RAM Performance Comparison : M1 Ultra 64GB vs.128GB

Flame Hardware Questions
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Hello everyone,

I have a hardware related question.

It’s well known that RAM plays a crucial role in Flame’s performance and I’ve always been advised to go for the maximum capacity. Indeed during heavy renders it’s not uncommon to use up to 80 or 90 gigabytes of RAM.

However I’m wondering if a model like the M1 Ultra with 64 gigabytes of RAM can deliver comparable performance to the one with 128 gigabytes of RAM. I’ve heard that when RAM reaches its limit, it starts using the SSD as virtual memory ( swap ) to keep the application running and prevent crashes. Of course this intensive use of the SSD can reduce its lifespan but by the time that becomes an issue we’ll likely have upgraded our Macs.

So I’d like to know if any of you have experienced this situation and if the difference in performance is measurable. If so it could be interesting because models with 64 gigabytes of RAM are generally more affordable

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The one thing to keep in mind is VRAM. The SOC architecture of the M series chips lets the system use whatever RAM is not being used by the CPU to do graphics processing. You could have more than 96GB going to graphics processing in a machine with 128GB.

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