16GB or 32GB RAM for InDesign?

[Andy Omel]

I'm shopping for a new iMac. I design large coffee table books using InDesign, and the file sizes of the InDesign files alone are typically about 100MB. And, of course, each InDesign file links to hundreds of hi-res Photoshop files, some of them 400MB each.

Even though these files are large, I'm hoping to still be able to get away with buying a regular iMac instead of an iMac Pro. (It's not like I'm doing high-end video editing. And the Pros are out of my price range.) But my questions are:

1. Will I see a substantial speed bump in InDesign between the 3.4 and 3.5GHz iMac models, and...

2. Will InDesign work faster if I install 32GB of RAM rather than just 16GB?

Thanks!

[Steve Werner]

Everyone has a different workflow. But what I've observed in myself and others I work with, is that we rarely just have one application open. Almost always we have to switch into Photoshop to work on an image, or to Illustrator to work on an illustration, or to clean up a file in Word. Or to preview a PDF in Acrobat. And we almost always have a browser window open too. And I suspect that a lot of people have other things open too. While I'm pretty happy with the 16 Gb I have with my MacBook Pro, if I had a larger screen, and remembered that every program I know continues to suck up more RAM with updates, I'd go for 32 Gb.

[Andy Omel]

I totally appreciate your response! But I guess I'm wondering if it's possible to quantify the improvement I'd see. There must be some diminishing returns at some point, no? This is an extreme example, but if I'm just working on a Microsoft Word file, I doubt 32GB of RAM wouldn't feel too much different from 16GB. I mostly live in InDesign with the occasional trip to Photoshop and Illustrator. So is it just in the switching between programs when I'd see a speed difference? If my InDesign files are 100MB and the InDesign app itself is only 800MB, will upgrading to 32GB of RAM be overkill? RAM is so darn pricey that I'd love to avoid paying for 32GB if it's not going to help the speed substantially.

[Test Screen Name]

App size on disk, document size are no guide WHATEVER To the amount of RAM needed. If in doubt, measure. Mac has excellent tools for seeing how much memory an app is using.

[BobLevine]

You certainly don’t need an iMac Pro.

1. Not likely

2. Absolutely go for the 32GB. As Steve says, nobody has just one app open at a time.

[S_Gans · Accepted solution]

I've always been a believer in "You can't be too rich, too thin, or have too much RAM". Even though you likely won't need more than 16GB for InDesign - like everyone else said, you'll also likely have other apps open that use a lot of RAM. AND, if you're a copy/paste kind of person, instead of an Option Drag to duplicate kind of person, you'll really want that extra RAM.

One thing not yet mentioned is something important to me. In the past, I've kept and used my older Macs for many years. Nowadays, upgrading a Mac yourself is not something you want to do, so for me, the 32 GB is a bit of future-proofing (I doubt software's going to require LESS RAM in the future). So, IMO, the 32GB expense is worthwhile.

However, for these purposes, I don't think you'd benefit from the power and speed of the iMac Pro - not doing this work.

I think a more important expense would be to spend on the GPU - take a look at this page, to get an idea what InDesign'll do best with (Adobe InDesign GPU Performance feature enhancements)

[Andy Omel]

Thanks! And this link to the GPU Performance feature enhancements article is extremely helpful!