The interband optical absorption of a nonuniform semiconductor quantum dot system is calculated. The effect of dot size variation on the resolvability of the absorption peaks is estimated. The dots are assumed to be cubic, with a size distribution described by a Gaussian function. It is shown that the total absorption spectrum of such a dot system depends strongly on the dot size distribution described by the parameter &xgr;, the ratio of the standard deviation of the dot size to the average dot size of the system. The range of &xgr; values for which the absorption peaks are resolvable is given.