RAM Question

If doing 95% Lightroom and Photoshop work on a new machine just how much RAM is needed. I planned to drop 64gb in and call it good. Wondering if I need to spend that money or not, I dont mind overkill but if it will never go above 32 then I can put that money elsewhere. Will more RAM help keep LR and PS running smooth while having Youtube and other applications open on a second screen?

Also is it better to have say 4x8gb sticks vs 2x16gb sticks? And lastly I am assuming having a higher MHz rating is better as well.

I've used Photoshop CS5 with 8gb with no discernible issues. I can't vouch the subscription version.

Well, I can say that running C1 and Ps, or Lr and Ps, I can max out the ram on my machine pretty quickly (16gb).

I currently use Ps/Lr on three different custom built PC's, two of them have 32 GB RAM and one has 16 GB, I do not notice any difference. If I was building a PC today I would opt for 32 GB in a 2 X 16 kit, leaving room to upgrade down the road if needed.

16GB is fine. No real reason to go higher.

tim wrote in post #18498139
16GB is fine. No real reason to go higher.

^

Even now, it seems that even for gamers, going >16GB is largely going to be wasted money. If all you are doing is image editing 8GB is enough, and for video work 16GB is enough.

Would installing the programs on a SSD also increase their speed, or is that speed only noticeable on startup? I need to give my Mac Pro 5 some new RAM and Harddrives. Essentially start fresh. Sorry to hijack if I did.

I have an Asus laptop running LR CC with 8gb. I have no issues with it. I use plenty of brushes and gradients which would tend to slow LR down without any problems.

iAMB wrote in post #18498186
Would installing the programs on a SSD also increase their speed, or is that speed only noticeable on startup? I need to give my Mac Pro 5 some new RAM and Harddrives. Essentially start fresh. Sorry to hijack if I did.

Nope your good

Wilt wrote in post #18498172
^

Even now, it seems that even for gamers, going >16GB is largely going to be wasted money. If all you are doing is image editing 8GB is enough, and for video work 16GB is enough.

I think it depends on what you shoot and how you edit. I shoot a 42mp camera, often edit several images together to compare variations on compositions with the same editing, and I stream music and surf the web while editing. Looking right now I'm at 14.3GB used and I'm just getting started. I've maxed out the 16GB of ram on my system plenty of times just going back and forth between C1, Ps, Lr, and Firefox. My next build will certainly see more than 16GB of ram.

Edit: this is my ram usage working 2 image in Ps, with C1 going and firefox, and Amazon Music player.

24gb was the sweet spot for me. Had 16gb, and I could manage to bog the machine down if I tried...but not often. Never had it happen with 24gb...all other things being equal (processor, ssd's, and graphics card). RAM is fairly cheap though, especially as you buy in bigger quantities. I'd go 32 just for future proofing if nothing else.

Ok so 32 minimum is what I decided since I to often have several images open in PS (last night I brought a batch of 12 in from LR). Also I tend to have youtube or Amazon music going along with other browsing windows and word or excel open as well.

I have 16 gigs, and I can max it out running Photoshop, Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Outlook, and a video on Chrome at the same time.

Running less than that, no problem.

Pay close attention to how you apportion your ram to the Adobe products. Be sure to leave enough ram for the non-Adobe products to run--the Adobe products will usually play nicely with each other in their own sandbox.

Littlejon Dsgn wrote in post #18498413
Ok so 32 minimum is what I decided since I to often have several images open in PS (last night I brought a batch of 12 in from LR). Also I tend to have youtube or Amazon music going along with other browsing windows and word or excel open as well.

Keep in mind that people are saying their maxing out 16gb of RAM on their systems with multiple apps and multiple edits going on at once... 32gb is twice the amount of RAM, it's abundant for any photo editing application.

Only pointing it out because you used the word "minimum". I wouldn't do more than 32gb of RAM (personally I wouldn't even do more than 16gb due to current DDR4 prices), you'd basically be burning your money beyond 32gb for your needs.

tim wrote in post #18498139
16GB is fine. No real reason to go higher.

It also helps to have the system pagefile and the scratchdisk on separate drives from the OS, if physical drives, or on a(n) SSD.

A single physical spinning drive for everything is a disaster when the memory allocation gets higher than about 150% of RAM.

I have the pagefile and scratchdisk on the same SSD, not even a newer, fast one, on my 10-year-old desktop, and barely notice when swapping or "scratching" occurs.

A 150 megabyte/second spinning drive can drop to a few megabytes/sec while doing multiple real-time reads. Writes can be saved (cached) for later; reads can not be cached much in real time, unless they are repetitions of recent reads still in the cache.