Re: Are Realtime HD Previews Possible With An NVIDIA QuadroFX 5600?

Thanks for such a detailed response Kevin!

My only question when thinking about what you and Jimmy have been saying, is that if the RAM were increased from 16 GB to 32 GB (I realize this really starts getting expensive though), would there be a further performance increase that is even worthwhile, or, once each core and rendering process has a certain amount of RAM then perhaps no further benefits can even be gained? I am wondering where that sweet spot might be, if there is one. So in other words, would there continue to be a gain going from 16 GB of RAM to 32 GB (even if you can't quite use all of it amongst the cores), or would this be overkill because 16 GB would actually be about the best performance you could get?

An example would be creating larger and larger buffers for DVD burners. Eventually there just isn't a point in increasing the buffer any further because no more performance gains will actually be realized.

I have only seen tests done with 16 GB of RAM on the Mac, but no one seems to have tried 32 GB (the Mac can now be further expanded to this, otherwise XP64 bit would do).

I just mention this because the more cores that are added, then the smaller the memory speed becomes because the "pipe" must now feed 8 cores, rather than 4, or just 2. As a result, having a lot of RAM would create a buffer that might help alleviate this memory speed bottleneck, but to what degree?

Any ideas? I'm looking to purchase a PC or Mac system near the beginning of February after hearing the results of Steve Job's keynote address. I know the FSB should be going to at least 1600 MHz, and the corresponding RAM speed to 800 MHz, (note that Dell's workstations can already be configured for this - even though their website "configurator" is actually messed up at the moment), but I'll also wait to see what Apple comes out with as well.

Brendan