How much RAM does FCPX use on your computer?

Since I am new to FCPX/Motion 5 my projects are quite simple still. But I was thinking of adding more RAM to my computer as I have heard that video editing eats RAM like crazy. Then I started using the Monitor utility in my iMac and noticed that my RAM usage peaks at about 50% (4GB out of 8GB) and that no page outs are recorded. I mostly work with 720 resolution in H.264. What type of projects require 16GB or even 32GB or RAM? For fun I created a test project in Motion 5 with tons of various effects but that slowed down the computer to a crawl due to the CPU being the bottleneck as there was plenty of unused RAM.

My Mac Pro has 10 GB and FCPX never uses more than 4-5 GB

mostly i used full hd footage and i when i bring some effects in and the projekt grows, my imac used more than 12gb of my 16gb ram.
in the future i will upgrade to 32gb!

The larger your Events and Projects get, and the more effects and titles you use, the more RAM FCPX will require to cache your data. Although background render processing has been ported mainly to the graphics card now, your system still needs to cache temp files before sending the data to the GPU for processing, this also requires RAM. GPUs with high VRAM will take more load off your system RAM. That's why the graphics card is important in this equation as well.

Most people will work comfortably with something between 8 and 16 GB system RAM when working on average projects. And to further enhance your editing experience you always can follow the basic performance enhancement rules:

General
- close all applications you don't need for your editing work
- make sure Time Machine or any automated drive backup system is OFF while you edit

Editing
- hide any Events and Projects you don't need for the work you are doing
- turn off background rendering unless you have a graphics card with tons of VRAM
- don't show audio waveforms and clip thumbnails if you don't need them
- If you are not using the Inspector, Scopes, Multicam Angles or the Event Library, close those windows
- use Optimized media for editing if using native media gives you slowdowns
- use the proxy media workflow when you feel your system cannot handle the type of media you are editing or when you work with multiple streams and you experience slowdowns

Drives
- do NOT edit from your system drive but put any Events and Projects on a fast external drive (no USB2, please!)
- keep plenty of free space on all of your drives

- Ronny

Ronny,
Thank you so much for your great post!!! I now have a better understanding of the situation. I might get more RAM down the road. For now I am mostly editing 3-4 minute shorts. But the test I did with the Monitor was on one of the scenes only so it might not give me a correct picture of my situation. I will have to check the entire editing process on my next video. Thanks again!

Thanks Ronny for a smart looking fcpx performance list.
If you can spare a moment I'm curious of your opinion on my setup and which GPU would be the best price/power match?

I know my PM is not a speed demon but it's been sufficient for all my pro media needs EXCEPT for fcpx. I'm trying to make this system last a year or 2 more until I can afford a new 'black cylinder'!
I have an 'Early 2009' 2.66 quadcore PM, 20 gigs ram and the orig pokey Nvidia GeForce GT 120 512mb GPU. I get too many beachballs (only) in fcpx and know my main need is a better gpu. I don't want to overspend on a card my system won't keep up with
so any thoughts on which most afforable OpenCL card I should buy?
Many thanks!!!!

Hi Rand,

If you can afford the 450 dollars the Radeon HD 7950 Mac edition is one of the best OpenCL cards you can put in a current MacPro. Officially it is only supported on 2010 MacPros and later, but I know people who use it in early 2009 models and it is really, really fast with its 3 GB VRAM. Especially for applications that benefit from OpenCL such as FCPX. Here you can read a test of the card compared to other Mac graphics cards: barefeats.com/gpu7950.html

The 5770 is much lower in price (around 200 dollars if you look around) but is also an excellent OpenCL card.

- Ronny

Thanks again Ronny!
Anyone here know if using a $250 PC version of the 7950 rather than the $450 mac version is wise? (I've read many that say it is but curious if real users of fcpx around here have used it.. I may have to flash it to show the startup screen but that doesn't scare me too much.)
THX again

What makes the Mac version worth $200 more than the PC version? Is it just because Mac users are known for buying stuff that costs a lot and therefore they can get away with this? Seriously, there's no reason for THAT much of a price disparity.

No kidding!
Sure the driver development isn't paid for by as big a market but ... really, 200 min. more is ridiculus. Especially if one can easily flash a PC board... which I've read many times but still curious if other fcpx users had easy success with this.