, when you're running several huge Kontakt libraries, you simply need that juice. Every time I have to freeze a track is a defeat.

To clarify: I'm pretty sure 32GB will suffice and then some - right now. Back when I bought my current computer, I thought that 8GB would suffice and then some, but now I often have to compromise in order to avoid running out of memory.

[XSIMan]

You would need 15x spectrasonics Trilian bass guitars will full articulation layers to fill up 30GB and that's with streaming switched off so they preload all the samples.
By the time you need 32GB worth of sampled instruments loaded you will have no where near the CPU power to run them all at once and need to bin your 2014 tech CPU and motherboard and build another one with 2016 parts.

If you really want to build a computer that can use more than 32GB ram just buy a server motherboard and Xeon CPU.
12 core Xeon prices http://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-har ... 10-12-core

[H20nly]

^ agreed.


I drive a monster truck to compensate for my puny software.

[sporkles]

Hey, if you guys are not going to support my gearlust, I'm perfectly fine with taking this question to the VI-control forum.

I'll build a 128GB RAM system just for spite.

[H20nly]

you cheeky devil!

[regretfullySaid]

I'm for doing the 128 out of spite. Maybe 32 is considered alot for a netbook, but for media applications it's 'conservatively safe'.
Yeah most people won't need 32 but besides sample libraries you can choose to put your own audio tracks into ram, though I'm not sure if that needs to be done as much if they'e on an SSD.

Still if you have a massive live set or more importantly a template then 32 is nice overhead but I wouldn't say it's overkill.
If money was tight you could still wait a bit for ram to go down but if it isn't then max it out!