How Much RAM is Good?

Shoal · 09-10-2011, 04:50 AM

Hi all! Right now I have a Mac with 2GB of RAM, and man... processing 16MP RAW photos slows down everything to a crawl. (The machine is Intel Core 2 Duo 2.1GHz.) I need to buy a new Mac for a number of reasons anyway, so here's the question: how much RAM is good for processing photos? I could get up to 8GB but I don't want to get that much if it's not needed. I just don't want my machine to practically die every time it tries to work with 16MP RAW images.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

-Shoal

ducdao · 09-10-2011, 05:21 AM

Originally posted by Shoal

Hi all! Right now I have a Mac with 2GB of RAM, and man... processing 16MP RAW photos slows down everything to a crawl. (The machine is Intel Core 2 Duo 2.1GHz.) I need to buy a new Mac for a number of reasons anyway, so here's the question: how much RAM is good for processing photos? I could get up to 8GB but I don't want to get that much if it's not needed. I just don't want my machine to practically die every time it tries to work with 16MP RAW images.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

-Shoal

You should be fine with 4G of RAM but the more the merrier. Since RAM is so cheap nowadays, you might as well get 8G if you can, that way most processing will be done in RAM instead of your hard drive which is much slower.

Shoal · 09-10-2011, 05:28 AM

I wish I could test 4GB and 8GB in a side-by-side comparison! Oh well. I'm just trying to figure out if another 4GB beyond the default 4GB in the new machine configuration is worth the extra $200 it will cost me. I'm not a rich man.

reeftool · 09-10-2011, 05:28 AM

A minimum of 4 gigs for anything. I'm running Lightroom 3 on a 4 gig Windows 7-64 bit with an X3 Athlon and it moves along pretty quickly although I going to bump it up to 8 gigs. After an hour or so of steady work with a couple hundred RAW files, it starts to get slow down. Memory is pretty cheap right now and if you shoot any video or plan to, the more memory will make a big difference. I think 2 gig is the bare minimum requirement for Lightroom 3. It wouldn't run on my old computer with XP and 1.5 gig. Have you considered adding memory to your computer? It's an easy upgrade. Take a look at Newegg.com for memory. Mac memory is as readily available as PC memory.

Zav · 09-10-2011, 05:29 AM

It costed me £40 to buy 8 GB for my MacBook!

rhodopsin · 09-10-2011, 05:39 AM

2GB RAM should be enough for your current Mac. What's the Mac utility to check actual RAM usage? Check that while processing to determine if more RAM is needed.

Bottleneck is disk access speed. A newer Mac will have a faster disk subsystem... Newer Mac with 4GB RAM should be enough. RAM will likely be less expensive in the future, to upgrade to 8GB later when camera files get bigger.

**boriscleto** · 09-10-2011, 05:42 AM

Get 8 GB. 8 GB of RAM will allow you to open large files without having to create a swap file.

Are you getting a MacBook Pro or a MacBook Air. Only the Air needs to be upgraded at the factory. A 8 GB upgrade for the MacBook Pro is about $70.

**Jack** · 09-10-2011, 05:44 AM

Here's a youtube comparison of 4 gig vs 8 gig of ram. Just to give you an idea. It's put out by Corsair but you can try other searches for yourself.

You Tube

causey · 09-10-2011, 05:50 AM

It largely depends on the power of your CPU and the OS (which the video above doesn't mention). Older OS are lighter on resources, and older CPU's aren't capable to use 8gb if you tried to run many applications at once. I'd say, if your system is older than 4-5 years, it might not be worth upgrading to 8gb, perhaps not even to 4gb.
Get something like CleanMem (http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-memory-optimizer.htm ---btw., this is an excellent resource for great free utilities) to check your memory usage.

Shoal · 09-10-2011, 05:53 AM

I have a basic 13" MacBook, bought new as the latest model of its kind back in April 2008. I hadn't considered upgrading the RAM, assuming it impossible or not a good idea with a Mac laptop (even perhaps laptops in general, but especially with a Mac one). But I'd still like to get a new machine, a desktop.

I don't actually process a whole lot of photos. I take only two or three dozen photos in a single session and get rid of half of them, if not more. But slowdown starts the moment I open up the RAW images in my editing software. It doesn't get any slower from there, but nevertheless it takes a full 3-5 seconds--if not longer--of loading to do anything to the pictures. Want to alter the exposure by 0.1? 3-5 seconds or sometimes longer. It's a tedious environment for experimentation and learning, driving me so nuts that I content myself simply with altering the dpi and cropping. That's the extent of my post-processing.

After I'm done my Mac can barely do anything else. Opening up even TextEdit takes 5-10+ seconds and it's slow for a while. It takes hours for the machine to fully recover if I don't reboot.

These are the problems I'm trying to avoid.

causey · 09-10-2011, 06:01 AM

My advice: get a powerful desktop unit, add 8gb of ram, also get a IPS monitor for photos, and use your Mac for internet and text editing. 13" laptops aren't exactly the best kinds of machines to process photos.

**boriscleto** · 09-10-2011, 06:03 AM

Originally posted by Shoal

I have a basic 13" MacBook, bought new as the latest model of its kind back in April 2008. I hadn't considered upgrading the RAM, assuming it impossible or not a good idea with a Mac laptop (even perhaps laptops in general, but especially with a Mac one). But I'd still like to get a new machine, a desktop.

I don't actually process a whole lot of photos. I take only two or three dozen photos in a single session and get rid of half of them, if not more. But slowdown starts the moment I open up the RAW images in my editing software. It doesn't get any slower from there, but nevertheless it takes a full 3-5 seconds--if not longer--of loading to do anything to the pictures. Want to alter the exposure by 0.1? 3-5 seconds or sometimes longer. It's a tedious environment for experimentation and learning, driving me so nuts that I content myself simply with altering the dpi and cropping. That's the extent of my post-processing.

After I'm done my Mac can barely do anything else. Opening up even TextEdit takes 5-10+ seconds and it's slow for a while. It takes hours for the machine to fully recover if I don't reboot.

These are the problems I'm trying to avoid.

A 4 GB upgrade for the early 2008 Macbook will run you about $60. The biggest limitation of the 2008 Macbook is the GMA X3100 graphics. The maximum amount of memory that model can address in 6 GB, but it will not be interleaved.

eadrian75 · 09-10-2011, 10:55 PM

Originally posted by causey

My advice: get a powerful desktop unit, add 8gb of ram, also get a IPS monitor for photos, and use your Mac for internet and text editing. 13" laptops aren't exactly the best kinds of machines to process photos.

I'll have to agree that a 13" laptop is not an ideal workhorse for photo editing/creative work. If it's hooked up to an external monitor then that's a different story. For the money, I'd look into the Lenovo ThinkPad W Series. It's not "Mac pretty", but for the same $$ of a "basic" Mac Pro you can really get an awesome Lenovo. This is currently on my wish list (actually waiting for my current laptop to die). Great part about the W series is built-in color calibration software with the 1080p FHD display that achieves 95% color gamut - perfect for photo editing.

Lenovo - ThinkPad laptops - W Series - Features

--- To answer your original question, go with as much RAM as you can afford. At least 4gb to run graphic intensive applications.

Chex · 09-10-2011, 11:42 PM

Well I did my research when building this new rig, and as long as your CPU is decent enough I would get upto 16GB of RAM.. there is an improvement from 4 to 8 GB in photoshop, but going from 8 to 16GB can cut some photoshop load times in half! Granted I'm running on an intel i72600k

Boris · 09-10-2011, 11:53 PM

I suggest 8 GB of RAM and a special small (say, 40 GB) SSD disk dedicated to caching... Sped up my PC very considerably this way. I reckon in this respect there is no principal difference between various OSes.

09-10-2011, 04:50 AM	#1
Shoal New Member Join Date: Jun 2011 Posts: 8	How Much RAM is Good? Hi all! Right now I have a Mac with 2GB of RAM, and man... processing 16MP RAW photos slows down everything to a crawl. (The machine is Intel Core 2 Duo 2.1GHz.) I need to buy a new Mac for a number of reasons anyway, so here's the question: how much RAM is good for processing photos? I could get up to 8GB but I don't want to get that much if it's not needed. I just don't want my machine to practically die every time it tries to work with 16MP RAW images. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. -Shoal

09-10-2011, 05:50 AM	#9
causey Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Arlington, VA Photos: Albums Posts: 3,757	It largely depends on the power of your CPU and the OS (which the video above doesn't mention). Older OS are lighter on resources, and older CPU's aren't capable to use 8gb if you tried to run many applications at once. I'd say, if your system is older than 4-5 years, it might not be worth upgrading to 8gb, perhaps not even to 4gb. Get something like CleanMem (http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-memory-optimizer.htm ---btw., this is an excellent resource for great free utilities) to check your memory usage. Last edited by causey; 09-10-2011 at 05:56 AM.

09-10-2011, 10:55 PM	#13
eadrian75 New Member Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: NW Suburbs of Chicago Photos: Albums Posts: 11	Agree that 13" not ideal for heavy photo editing Originally posted by causey My advice: get a powerful desktop unit, add 8gb of ram, also get a IPS monitor for photos, and use your Mac for internet and text editing. 13" laptops aren't exactly the best kinds of machines to process photos. I'll have to agree that a 13" laptop is not an ideal workhorse for photo editing/creative work. If it's hooked up to an external monitor then that's a different story. For the money, I'd look into the Lenovo ThinkPad W Series. It's not "Mac pretty", but for the same $$ of a "basic" Mac Pro you can really get an awesome Lenovo. This is currently on my wish list (actually waiting for my current laptop to die). Great part about the W series is built-in color calibration software with the 1080p FHD display that achieves 95% color gamut - perfect for photo editing. Lenovo - ThinkPad laptops - W Series - Features --- To answer your original question, go with as much RAM as you can afford. At least 4gb to run graphic intensive applications.

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09-10-2011, 05:21 AM	#2
ducdao Pentaxian Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Montreal/Vermont Posts: 2,160	Originally posted by Shoal Hi all! Right now I have a Mac with 2GB of RAM, and man... processing 16MP RAW photos slows down everything to a crawl. (The machine is Intel Core 2 Duo 2.1GHz.) I need to buy a new Mac for a number of reasons anyway, so here's the question: how much RAM is good for processing photos? I could get up to 8GB but I don't want to get that much if it's not needed. I just don't want my machine to practically die every time it tries to work with 16MP RAW images. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. -Shoal You should be fine with 4G of RAM but the more the merrier. Since RAM is so cheap nowadays, you might as well get 8G if you can, that way most processing will be done in RAM instead of your hard drive which is much slower.

09-10-2011, 05:28 AM	#3
Shoal New Member Join Date: Jun 2011 Posts: 8 Original Poster	I wish I could test 4GB and 8GB in a side-by-side comparison! Oh well. I'm just trying to figure out if another 4GB beyond the default 4GB in the new machine configuration is worth the extra $200 it will cost me. I'm not a rich man.

09-10-2011, 05:28 AM	#4
reeftool Pentaxian Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Upstate New York Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 9,555	A minimum of 4 gigs for anything. I'm running Lightroom 3 on a 4 gig Windows 7-64 bit with an X3 Athlon and it moves along pretty quickly although I going to bump it up to 8 gigs. After an hour or so of steady work with a couple hundred RAW files, it starts to get slow down. Memory is pretty cheap right now and if you shoot any video or plan to, the more memory will make a big difference. I think 2 gig is the bare minimum requirement for Lightroom 3. It wouldn't run on my old computer with XP and 1.5 gig. Have you considered adding memory to your computer? It's an easy upgrade. Take a look at Newegg.com for memory. Mac memory is as readily available as PC memory.

09-10-2011, 05:29 AM	#5
Zav Pentaxian Join Date: Feb 2009 Photos: Gallery Posts: 1,371	It costed me £40 to buy 8 GB for my MacBook!

09-10-2011, 05:39 AM	#6
rhodopsin Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Deep Forest Posts: 643	2GB RAM should be enough for your current Mac. What's the Mac utility to check actual RAM usage? Check that while processing to determine if more RAM is needed. Bottleneck is disk access speed. A newer Mac will have a faster disk subsystem... Newer Mac with 4GB RAM should be enough. RAM will likely be less expensive in the future, to upgrade to 8GB later when camera files get bigger.

09-10-2011, 05:42 AM	#7
boriscleto Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: North Syracuse, NY Photos: Gallery Posts: 16,477	Get 8 GB. 8 GB of RAM will allow you to open large files without having to create a swap file. Are you getting a MacBook Pro or a MacBook Air. Only the Air needs to be upgraded at the factory. A 8 GB upgrade for the MacBook Pro is about $70.

09-10-2011, 05:53 AM	#10
Shoal New Member Join Date: Jun 2011 Posts: 8 Original Poster	I have a basic 13" MacBook, bought new as the latest model of its kind back in April 2008. I hadn't considered upgrading the RAM, assuming it impossible or not a good idea with a Mac laptop (even perhaps laptops in general, but especially with a Mac one). But I'd still like to get a new machine, a desktop. I don't actually process a whole lot of photos. I take only two or three dozen photos in a single session and get rid of half of them, if not more. But slowdown starts the moment I open up the RAW images in my editing software. It doesn't get any slower from there, but nevertheless it takes a full 3-5 seconds--if not longer--of loading to do anything to the pictures. Want to alter the exposure by 0.1? 3-5 seconds or sometimes longer. It's a tedious environment for experimentation and learning, driving me so nuts that I content myself simply with altering the dpi and cropping. That's the extent of my post-processing. After I'm done my Mac can barely do anything else. Opening up even TextEdit takes 5-10+ seconds and it's slow for a while. It takes hours for the machine to fully recover if I don't reboot. These are the problems I'm trying to avoid.

09-10-2011, 06:01 AM	#11
causey Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Arlington, VA Photos: Albums Posts: 3,757	My advice: get a powerful desktop unit, add 8gb of ram, also get a IPS monitor for photos, and use your Mac for internet and text editing. 13" laptops aren't exactly the best kinds of machines to process photos.

09-10-2011, 06:03 AM	#12
boriscleto Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: North Syracuse, NY Photos: Gallery Posts: 16,477	Originally posted by Shoal I have a basic 13" MacBook, bought new as the latest model of its kind back in April 2008. I hadn't considered upgrading the RAM, assuming it impossible or not a good idea with a Mac laptop (even perhaps laptops in general, but especially with a Mac one). But I'd still like to get a new machine, a desktop. I don't actually process a whole lot of photos. I take only two or three dozen photos in a single session and get rid of half of them, if not more. But slowdown starts the moment I open up the RAW images in my editing software. It doesn't get any slower from there, but nevertheless it takes a full 3-5 seconds--if not longer--of loading to do anything to the pictures. Want to alter the exposure by 0.1? 3-5 seconds or sometimes longer. It's a tedious environment for experimentation and learning, driving me so nuts that I content myself simply with altering the dpi and cropping. That's the extent of my post-processing. After I'm done my Mac can barely do anything else. Opening up even TextEdit takes 5-10+ seconds and it's slow for a while. It takes hours for the machine to fully recover if I don't reboot. These are the problems I'm trying to avoid. A 4 GB upgrade for the early 2008 Macbook will run you about $60. The biggest limitation of the 2008 Macbook is the GMA X3100 graphics. The maximum amount of memory that model can address in 6 GB, but it will not be interleaved.

09-10-2011, 11:42 PM	#14
Chex Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: The 'Stoke, British Columbia Photos: Gallery Posts: 1,678	Well I did my research when building this new rig, and as long as your CPU is decent enough I would get upto 16GB of RAM.. there is an improvement from 4 to 8 GB in photoshop, but going from 8 to 16GB can cut some photoshop load times in half! Granted I'm running on an intel i72600k

09-10-2011, 11:53 PM	#15
Boris Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Israel Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 932	I suggest 8 GB of RAM and a special small (say, 40 GB) SSD disk dedicated to caching... Sped up my PC very considerably this way. I reckon in this respect there is no principal difference between various OSes.