How much RAM do you have? and do you think you have enough?

Raymond Lin

Raymond Lin

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Raymond
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New iMac (i7 3.4Ghz), with 32G RAM, 1TB Fusion (128G SSD).

Brand new Lightroom install.

Catalogue is 1 folder of wedding images.

fcxaG.png


I am shocked tbh. I thought 16G is enough, 24 would be more than enough, only put in 32G because RAM is cheap now and might as well put it in whilst I am installing and save faffing around later. I guess the inactive section is the 1:1 render previews that I had just done to my catalogue but at one point in time it spilled out (10mb).

Although it did go down after 30 mins to.

w2h6q.png
 
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You need to understand what the figures actually mean ;) Take a look here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1342

In both cases above, you are actually "using" around 9G (the active + wired figures).

Also, I don't believe you will get much more memory usage from LR4 - it seems to peak around 2.5GB
 
I too have 32gb so I think I'm safe :)
 
Pah....

I have 32GB of memory in my firewall (honestly, I do! ;))
 
arad85 said:
You need to understand what the figures actually mean ;) Take a look here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1342

In both cases above, you are actually "using" around 9G (the active + wired figures).

Also, I don't believe you will get much more memory usage from LR4 - it seems to peak around 2.5GB
Click to expand...

indeed. memory management/caching etc is present in newer OS so the "free" figure isnt too much of a worry.
 
I have 16GB. I find this enough for most things, although very complex layered work in PS with D800 produced 16bit TIFF files is pushing it a bit. I often run out of RAM when editing 1080P video.

I really need 32GB.
 
I have 8GB on my MBP and it runs fine with aperture etc, thinking of upgrading to a SSD drive before upgrading my RAM!
 
I have 8GB and try and use relatively small catalogues...

I suspect I'll up it to about 32 in summer though..

About 1000 images per....

kd
 
I have 24gb, more then enough for the majority of things and enough to prevent CS5 needing to use a scratch disk
 
RAM is cheap....

Fill all the slots!!!
 
I only have 8GB atm, but that's old DDR2 stuff. Really need a new machine! That said, the only time I've ever gone anywhere near using all 8GB was when I lent the use of my machine to my gf to do autodesk revit renders on for her degree. I don't ever do mass image processing, so lots of RAM is not a necessity for me.
 
You guys with 32Gb in iMacs, are these the 27" ones? I've got a 21.5" i7 which has a stated top limit of 16Gb and although people say that I can put in more the evidence that it is either safe or any use is conflicting, surprise, surprise. Anybody over RAMmed and found it worthwhile?
 
8gb and I run elements 11 no problem........:)
 
Acer 17.3 inch i3 8GB 750GB HDD and runs really well..... especially against my old Tosh.

but then again i have little to nothing loaded into background tasks, so plenty of memory left.
 
I was running an oldish iMac with 3Gb and it could handle PS CS5 with Dreamweaver CS3 and Quark Xpress7 open at the same time, bit slow but useable. It was PS CS6 that made it creak.
 
I'm running 13GB on a Mac Pro and it handles my 5D Mark II files just fine in LR. This is usually with a bunch of PS windows open, spottily, safari etc. I think the best step is to use an SSD for your boot drive. Makes everything much snappier and responsive.
 
I just added up all the memory in the PCs in the house.

109GB... :D
 
Gary Coyle said:
Elements is still only 32bit so max memory allocation to it is about 3.5GB, i have 16GB and Elements runs out of memory when stitching panos together
Click to expand...

16gb here too, and I don't understand why I run out working pano's in elements 10:thinking: would you know a workaround at all?
Cheers
Si
 
16GB and yes, it's enough for photography, even with the D800's 205MB 16bit TIFFs and a shed load of layers in Photoshop.

I also do occasional video work though.... and it's not quite enough for that. I'll probably upgrade to 32GB.
 
I have 16gb, but could do with 32gb as my files regularly in region of 1-1.5gb in size. But yh, RAM prices are coming down all the time, so it's good to max out.
 
I get by with 8GB ram and the occasional 100mb plus TIFF file created from a 5D2 RAW.
My problem is my board supports 16GB ram but 4 x 4GB of DDR2 ram is not cheap. I refuse to pay over £200 just to max the board out.

What will eventually happen is a nice new shiney machine will get dumped on a credit card at some point in the future! :D

For the moment though I manage fine.
 
arad85 said:
I just added up all the memory in the PCs in the house.

109GB... :D
Click to expand...

148GB, and that doesn't include the 3 unused machines in the garage with another 32GB :p

stupar said:
My problem is my board supports 16GB ram but 4 x 4GB of DDR2 ram is not cheap. I refuse to pay over £200 just to max the board out.
Click to expand...

One of my boxes was a Q9650 with 4x2GB DDR2 RAM, and it was nearly £350 to get 4x4GB.
I ended up selling the board, CPU and RAM and buying a i7 970, board and 24GB RAM and the difference was only an extra £100.
3x the RAM and faster CPU with 2 extra core (4 extra threads) for £250 less than a simple 2x RAM double.
Was a no brainer for me.

I have 16GB in my i5 desktop I used for LR, and it runs much better than my i3 laptop with just 8GB.
 
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12GB on my Desktop and 8GB on my MBP, but I only have a D700 so the raw files aren't too big.

Only having a 60GB SSD is probably my biggest bottleneck.
 
PistolPeteUK said:
148GB, and that doesn't include the 3 unused machines in the garage with another 32GB :p
Click to expand...
LOL.. outgeeked :geek::geek: Must buy some more RAM!



PistolPeteUK said:
I have 16GB in my i5 desktop I used for LR, and it runs much better than my i3 laptop with just 8GB.
Click to expand...
You should look at the memory usage - it's not using much for LR (although it will be using the extra 8G for disk cache...).
 
King Damager said:
I have 8GB and try and use relatively small catalogues...

I suspect I'll up it to about 32 in summer though..

About 1000 images per....

kd
Click to expand...

Without wishing to hijack the thread but worth mentioning I think... catalogues don't take much ram at all and the advantages of a single catalogue (with the use of collections to administer things) far outweigh the multiple catalogue approach. This has been discussed on the Adobe LR forum and the Lightroom Forums.

see... http://www.lightroomforums.net/show...or-each-project&highlight=multiple+catalogues

Well worth a read - especially the contributions by John Beardsworth.

Anthony.
 
I have a PC with 8GB and its fine. One thing I don't get with Macs is they cost around £1000-£2000 and my PC has a better spec and cost me £600 to build :/ Im obviously missing something but I don't know what.
 
Beav said:
I have a PC with 8GB and its fine. One thing I don't get with Macs is they cost around £1000-£2000 and my PC has a better spec and cost me £600 to build :/ Im obviously missing something but I don't know what.
Click to expand...
Well, for starters, you haven't spec'd a decent screen (I can't believe I'm defending Apple here!) nor your time or any profit. We did this recently and came up with about 66% the cost if you built it yourself.

PSILVERMAN said:
If you've ever used one you'd get it. :-)
Click to expand...
Not necessarily. I've used them and can't stand the UI and until recently when they introduced the anti-glare, I didn't like the glossy screens - so there are those that do and don't get it.

We've been fairly PC/mac fanboy free for a couple of months, please don't start an argument over glib statements - even I'm bored of it now!
 
I have 24Gb and yep I think that's plenty
 
16GB here, more than enough for my photo stuff.
 
arad85 said:
Well, for starters, you haven't spec'd a decent screen (I can't believe I'm defending Apple here!) nor your time or any profit. We did this recently and came up with about 66% the cost if you built it yourself.

Not necessarily. I've used them and can't stand the UI and until recently when they introduced the anti-glare, I didn't like the glossy screens - so there are those that do and don't get it.

We've been fairly PC/mac fanboy free for a couple of months, please don't start an argument over glib statements - even I'm bored of it now!
Click to expand...

Yes boss
 
Was running a PC on 4GB with Windows 7 & CS4, managed fine...upgraded to CS6 and it ground to a halt so it's now 16GB, running nice and smoothly. Funnily enough its the large files from my new Sony RX100 that caused most problems not my DSLR

Simon
 
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