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RAM for Mac Pro
Just got a used Mac Pro 1.1 2×2.66 processor. Looking to upgrade my RAM there’s 8 slots, currently 2 have 2GB memory. I mainly run FCS 3 and CS 4, edit SD video on 10.5.8 OS. What would you recommend in terms of RAM size and how to fill the slots [is it better with many smaller units or a few larger]? Also wanting to add on HD’s currently 1 TB intel drive. I have all my footage on external FW hardrives [lacie quadra’s]. What would you recommend?
Thanks
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4 Replies
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Search the forum. This has been well covered.
Scott Sheriff
Director
SST Digital Media
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com -
(4) 2Gb sticks of RAM is pretty much the sweet spot. This will allow you to easily upgrade to 16Gb if the next version of FCP can make use of the additional memory.
You can put as many as three 2tb SATA hard drives in the three unused drive bays internally. These will give you much better throughput than the FireWire drives you’re using now and improve realtime performance. If you stripe two or more together into a RAID configuration, that will vastly increase throughput and thus realtime performance dramatically.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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i agree with David- also a general answer to your question about fewer or less, you should always fill up all of the spare slots with the same amount of RAM- balance it out. That way the CPU spreads its load equally across the chips. (There as something rather horrible about that last sentence…)
😀
Tom Morter-Laing
Freelance Editor
Certified Apple Product Proffessional, 2010
http://www.depictproductions.co.ukSony Z5, with Rode NTG2.
iMac 27″ intel i7 2.93GHz, 12GB RAM, ATI HD5750 [1GB GDDR5], 2TB Int. SATA with 2TB External HDD; (FW800), with Elgato Turbo H264HD. -
I’m not really an expert, but having the same issue I’ve read extensively about this, and what I’ve read says that this idea of spreading equal memory is an urban myth. If there is any advantage it is minimal. The MacPro 1.1 does require matched pairs, but beyond that it is far more important to spend your money wisely getting to 8Gb of ram and speeding up your drives by striping several fast internal drives together. A good video card can also make a difference (particularly if you are using Color). Hope this helps.
Jeff Mueller
http://www.ApertureVideos.com
Santa Barbara, CA
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