Hello @Aaron,
Over the last year, I have faced a similar problem. I settled on using the 32 bit version of SU in lieu of the 64 bit version, because the latter tends to crash repeatedly with the Intel integrated graphics adapter. Other users have indicated that this effectively reduces the amount of RAM that can be made available when comparing the two versions, although I cannot confirm that. The described approach using the 32 bit version seems to work in an acceptable manner for me and I frequently generate models of significantly large size; I use a number of techniques to reduce the number of polygons within my models and regularly perform strategic purge operations to manage model “weight”. (I am probably considered to be a Power User of SU…perhaps somewhere just south of expert…which is only mentioned for context and not as an attempt at braggadocia.
Here are several links to previous threads where this subject was discussed in detail (Just click on the boldface type below):