Hi Jan!
The Max Cache memory, indeed works with RAM memory. All frames that are read from disk and decode are kept here, which are the most recent frames. If the GPU needs images that were read before, they are still there, so it's not necessary for doing again the process of decoding the effects and reading the files from disk. This is specially useful when you are looping several times the same shot. The first will probably not have real time playback, but once Mistika processed it and saved the cache, you will real time playback.
Indeed since you are a pretty powerful machine, you may increase, but I don't recommend it increasing it a lot. This value is pretty sensitive, and if you take out cache memory from the system, which cannot be used for anything else , you can run out of memory easily and probably cause a crash. I recommend increasing it step by step, maybe first time double it, and then check the performance. You may try for example a multiplayer EXR which will for sure demand a lot of the RAM memory.
Let me know your results! :)
Cheers,
Cristóbal,