Memory vs. CPU for performance?

pisces7378

pisces7378

New member
Hey,

I am upgrading the system memory of my DAW, and I am trying to decide exactly how much memory I should buy. I know that the more the better, but I am on a budget.

At the moment I have 512MB of DDR-RAM in a PC, and I will be running ProTools LE through an Mbox2 (USB1.1). I will also be using MOTU's Symphonic Instrument Virtual Instrument as a Plug-in.

I have a Pent IV 2.4gHz CPU. I was wondering what is more important to keeping my system running smoothly, more memory, or simply a faster CPU?

I used to run Logic Audio on a Pent III 933mHz machine and the reverb plug-in always overloaded the system after three or four instances. It was very frustrating. Do plug-ins like reverb and the MOTU Symph. Inst. VI feed off of memory or CPU more?

Thanks,
Michael
 
reverb will eat up CPU

Samplers will eat up memory (like the motu)

With an old chip like that 2.4, you will probably see the most improvement with more memory
 
altitude909 said:
reverb will eat up CPU

Samplers will eat up memory (like the motu)

With an old chip like that 2.4, you will probably see the most improvement with more memory
Click to expand...

I would agree. VSTi's, or samplers, store all their samples in memory. Once they're there, it doesn't take a lot of CPU to run.

Real-time effects, especially reverb and chorus, take up a lot of CPU because their performing calculations in real-time.

2.4GHz seems like plenty of CPU power for most things, but 512MB isn't much memory when it comes to quality VSTi's like MOTU. I would try to have a minimum of 1GB of RAM...2GB if you can afford it.

Also try to get the fastest RAM your motherboard can support.
 
Agree also with memory upgrade. It's a lot easier to upgrade than your processor as well, just pop it in and away you go.

Since you already have a stick of 512 in there, I would recommend getting another 512 at least.

For greater performance, get a pair of matched memory, and only use those 2 sticks instead of trying to cram all your memory into the PC. Eventually, if you have too many RAM chips, it becomes less efficient (not neccesarily a bad thing, you will still gain the added room and advantages to having more RAM) to read from multiple sticks, however, if you do have slots for more than 2, you can easily get away with installing mismatched sticks, and still gain a noticeable difference with the upgrade.

If you're stuck on what kind of RAM to buy, post your system specs and we can go from there.

Good Luck!
 
If you're on a budget, get another 512MB of ram, and try overclocking your cpu. It's not uncommon for those 2.4 chips to clock to 3.2GHz or even higher
 
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