Can Nginx serve big static file?

Dear list,

I have a server with small RAM (2GB), 2xCPU, HDD w/o RAID. I currently
run
Apache to serve some static files (big, 100MB -> 1GB). Apache got sick
when
trying to handle about 300 connections. It consumes almost of RAM (about
90%), causes server down (CPU load is very small). I have an idea to
change
to nginx. Have anyone use nginx to do smth similar? Can you share some
exp
and results?

Thanks,

-giobuon