how much RAM can Logic X access?

If your plug ins are sample library’s then extra RAM won’t speed loading (a SSD drive would) BUT it would speed sessions once like Loaded. if all your tracks are audio, again won‘t speed loading, in general you’d have to be doing big sample librarys to benefit from 64gb as opposed to 32gb.

if you haven’t a SSD drives, that’s where you’ll see the performance gain.

Hi what do you mean by ‘swap’?

I run Logic Pro X on a 4-core w/ 32gb of ram and I COULD go to 64 go if it’s necessary. I run VERY HEAVY plug-in sessions with upwards of 100 tracks for song. It takes logic forever to load sessions, and duplicating a track in logic is an eternity of time. Would RAM even help this? Or is this a CPU problem?

As LPX is a 64bit application it can and will use whatever memory you have installed.... I have an iMac with 32GB of RAM and LPX works well with it... as not only does the App itself, take full advantage of the RAM.. both internal and 3rd party plugins can and will utilize that extra RAM too, resulting in better performance overall.

It is my personal opinon that the more RAM installed, the better in almost every case....

Logic Pro X can use as much memory as you can install. That said: I don't think anything above 16GB will improve performance or stability in a measureable way. It is "too much" for audio expect in very special cases.

Hey Blueberry,

I have to disagree with you on this point.

Having used 32GB with LPX and 16GB with the exact same Mac setup, side by side. The 32GB Mac seems to run LPX even smoother and certainly marked improvement with system overloads etc.... when running heavy duty plugins

That's why I said "very special cases". There are very few people that load >16GB of samples into the application. You can even check with Activity Monitor: if it doesn't swap, no need for more memory.

The theoretical upper limit of RAM Logic Pro X (or other 64-bits programs) can access, is somewhere in the region of 16,000,000,000 Gigabytes (=16 Exbibytes). It'll be a while before personal computers (or any computer) can house that much RAM.

I have 40 gigs in my mac pro and put much of it to use on a regular basis, although less of it is Logic and much more is in the Kontakt memory server. With big enough sample libraries really any amount of ram could be used although depending on the machine CPU power might run out first with such big projects. But depending on what projects you are doing you should be able to tell if you are maxing out your ram and how much may be optimal. At least third party ram is pretty darn cheap these days.

And even without huge sample libraries, OSX seems to cache a lot of disk data in memory if it's available. Unless you're doing tiny sessions it's always nice to have more ram.

+1 Mike,

Its not just when using large sample Libraries, does the extra RAM help (though of course, it does help hugely under those circumstances) but even with projects that just use SIs and no large sample libraries, do you see an improvement in performance mainly because of the way OS X makes as much use as it can of all the extra RAM available...

I happen to have two identical spec'd iMacs, one with 32GB of RAM on board and one with 16GB of RAM... with identical external audio/midi/Ext HD hardware and there is a distinct and clearly 'felt' difference in performance between the two when using LPX (and prior to that LP9 in 64bit mode).. or even when just using the standard OS X applications like Safari/Mail etc.... Everything seems more 'snappy', responsive and stable overall.... So much so I will taking my second iMac to 32GB too later this year.

This is why i recommend to my clients, when they ask how best to upgrade their Macs.. I always suggest the first thing they should do is add more RAM whenever possible/practical. Adding extra RAM via 3rd party sources, really isnt that expenisive these days..if you take some time to dig around and find the deals out there. I paid less than $156 in Nov 2012 to upgrade my iMac to 32GB thanks to Kingston and Amazon! (4* 8GB sticks at 38.99 each) Prices have risen since then of course but look for deals on Black Friday as that is when I got that deal... and every year Amazon seems to have similier deals on memory around Black Friday...