[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

So, running 64GB without using 16GB DIMM's means you're running an 8-slot board... and DDR4 even. That's quite expensive. Now you've got 'only' 32GB, but can double that; what do you do that requires THAT much memory?

Well, a lot of what I do are server loads -- specifically, I run multiple virtual machines concurrently. I write about computers and specifically about Windows Servers more than anything else. So I often have to simulate a fairly complex enterprise environment. With the current book, that means I've got 8 iterations of Windows Server running, and a couple of clients, all on my personal workstation. I'm actually pushing up against that 32 GB of RAM limitation, but hoping to hold off on filling the other 4 slots until 16 GB DIMMs are widely available.

The cost wasn't too bad, actually. I reused an existing case, power supply, video card and hard disks. New motherboard, CPU & cooler, and RAM. Total cost was under $1k. I moved an SSD over from another machine that is nearing EoL, and that's the front side of my VM storage, with four old 500GB hard disks in a Windows Storage Spaces array for the back end. They're slow, but with the SSD in front, it's not an issue. The big thing that kept the costs within target was buying only a i7-5820, not a higher model in the line, and buying a solid, low-end, X99 motherboard. I don't need or WANT to overclock, and I don't need WiFi on the motherboard, or other things that push the price up. Overall, the setup wasn't cheap, but it was a fully justified business expense and has solid growth potential. I can crank the RAM up, I can swap out those HDs for SSDs, and when i7 prices come back down into something approaching rationality, I can even upgrade the CPU if I need to. I don't need high end graphics capability, since I don't game, so the current graphics card should be good for quite a while.

I can use up 8GB easily, as you have already seen. If I had the CPU-power and memory, I would have either converted more books at once, or would have started a few FLAC-conversions alongside calibre; I think I can use up 16 GB in day-to-day use. If I decide to put all of that in the background and start experimenting with the Windows 10 preview, or leave out two cores and start running a game, I think I can also use 24, maybe 32GB.

I can't imagine using 64GB except when running a bunch of high-memory virtual machines for server purposes.

Exactly what I'm doing. And why having one of the new 8 slot X99 boards made sense. Though the VM I have that is using the most memory right now is the client machine running as a VDI machine, testing stuff in Win10.

Yes, programs do use more and more memory, but not always because they're just greedy or badly written. Great pains are taken to avoid using the hard drive, because that is the slowest component in the computer, nowadays (even if you're using an SSD). Everything is loaded and kept in memory as much as possible.

Then there is the data. Who would have predicted that an amateur photographer would be juggling around 24 MPix photo's without blinking an eye? 10 years ago, 6-8 MPix pictures where the norm, with more megapixels for the pro's and really big camera's.

Yes, SSDs have made a qualitative improvement over HDDs, but they're still a lot slower than RAM. And having more RAM encourages the OS to keep more stuff in memory, increasing the likelihood that the next bit of code or data you need will be in RAM, not on an SSD or HDD.

Overall, I bought this workstation expecting to not have to buy a new one for at least a couple of years, and even when I do, this one will recycle down to other workloads. It's life expectancy in my environment is 6-8 years.