Workstation - How much Memory/RAM

[Honey Creampuff]

Hello,

Hi guys,

I'm planning on purchasing a workstation soon, but i need advice from experts on how many memory/ram should i be looking at. I will be buying from OEM such as DELL or HP, according to their workstation series there are models which can be upgraded to 16 GB, 24GB,72GB, 192GB.

Running on Windows 7 Pro 64-bit OS

Programs that i will be using consist of: DS Solidworks, Autocad, Autodesk 3Ds Max, Inventor, Adobe Creative Suite, perhaps Bunkspeed or other rendering programs not to forget MS Office + +

As this is the first time i will be buying a workstation i need feedback or advice from people who's doing the same task and perhaps running programs of such.
I'm looking to optimize the performance of my workflow, in reality do i need 70GB ++ of rams ? The task i will be doing is designing Products, interior space, 3D modeling, Rendering + +

Please advice me,
Thank you very much for your help!

 

[Emperus]

Unless you are designing a soccer stadium and need the whole model to load smoothly on your screen, you won't need anything more than 12 GB of memory.. If you run all apps in parallel then you should consider starting first with 24 GB total memory.. Add more later if required..

 

[mustbaj]

even 12gb of ram is alot. it all comes down to cas latency. you can have lots and lots of ram but what kind of quality is it? whats the latency? (timing) I think 12gb would be a good start point for those kinds of programs but personally i use 8gb of ddr3 1600 with a low cas latency and it runs perfect. its like buying a 1 million dollar car that a 100,000 dollar corvette smokes. so spend more and get a bit less ram that will but will still be better. hope that makes sense.

 

[sceen311]

If you review the vendor websites of the programs you mentioned, the greatest that is recommended is 8gb's and that is from 3d studio max. While you likely get by on 4 gbs investing in 8 is probably worth it just for the extra over head.

 

[JordoR]

12GB is probably more than enough.

I have done very complex models (with over 1000 DWG files and some complex models) on only 4GB and been fine. Although when plotting the drawings in autocad I would have welcomed as much as 8GB.

There shouldn't be any reason why you need more than 8-12GB... I don't know if it's dual channel or triple so can't recommend a specific one.

 

[popatim]

I'm going to be a little different and say 24-32Gb. Use 8-16 normally and the rest as ram drives. You'll probably need to configure the ramdrive(s) differently for the different apps you use. Some stuff will only require a scratchdisk ramddrive while others might need to to move a catalog over as well as as have a scratch in ramdrive.

 

[Honey Creampuff]

Hi guys,

Thank you for all the answers, appreciate it!