As database servers have so many different types of workloads they might encounter, it's difficult to give any hard rules for optimal configuration just based on server hardware. Some applications will benefit from having really large amounts of dedicated database memory in the form of shared_buffers; others will suffer large checkpoint spike problems if you do that. PostgreSQL versions starting with 8.3 do provide you with tools to help monitor your system in this area though. If you combine that with some investigation of just how the server is using the memory you've allocated for it, and preferably add in some of the monitoring techniques covered in later chapters, you'll be much better informed.
A quick look inside the actual content of the database buffer cache will answer all sorts of questions about how the server is using memory, and be much more...
