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MillimeterTest Drive: Apple Mac Pro Memory
Jul 13, 2009 12:00 PM, By Jan Ozer
Table 5. Final Cut Pro results, two-4GB compared to four-2GB.
Some Perspective
So, the 8GB in a two-2GB configuration performed quite well against two configurations with more memory in the supposed ideal configuration. Why would this be? Primarily because editing and encoding are far-less-than-realtime operations, so memory throughput isn’t the primary performance bottleneck. For this reason, I wouldn’t generalize these results to realtime applications such as a streaming server or large data set visualizations. Still, for most day-to-day editing and encoding chores, violating the Nehalem’s ideal configuration seemed to be a non-event.
Since I had multiple memory configurations (and apparently way too much time on my hands) I decided to run some additional tests. The first was seemingly the most severe, two 4GB DIMMs (one on each side of the memory tray) compared to the four-2GB configuration used for the 8GB tests above. I'm not quite sure how you’d ever get to the first configuration (someone steals your original DIMMs, but not the computer itself, so you add back two 4GB DIMMs?), but here are the results.
Two-4GB compared to four-2GB
In Final Cut Pro tests, the results actually appear statistically significant (unlike the Premiere Pro tests you’ll see in a moment) though nowhere close to the 2X theoretical advantage you would expect with the four-2GB configuration if memory throughput was the actual bottleneck (see Table 5).
In contrast, with Premiere Pro, the memory configuration didn’t significantly change the results in the real-world tests (see Table 6).
Table 6. Premiere Pro real-world results, two-4GB compared to four-2GB.
Or in the synthetic tests (see Table 7).
Table 7. Premiere Pro synthetic results, two-4GB compared to four-2GB.
On the other hand, in the Episode Engine tests, which were probably the most demanding, some significant differences did appear, especially in the HD trials (see Table 8). Before we draw any conclusions, however, let’s look at the next set of tests.
Table 8. Telestream Episode Engine results, two-4GB compared to four-2GB.
Continue the discussion on “Crosstalk” the Millimeter Forum.