[ICD2k3]

so I was on apple today for fun making the most expensive computer I could come up with ($24,000 Power Mac)... and I noticed that they have room for 16 GB of RAM... i was floored! How on earth would someone need that much ram? Sheesh

[Louis918]

Originally Posted by ICD2k3

so I was on apple today for fun making the most expensive computer I could come up with ($24,000 Power Mac)... and I noticed that they have room for 16 GB of RAM... i was floored! How on earth would someone need that much ram? Sheesh

lol, yeah, i wonder if everything you do on it is instantaneous...

[mduell]

Swapping (using virtual memory) really sucks and some people play with 10GB data sets (or larger).

I actually know of one contest that the previous generation PMG5s lost because they only supported 8GB RAM.

[Lateralus]

The previous G5s supported 16GBs as well, but we have yet to see 2GB DDR DIMMs actually hit the market.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by Lateralus

The previous G5s supported 16GBs as well, but we have yet to see 2GB DDR DIMMs actually hit the market.

I've heard a few people claim that, do you have a link to the source?

edit: Lookie what I found: 2GB PC3200 single module for PowerMac G5... the picture appears to be Registered/ECC, but it says its Mac compatible.

[Lateralus]

Aye.

AFAIK, the only reasons that the 2GB DIMMs aren't trickling in more quickly is because of cost constraints and the fact that the market seems to be headed full on toward DDRs 2 and 3. But nevertheless, 2GB DDR DIMMs are entering the market finally.

[ICD2k3]

Maybe with 16 GB of ram your computer would just run in like fast forward... like you would start typing a 5 page report and it would already be finished.

I think it would have mystical powers

[jebjeb]

I could quite happily use 16GB of RAM in Motion. RAM previews suck up the stuff.

With Motion, Keynote and PS CS2 open and 4.5 GB of RAM, I can do a RAM preview of about 800 frames or around 26 seconds at 30FPS. That is of some basic 2D, no video stuff.

I would like more. Obviously there are ways around it and it is not too much of an issue but more RAM would make me slightly more efficent.

[ajprice]

Originally Posted by ICD2k3

Maybe with 16 GB of ram your computer would just run in like fast forward... like you would start typing a 5 page report and it would already be finished.

I think it would have mystical powers

Hehe, off topic now but that reminded me of something in MacUser last week. Someone wrote in wondering how a camera they reviewed could record something 5 seconds before they pressed the record button. It turned out that when the cam was turned on, it was constantly recording 5 seconds to a buffer memory, so that when you pressed the record button, the buffer was recorded and the video carried on from that point! Genius idea!

All we want is a keyboard and mouse that respond to thought processes, and a monitor that responds to eye movement. Actually, Apple have just had a patent for a screen with camera lenses built in between the LCD pixels... hmmmm .

As for G5 RAM, I'm sure the Intel PM will move over to the new DDR 2 or 3 standards, and maybe more than a piffling little 16GB of RAM!

[Todd Madson]

I find that the more memory I have, the better performance I get.

I'd love 16 GB in my DP 2.5 but I'll wait until the prices become a bit more
reasonable. I'm at 2.5 GB now.

I maxed out my G4/400 at 2 GB so I'll max out my tower eventually.

[rogerkylin]

Originally Posted by ICD2k3

so I was on apple today for fun making the most expensive computer I could come up with ($24,000 Power Mac)... and I noticed that they have room for 16 GB of RAM... i was floored! How on earth would someone need that much ram? Sheesh

I'm always a little entertained when someone doesn't understand why someone else needs particuarly 'lofty' computer resources. The scientific community in general tends to always need more memory, speed, storage, etc....

[Ganesha]

Originally Posted by ICD2k3

so I was on apple today for fun making the most expensive computer I could come up with ($24,000 Power Mac)... and I noticed that they have room for 16 GB of RAM... i was floored! How on earth would someone need that much ram? Sheesh

You need to try harder... I have a Quad Processor Dell configured for ($152,326, and that's even including all the options cause I'm too lazy to find the most expensive valid configuration.)

[homgran]

Originally Posted by rogerkylin

The scientific community in general tends to always need more memory, speed, storage, etc....

Very true. There are certain numerical simulations that you simply can't do without enough RAM (well, you could, but you'd be waiting years to get any results). For example, I occasionally need to simulate 3D models using the Finite Element Method, and the available RAM essentially limits the number of node points that can be used - which in turn puts constraints on what can be done in terms of accuracy and/or stability.

I often find myself needing to use one of the workstations which, funnily enough, has 16GB of RAM available, and in some cases it's still not enough! Basically, we can never have enough RAM.

And the same goes for processor speed.

[Todd Madson]

Shrug.

None of the computers in my house have less than a gigabyte of ram
(save one which has 768 mb) just because they work better with more
ram.

[Cadaver]

I recently donated a gigabyte of RAM from my machine to my wife's iMac (and reclaimed her 512MB in exchange, leaving me at 3GB, which I suppose I can live with) because she actually started using her computer to do so much. She's in change now of fundraising for my daughter's figure skating team... she's making posters/flyers in Pages, will have Mail, iCal and address book up, will have several web pages open, and will often have iPhoto open &/or iDVD burning a slideshow she's made.
When printing multiple pages to the laser printer with a Lightness or Grayscale quartz filter, her machine would really bog down. Add more RAM to her machine, and all is much better.
6 months ago I didn't think she'd ever make full use of the iMac (a 17" 1.8GHz G5). Guess I was wrong. At this rate, she'll need a replacement in a year!

[Jason Bourne]

I guess I could see some users needing 16GB. I have 5GB in the quad because it was cheap but I don't really make much use of it. Right now (computer has been on for a few days) it's at 4.2GB free. But I like the headroom, plus some apps actually use a lot. I've actually seen page outs on occasion, so even for light use (mainly email, web, playing itunes, occasional photoshop, video stuff or a quick game of Doom 3) you can use up RAM.

[andreas_g4]

Originally Posted by ICD2k3

so I was on apple today for fun making the most expensive computer I could come up with […]

Yes, we've all done that…

[Dr.Michael]

Originally Posted by ICD2k3

so I was on apple today for fun making the most expensive computer I could come up with ($24,000 Power Mac)... and I noticed that they have room for 16 GB of RAM... i was floored! How on earth would someone need that much ram? Sheesh

For home users it would be just nonsense to have 16 GB.
But for scientific applications it is not. In astronomical dataprocession for example you very quickly generate observations with more than 16 GB of data. Being able to keep that in memory is not too bad.

Or think of a server that is configured for remote login of 20 users.

We have both these situations in our research team and yes, our 8GB RAM server has already seen hard times.

[angelmb]

Originally Posted by rogerkylin

The scientific community in general tends to always need more memory, speed, storage, etc....

Exactly, therefore they use to get nice SGI monsters.

[rogerkylin]

Originally Posted by angelmb

Exactly, therefore they use to get nice SGI monsters.

The SGI 'monsters' are just that they are extremely large, and extremely expensive. The need for SGI has somewhat been driven by the fact applications that are needed are only compiled for SGI or Sun. About 3-4 years ago, my company spent $120,000 on a 4-processor SGI. Even today, if you want a 64 processor SGI Altix system (Itanium) you are probably looking at a couple million dollars ....

Really, the move in the scientific community is away from SGI and to linux-based compute servers.

[angelmb]

Originally Posted by rogerkylin

The SGI 'monsters' are just that they are extremely large, and extremely expensive. The need for SGI has somewhat been driven by the fact applications that are needed are only compiled for SGI or Sun. About 3-4 years ago, my company spent $120,000 on a 4-processor SGI. Even today, if you want a 64 processor SGI Altix system (Itanium) you are probably looking at a couple million dollars ....

Really, the move in the scientific community is away from SGI and to linux-based compute servers.

Sure, but they are also extremely responsive

SGI's always been about moving massive amounts of data internally; ours multi-GHz systems are still spending the vast amount of time stroking off while waiting for disk reads, memory copies, that sort of stuff.

When you are doing scientific computing, ie. what these machines are sold for, odds are your problem isn't going to come close to fitting in cache in which case a poor PC is going to spend 50% or more of its time waiting for the results of loads from memory.

While you can sort of get away with doing a MHz-MHz comparison on two different processors, the overall architecture of the system is what counts if you really want to get work done. This is why SGI and Cray are still in business.

But SGI has some serious business issues, that's for sure. IRIX is almost dead, this actual financial report doesn't mention Irix anymore. They are moving towards Linux, on a "decent architecture", Linux performance is probably improved, but nowhere near as polished as Irix on an SGI.

Based on my experience an Octane2 400 MHz feels much more snappier than a Power Mac MDD 1.25 GHz running Mac OS X, that is sad.

How much worth is SGI nowadays?, I don't know… they have fired Bob Bishop finally but I fear the SGI user base is sick and tired due to the death of MIPS +IRIX and this switch to intel + linux combo.

[kick52]

you might need it if youre editing a 15gb video file....