Many of my readers have been involved with setting up streaming servers and/or encoding workstations, and a popular question is how to maximize performance. An important aspect of a system’s performance is its memory bandwidth, and Ars Technica has a great article that you’ll be glad you read next time you’re setting up such a system.
The peak bandwidth of a bus is the most easily calculated, the largest (read: the most marketing friendly), and the least relevant bandwidth number that you can use to quantify the amount of data that two components (i.e. the CPU and RAM) can exchange over a given period of time.
The truth is out there, etc.