I wouldn't say 32-64GB is too much for some of those tasks, CAD and the like could easily spike 128GB with modern systems. The RAM is just an option because the Intel processor is designed for servers/workstations and simply allows you to. It's also useful if you have a rig of GPU's, which this iMac is capable of powering a number of eGPU systems so for very remote circumstances I can see it being useful.
In comparison, a Dell workstation can run you a lot higher, the CPU and RAM being the primary cost drive
You call it browser bloat, but really it's javascript librairies bloat and images bloat. Nothing else on the web can waste CPU and RAM as fast as those two things.
It's browser bloat. It's not as if the web pages you're downloading are gigabytes in size, otherwise you'd use all your cellphone's data allowance in five pages.
Browsers like to cache enormous amounts of data, and that's where it starts getting really ugly. There's a good chance the entire page you're reading right now is stored in part as a giant bitmap so that your browser can scroll it without having to redraw it in real time. And if you think that's odd, it gets worse, because even if it isn't, the chances are it's storing large numbers of bitmaps containing rendered versions of parts of the page.
Bitmaps aren't the only ways browsers use monstrous amounts of memory, but they're an easy to explain part of it.
That said, there's some stupid shit Javascript provides that encourages pages to leak memory. Closures are notorious for being difficult to garbage collect - if jQuery's waiting for an AJAX call that never comes, it'll have a link somewhere to the function that's supposed to accept the response, plus the entire context of the thing that called it, indefinitely.
32GB useful for dev (Score:4, Insightful)
I wouldn't say 32-64GB is too much for some of those tasks, CAD and the like could easily spike 128GB with modern systems. The RAM is just an option because the Intel processor is designed for servers/workstations and simply allows you to. It's also useful if you have a rig of GPU's, which this iMac is capable of powering a number of eGPU systems so for very remote circumstances I can see it being useful.
In comparison, a Dell workstation can run you a lot higher, the CPU and RAM being the primary cost drive
Re: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
You call it browser bloat, but really it's javascript librairies bloat and images bloat. Nothing else on the web can waste CPU and RAM as fast as those two things.
Re:32GB useful for dev (Score:2)
It's browser bloat. It's not as if the web pages you're downloading are gigabytes in size, otherwise you'd use all your cellphone's data allowance in five pages.
Browsers like to cache enormous amounts of data, and that's where it starts getting really ugly. There's a good chance the entire page you're reading right now is stored in part as a giant bitmap so that your browser can scroll it without having to redraw it in real time. And if you think that's odd, it gets worse, because even if it isn't, the chances are it's storing large numbers of bitmaps containing rendered versions of parts of the page.
Bitmaps aren't the only ways browsers use monstrous amounts of memory, but they're an easy to explain part of it.
That said, there's some stupid shit Javascript provides that encourages pages to leak memory. Closures are notorious for being difficult to garbage collect - if jQuery's waiting for an AJAX call that never comes, it'll have a link somewhere to the function that's supposed to accept the response, plus the entire context of the thing that called it, indefinitely.