How would you push 8GB?

Rob Williams

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
Hi guys,

If your computer had 8GB of ram installed, what would you do to push it? I toyed with this idea last night and got virtually nowhere. The main question is... What realistic scenario would use upwards of 8GB... or more? There must be some scenarios that would work, since some workstations can have upwards of 16GB of ram.

Picking what I thought would be the most natural choice, I loaded up 3DS Max to see how much ram I could get it to push. There were three main tests I performed.

Rendering a normal sized file: >100MB of RAM
Rendering an HD-video consisting of 100 Frames: 230MB of RAM
Rendering a 32000x24000 Image: 6.75GB of RAM

I managed to get it close to 7GB of ram, as you can see, but this was a completely unrealistic scenario. Now the question remains, would throwing the Quad-Core back in the machine allow even more ram to be used in that last scenario, thanks to the added processes? Hard to say until I install it again, but it really doesn't even matter. None of the realistic scenarios I performed came close to using 1GB of ram, let alone 8GB!

I'm up for ideas guys. As it stands, I am thinking the only thing to push 8GB would be a real-world server.
 
D

Deth

Obliviot
It's all about the Benjamins.

I'm still debating on upgrading to 3 or 4GB myself. I decided against enabling PAE mode because I hear it "lowers performance". And the last thing I need is lowering my performance! I recently just doubled my HDD Performance by using on-board raid instead of the 3ware RAID controller card I had before. That $300 card was capping at 100MB/s. I was wasting money and getting AWFUL performance! Luckily, I was still able to RMA for a refund. :cool:

Anyways, back to your question. It's too bad I couldn't configure superfetch to load everything I use straight into the 8GB of RAM. Imagine when Windows loaded, all programs you most commonly use are totally loaded into the RAM. Good? Bad? Awesome? :)
 
Greg King

Greg King

I just kinda show up...
Staff member
The server environment would be the first place to start if your looking for a real world advantage to using so much RAM. Other than that, like you said, video editing but even then, how many people are going to find themselves in a scenario like that?
 
Greg King

Greg King

I just kinda show up...
Staff member
Ahh, the dreaded thread hi-jack. Brings back memories B1lk1. Oh the old days at AQM3.
 
Rob Williams

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
But how would CAD/CAM need that much ram? I was goofing around with a rather large 3DS model and it came nowhere close. I had to render at a highly unrealistic size to get it to push more than 200MB.
 
madmat

madmat

Soup Nazi
How would you push 8GB?

To answer that in terms of mechanically moving it, in 1997 you'd need a shopping cart, today one hand would move it just fine. Amazing the progress we've made in the last ten years isn't it?
 
moon111

moon111

Coastermaker
I thought if you installed Norton it would eat up any amount of RAM and stick it in a blackhole.
 
D

drewd

Obliviot
At work, my system has 12GB of RAM so that I can run multiple 3D electrical simulations at one time. I can get close to eating up all of the memory - the CAD program manipulates incredibly huge arrays of numbers. Other than that, I'm not sure what I'd do with that much memory.
 
Rob Williams

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
Hi drewd, and welcome to the forums. This is the exact kind of response I was looking for. I guess it proves my point though to an extent. Home users do not need 8GB, although many run out and purchase that much.

I am wondering if something like Folding@Home or Rosetta would use a lot of ram. I know it can keep all cores at 100% constantly... and those calculations -may- be similar to the 3D electrical ones you mentioned. I will have to give that a try sometime...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top