New Mac Pro - Loving it!

[Draeconis]

I recently recieved my new Mac Pro;

2.8Ghz Xeon
6Gb 1066Mhz ECC RAM
5870
2Tb HDD
LED Cinema Display

It's fantastic, to be blunt. I was a little concerned I'd got a malfunctioning one, because the intro 'welcome' video was really choppy, but subsequently everything is incredibly smooth.

For anyone thinking of getting one, currently I've tested a few things.

Geekbench in 32bit mode scored 8889 (sorry, don't own it so can't run 64bit mode)

It does boot into the 64bit kernal by default.

EVE Online at 2560x1440 with all options on max runs at 60fps constantly.

Left 4 Dead 2 defaulted to 2560x1440 with all options on highest, barring MSAA settings, which were on 4x I think, 60fps solidly.

I will be installing Windows 7 on it at some point (groan, I know), to see how it runs SupCom 2 and a few other things, at which point I'll let you guys know.

I didnt realise the HDD would be so loud(!) Coming from a MacBook Pro I sort of expected something similar, but it's not! Not that fussed about it really.

The Cinema Display viewing angles are great (by colour) but there's quite a lot of backlight bleed, but on axis it's perfect. Is there any screen that doesn't have backlight bleed? :/

The audio quality is not too bad from the Cinema Display, perhaps a little to strong with the mid frequencies, and not really enough treble, but for speakers inside a monitor, pretty good!

The wifi reception is really good, which sort of surprised me as I'd read some rather negative things about it.

[gabicava83]

Thanks for the review.

That's excellent, glad you are enjoying it.

when you say the HD is loud, are you sure that's the HD and not your graphics card?

Thanks,

G.

I recently recieved my new Mac Pro;

2.8Ghz Xeon
6Gb 1066Mhz ECC RAM
5870
2Tb HDD
LED Cinema Display

It's fantastic, to be blunt. I was a little concerned I'd got a malfunctioning one, because the intro 'welcome' video was really choppy, but subsequently everything is incredibly smooth.

For anyone thinking of getting one, currently I've tested a few things.

Geekbench in 32bit mode scored 8889 (sorry, don't own it so can't run 64bit mode)

It does boot into the 64bit kernal by default.

EVE Online at 2560x1440 with all options on max runs at 60fps constantly.

Left 4 Dead 2 defaulted to 2560x1440 with all options on highest, barring MSAA settings, which were on 4x I think, 60fps solidly.

I will be installing Windows 7 on it at some point (groan, I know), to see how it runs SupCom 2 and a few other things, at which point I'll let you guys know.

I didnt realise the HDD would be so loud(!) Coming from a MacBook Pro I sort of expected something similar, but it's not! Not that fussed about it really.

The Cinema Display viewing angles are great (by colour) but there's quite a lot of backlight bleed, but on axis it's perfect. Is there any screen that doesn't have backlight bleed? :/

The audio quality is not too bad from the Cinema Display, perhaps a little to strong with the mid frequencies, and not really enough treble, but for speakers inside a monitor, pretty good!

The wifi reception is really good, which sort of surprised me as I'd read some rather negative things about it.

[DoFoT9]

wonderful to see you are enjoying the beast! on 64-bit geekbench my i7 2009 iMac only gets ~10k! yours is only on 32-bit! that is insane.

extremely jealous! goodluck with it!

what will you be using it for? work or play?

[Draeconis]

Thanks for the review.

That's excellent, glad you are enjoying it.

when you say the HD is loud, are you sure that's the HD and not your graphics card?

Thanks,

G.

Thanks!

Certainly the HDD, unless graphics cards now make clicking noises? lol

wonderful to see you are enjoying the beast! on 64-bit geekbench my i7 2009 iMac only gets ~10k! yours is only on 32-bit! that is insane.

extremely jealous! goodluck with it!

what will you be using it for? work or play?

Your i7 and my Xeon should score pretty much the same as they're basically the same CPU afaik?

I bought it for music production and creating audiovisual elements for performances. I use Ableton Live, Logic Studio and VDMX, and they all work veeeery well on my new machine!

[gabicava83]

Your HD if new, should certainly not be "clicking". I would speak to Apple to be honest with you.

Good buy though, I am undecided between many of the models, but defo need to get one.

Pics of the setup would be awesome :D

Thanks!

Certainly the HDD, unless graphics cards now make clicking noises? lol



Your i7 and my Xeon should score pretty much the same as they're basically the same CPU afaik?

I bought it for music production and creating audiovisual elements for performances. I use Ableton Live, Logic Studio and VDMX, and they all work veeeery well on my new machine!

[Kenndac]

Your HD if new, should certainly not be "clicking". I would speak to Apple to be honest with you.

What? Many hard drives (especially faster ones) make clicking noises as they're accessing data. It's completely normal.

OP: Congrats on your great machine! :D

[gabicava83]

I suppose it depends how you label clicking.

Personally, clicking to me would be the sound of when an HD is on it's way out! Considering I do this day in, day out, I can normally tell the difference.

Light tapping, is what you're describing as it accesses data, now, I am talking about normal hard drives 7200rpm max, which are what are installed on MP's.

Anyhow, what screen did you get Draeconis, by the sounds of it a 27"?





What? Many hard drives (especially faster ones) make clicking noises as they're accessing data. It's completely normal.

OP: Congrats on your great machine! :D

[DoFoT9]

Your i7 and my Xeon should score pretty much the same as they're basically the same CPU afaik?
quad core 2.8ghz with hyperthreading - i7 860. what is yours? i presumed it was a 2010 model, which is slightly different.

I bought it for music production and creating audiovisual elements for performances. I use Ableton Live, Logic Studio and VDMX, and they all work veeeery well on my new machine!
oh i dont doubt that! you will need more then 6GB RAM! i am running 12GB atm ;) keep up!

[Draeconis]

I suppose it depends how you label clicking.

Personally, clicking to me would be the sound of when an HD is on it's way out! Considering I do this day in, day out, I can normally tell the difference.

Light tapping, is what you're describing as it accesses data, now, I am talking about normal hard drives 7200rpm max, which are what are installed on MP's.

Anyhow, what screen did you get Draeconis, by the sounds of it a 27"?

Usually I don't hear it, but when I was pulling all my documents from my MacBook Pro, it was pretty loud (I imagine it's the head flying about, I was doing about 6 file transfers to different locations).

I have the 27" LED Cinema Display, it's very nice! Bigger than I was expecting, it's basically an iMac without the Mac!

quad core 2.8ghz with hyperthreading - i7 860. what is yours? i presumed it was a 2010 model, which is slightly different.


oh i dont doubt that! you will need more then 6GB RAM! i am running 12GB atm ;) keep up!

Quad Core Xeon W3530 2.8Ghz with HT. I think the difference is basically it's a Xeon, so it has another QuickPath-Interconnect bus channel for speaking to another CPU?

I actually found 4Gb on my MBP was pretty decent, I only got 6Gb as 3 seemed a little diminutive!

[DoFoT9]

Quad Core Xeon W3530 2.8Ghz with HT. I think the difference is basically it's a Xeon, so it has another QuickPath-Interconnect bus channel for speaking to another CPU?
ahh so yup virtually the same. you have QPI i have DPI or whatever it is called.

I actually found 4Gb on my MBP was pretty decent, I only got 6Gb as 3 seemed a little diminutive!
i had 4GB on my iMac. was dog slow as i run quite a few virtual machines at any one time. i have used all 12GB RAM on my imac and have started paging out to Virtual Memory. meh.

[Draeconis]

i had 4GB on my iMac. was dog slow as i run quite a few virtual machines at any one time. i have used all 12GB RAM on my imac and have started paging out to Virtual Memory. meh.

How many? What OSs were you virtualising? I've been following the development of Ubuntu using VirtualBox and old Windows boxes for quite a while, 10.10 looks pretty good so far, though I'm not sure they've updated VirtualBox to fully support it yet.

I managed to kernal panic my MBP by running an installation of Ubuntu 10.10 beta, another VM running an installation of Jolicloud, another VM running Chrome OS, and a few other things in the background, wasn't too surprised!

[DoFoT9]

How many? What OSs were you virtualising? I've been following the development of Ubuntu using VirtualBox and old Windows boxes for quite a while, 10.10 looks pretty good so far, though I'm not sure they've updated VirtualBox to fully support it yet.
currently on this machine -
• osx 10.6 server (learning how to use it) 1GB RAM
•*windows 2008 server - 1GB RAM (uni assignment)
•*windows 2003 server - 1GB RAM (uni assignment)
• windows xp client - 512MB RAM (uni assignment) - logs on to 2008/2003 machines through Active Directory
• ubuntu 10.04 server - 512MB RAM - mucking around
sometimes also have Win7 for ripping BDs, and vista VM has a few specific programs installed on it.

i use Parallels 6 by the way.

i wil be downloading 10.10 quite soon - it sounds good!

I managed to kernal panic my MBP by running an installation of Ubuntu 10.10 beta, another VM running an installation of Jolicloud, another VM running Chrome OS, and a few other things in the background, wasn't too surprised!
Chrome OS! really? how do you like it!? where can i get it from!? 10.10 drivers wont be ready for a while i presume.

[Draeconis]

currently on this machine -
• osx 10.6 server (learning how to use it) 1GB RAM
•*windows 2008 server - 1GB RAM (uni assignment)
•*windows 2003 server - 1GB RAM (uni assignment)
• windows xp client - 512MB RAM (uni assignment) - logs on to 2008/2003 machines through Active Directory
• ubuntu 10.04 server - 512MB RAM - mucking around
sometimes also have Win7 for ripping BDs, and vista VM has a few specific programs installed on it.

i use Parallels 6 by the way.

i wil be downloading 10.10 quite soon - it sounds good!


Chrome OS! really? how do you like it!? where can i get it from!? 10.10 drivers wont be ready for a while i presume.

I wasn't sure you could run virtualised copies of OS X? Is this relaxed just for OS X Server?

Does the SuperDrive actually read BDs if you have Windows running? I wasn't sure the drive supported it? How do you rip it?

Chrome OS isn't too bad, quite interesting. The version I got was the early built of it, it was pretty laggy, but booted up in exactly 10 seconds, which was impressive. Seems like a nice idea, I'm interested to see the resulting products, but I'm not sure I'll get one myself.

I got the build of Chrome OS from gdgt, link is here (http://gdgt.com/google/chrome-os/download/).

[Transporteur]

Quad Core Xeon W3530 2.8Ghz with HT. I think the difference is basically it's a Xeon, so it has another QuickPath-Interconnect bus channel for speaking to another CPU?


Your XEON is a SP unit, hence can't be used with another processor.
The main difference between your XEON and the i7 is basically the added feature to use ECC RAM. Performance wise the processors are pretty much the same.

[Draeconis]

Ahh I see. Seems a bit strange other machines don't have ECC Ram?

[Transporteur]

Ahh I see. Seems a bit strange other machines don't have ECC Ram?

Why? All Mac Pro's use ECC RAM?

[johnnymg]

snip...........
Left 4 Dead 2 defaulted to 2560x1440 with all options on highest, barring MSAA settings, which were on 4x I think, 60fps solidly.

snip.........

Big congrats on your new MP.

What controller are you using for L4D?

cheers
JohnG

[dp84]

I recently recieved my new Mac Pro;

2.8Ghz Xeon
6Gb 1066Mhz ECC RAM
5870
2Tb HDD



same as mine, recieved 1 week ago.
I love it :)

[Draeconis]

Big congrats on your new MP.

What controller are you using for L4D?

cheers
JohnG

Thanks! Just a standard laser usb mouse and the Apple keyboard.

I do really like the Magic Mouse which came with the Mac Pro, one finger scrolling is unsurpassed in terms of new GUI paradigms, but the damn movement rate is poor, even at maximum, and as a gaming mouse, it doesn't really work :/

I'm a keyboard and mouse person, I do own a 360, and really enjoy using it, but the console controller will never be better in FPS games than a keyboard and mouse.

Why? All Mac Pro's use ECC RAM?

Sorry, what I meant is why don't other types of Mac / other PCs use ECC RAM?

[dp84]

Sorry, what I meant is why don't other types of Mac / other PCs use ECC RAM?

ECC are usually for Workstations and servers.
In the normal systems usually this further security step (Error Correction Code) is not required..

[DualShock]

but the damn movement rate is poor, even at maximum, and as a gaming mouse, it doesn't really work :/

Try MagicPrefs?

http://magicprefs.com/

[Draeconis]

Try MagicPrefs?

http://magicprefs.com/

Thank you SO much, it's free! :)

[ulbador]

Try MagicPrefs?

http://magicprefs.com/

Although nice, this doesn't fix all the problems, especially as a gaming mouse. I had to turn off the wheel functionality just to play minecraft because it was so easy to accidentally hit it. Also, I would find it impossible to play an FPS when you are required to actually take your opposing finger off the mouse to left or right click (try it, rest both your right and left fingers on the mouse and try to right click).

[DoFoT9]

I wasn't sure you could run virtualised copies of OS X? Is this relaxed just for OS X Server?
it is all legit - its enabled for OSX server :)

Does the SuperDrive actually read BDs if you have Windows running? I wasn't sure the drive supported it? How do you rip it?
no, a DVD drive cannot read BDs. i have an externally attached BD drive - which is then mounted into windows.

Chrome OS isn't too bad, quite interesting. The version I got was the early built of it, it was pretty laggy, but booted up in exactly 10 seconds, which was impressive. Seems like a nice idea, I'm interested to see the resulting products, but I'm not sure I'll get one myself.

I got the build of Chrome OS from gdgt, link is here (http://gdgt.com/google/chrome-os/download/).
thanks very much for the link! i will HAVE to check it out, i take it that it is VERY web based/cloud based?

Ahh I see. Seems a bit strange other machines don't have ECC Ram?
ECC isnt needed by anybody for most cases - its more or less to prevent errors in calculations, which are rare. given that the MacPro is marketed as a high end server grade workstation, i think thats the justification behind the ECC RAM.

Try MagicPrefs?

http://magicprefs.com/
i prefer BetterTouch Tool :)

[J the Ninja]

It should be noted in all this i7 and Xeon business that "Core i7" covers several CPU families. The Xeon W3530 = i7 930, both are socket 1366 parts, with the big server-grade tri-channel ECC memory controller, and QuickPath for communicating with the chipset. (ECC is disabled on the ones sold under the i7 name). The i7 860 is a much more tame part, using socket 1156 and aimed at the consumer market. It uses the slower DMI for chipset interfacing (although note that it has an integrated PCIe controller, the QPI ones have the PCIe controller on the chipset rather than the CPU).

Really, it's not that the SP Xeons are rebadged consumer chips, at least not since Nehalem came out. It's more like the high-end gamer line are the test dummies for the server line, and just ship with ECC turned off.