hello all, i am looking into purchasing a powermac for producing edm and atm will be using all soft synths

as far as ram is concerned i am looking to get 2gb...

for this amount of ram there are 2 options

2 x 1gb

or

4 x 512mb


does anyone know what setup would be preferrential for my needs and why?

thanks

you definetely need 2x 1gb ram. your motherboard has usually about 4 spaces so its definetely better to have an extra 2 space for the future. plus you said you use all softsynth so thats really necessary.

Yea I have 4 gigs.

Still not enough.

I want a terabyte

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4 gigs not enough?

so if i had a quad core power mac with 4 gb of ram... you are suggesting that that will not be enough???

what is the reason that 2 x 1gb is better than 4 x 512mb?

its essentially the same amount of ram but in different rations...

quote:

Originally posted by mylespower what is the reason that 2 x 1gb is better than 4 x 512mb? its essentially the same amount of ram but in different rations...

2 x 1gb saves 2 slots on ur board

oh i see, i really don't know all that much about macs yet but i tried one out and loved it

the reason why you want 2 x 1GB instead of 4 x 512mb is that the access to the ram will be faster.

Lets take one easy and simple example.
Lets say that you work in a grocery store where you fetch all the things people want to shop for them. Imagine a store that has 4 shelves spread out that is a bit smaller, it will take some time to fetch all the wares for the customers if you need to run between the shelves. It will also take more time and thinking when you place new wares in the store so you have room for the different kind of wares on the same shelves.

Now if you instead have 2 longer shelves it will be much easier to access them and storage will need less thinking and planning.

The same goes for RAM, fewer modules equals lower access time and faster write time (and less fragmentation over the modules).


Besides, I think even mac have some stability problems running 4 RAM modules at once.
And the memorysize, 2gb will be enough. The crucial think in a DAW isn't the ammount of memory, it's how fast the memory is rather (unless you work with shitloads of samples).
Go for 2gb and the best CPU you can get

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quote:

Originally posted by mylespower 4 gigs not enough? so if i had a quad core power mac with 4 gb of ram... you are suggesting that that will not be enough???

Nothing is EVER enough for me.

Next build will be even crazier with RAM, and processing.

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quote:

Originally posted by Vizay the reason why you want 2 x 1GB instead of 4 x 512mb is that the access to the ram will be faster. Lets take one easy and simple example. Lets say that you work in a grocery store where you fetch all the things people want to shop for them. Imagine a store that has 4 shelves spread out that is a bit smaller, it will take some time to fetch all the wares for the customers if you need to run between the shelves. It will also take more time and thinking when you place new wares in the store so you have room for the different kind of wares on the same shelves. Now if you instead have 2 longer shelves it will be much easier to access them and storage will need less thinking and planning. The same goes for RAM, fewer modules equals lower access time and faster write time (and less fragmentation over the modules).

you are a poet and a gentleman

and THAT ^^ was a very good example

quote:

Originally posted by mylespower and THAT ^^ was a very good example

OK, you should go for the 2 x 1Gb sticks of RAM, i think most motherboards only run 2 channels in "dual channel", which is where u'll get the advantage, i dont think they run all 4 channels in this mode, it's been a while since i looked inti motherboards though tbh, so if i am wrong sorry, either way u'll have room to add more ram later this way

Secondly, that example could not be more wrong, thats just not how searching algorithms with computers work, effectively you're making a "tree like" structure when searching, you never want to linear search which seems to be what you're suggesting. By your logic, 1 x 2Gb stick would be the best cause it would all be in the same "shelf". There's always gonna trade offs, but basically you're method doesnt work.