The same thing happens in the Just Cause games.
I think the engine designer forgot to allow large system memory caching in the Dunia engine since it was designed almost exclusively for the extremely memory capacity limited current gen consoles.
I know that Just Cause 2 only uses about 256 mB of system memory and has massive pop-in issues.
The Unreal 3 Engine games also have this problem when the developers don't set the system memory and video memory cache high enough even when there is available resources on the target system.
Well, whatever causes it, having faster memory doesn't alleviate it; at least in Far Cry 3. I tested it and I was still seeing glaring texture pop in..
Crysis 3, although it's smaller in scope, has
ZERO detectable texture pop in on my rig and Crysis 3 makes Far Cry 3 looks like a Super Nintendo game.
The engine is just crap. It was obviously designed for consoles primarily, hence craptastic draw distance. As a matter of fact, some guy posted a video comparing the retail version of Far Cry 3, with the demo version in E3, and the differences are striking:
Far Cry 3 retail vs E3 demo
That's just sad.