Hi,
Spec'ing some new systems and I have a question: I've found that using sw64 in winxp64 I've never had sw consume more than around 3.2 gb of ram max. I'm curious about other peoples experience? The question arose because it's possible to put 8gb of ram in a system (4 x 2gb sticks) but it's only available in slower pc-5300. My view is it's better to save your money and buy 4gb (4 x 1gb sticks) of faster pc-6400 (ddr2 800mhz). A penny for your thoughts!
Zander
If your datasets are large enough, SW64 will use more than 4GB RAM.
If you need more than 4GB RAM, you can probably configure a Xeon based system for less than a comparable Core2 Duo. Definitely true of Dell
390/490 - harder to say with HP with their weird "Special Buy" configurations.In any event, there really isn't all that much dffierence between
667MHz and 553Mhz memory - only a few percentage points.Hi,
That's interesting, I havn't priced any Xeon systems (although in my rendering benchmarks the core2 duo's test faster) - I'll have to look into that.
As far as large assemblies I've worked with upto 3 thousand parts and stayed inside the 3gb barrier - I'm curious how many parts are required to cause solidworks to go beyond 4gb? (obviously complexity plays a big role here - but with so many parts hopefully the law of averages comes into play)
Also, somewhere recently I read some benchmarks that showed upto 10% difference between 667mhz ddr2 and 800mhz ddr2 although these weren't solidworks benchmarks - I think they were game framerates. I'll have to remember where I saw that article.
Thanks,
Zander
Remember the physical memory (RAM) is just a part of the total (virtual) memory used by your system. On 32bit machines, physical and virtual memory have the same 4Gb limitation. On 64bit machines, RAM can be viewed as just one layer of cache between CPU register and a large virtal memory on hard disk, and the role of the virtual memory manager is to keep in RAM only blocks of memory that you access frequently, and to leave some available for fast allocation. Because of this Windows x64 tries to avoid allocating the full RAM physical memory. Right now I have 6Gb used with 4Gb RAM, but only 2.5Gb RAM are used. If you want to force using RAM, you should disable virtual memory, which might be a good idea on a machine with 8Gb or more. Did anyone try ?
Philippe Guglielmetti
I have 4 Gigs of RAM on my Windows XP 32 bit machine. I have been running with no page file for about a year with the machine. Works just fine for me.
I have run with no page file on my previous machine which had only 2 gigs of RAM.
Regards,
Anna Wood SW2007 SP2.2, W> Remember the physical memory (RAM) is just a part of the total
That may have been on Athlon/Opteron systems - or heavily overclocked Intel systems. They are much more sensitive to memory speed. The timings of the memory are critical, too. (Way too technical for me.) With stock 533MHz and 667Mhz DIMMs, the timings are typically better on the "slower" DIMMs, so in the end, there's little difference in acual speed.
As for the Xeon/C2D - you're right: At any given clock speed, the C2D is slightly faster than the Xeon. This is due to latencies in the Fully Buffered memory used on the Xeons. Still, with more that 4GB RAM, the price advantage of the Xeon outweighs the difference in performance (at least with Dell and other custom configured systems.)
PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.