Mac Pro 2.93Quad Vs 3.2OctRefurb Vs 2.66Oct, what is the best for audio production?

[select]

Hi at everyone,
i'm a new member of this interesting forum.
In these days i would buy a mac pro for audio production. I currently use Cubase on a Windows platform, and now i would switch to Mac platform to continue using Cubase (even with Windows via bootcamp) and in parallel Logic/Pro Tools on Leopard. I apologize for the post that may be repetitive, but still I have not seen a true comparison between these three for audio production..
I'm undecided between the power of a 2.93Quad (but there is the problem of the limit of 8gb) or buy a refurb 3.2Octo Early2008 (even if the price is high: 3600 eur!) or bite the teeth and take a 2.66Octo ( which should be the most powerful among the three).

I trust in your experience, thanks in advance!

[rockinrocker]

Oh geeze, here we go again.... :rolleyes:

I'm just giving you a hard time cause there's a couple threads on this issue. I don't think you even have to search, just scroll down this forum a page or two.

Long story short, any should work great so (my personal feeling is) go for whatever you can get the best deal on.

Also, side note here, I'm a Cubase user also, you know it's cross platform so you can use it under OSX right? And it doesn't matter if your projects were created under Windows or not, you can go back and forth freely.

Though the one advantage for the Windows version (if you've got the recently released 5) is that it's 64 bit already and we're still waiting for that on the OSX side.

[select]

thank you rockinrocker for your reply,
OSX with snow leopard will change to 64 bit and i assume that Cubase5 will have updates, but for hardware, who better to exploit this potential? It 's a big dilemma :rolleyes:. The 2.93Quad is the one that attracts me more to the value for money, but still i haven't seen evidence as regards for the audio software and then the limit of 8GB is a big limit?

[clownjuggles]

There is a digital audio based forum as well on here just a heads up.

[Abidubi]

There is no 8GB limit. The "limit" is 16GB and no one really knows if that is it. It may be able to take bigger modules (but 16GB is plenty for me).

[Tesselator]

I would say that if you clocked the various operations that you do (we do) in a typical audio session that the 3.2 from 2008 will probably be faster at most operations than the 2.93.

The 2.93 might be faster at encoding - maybe. So far though there's lots of problems being reported with the new 2009 machines for audio editing and no fixes from the software vendors either. If you can get the 3.2 2008 machine for about the same as the 2.93 quad I would go for it!

[Abidubi]

So far though there's lots of problems being reported with the new 2009 machines for audio editing and no fixes from the software vendors either.

All you have to do is turn off hyper-threading and it's just like a 2008 4 core.

And the 2.93 is definitely faster than the 3.2 in single threaded apps according to the graphs you put up. Unless it uses more than 4 cores, the 2.93 will probably do everything snappier. As well at 3000 the 2.93 quad is cheaper than the 3.2, which is about 3500-4000 still. http://store.apple.com/us/product/FB451LL/A?mco=MjE0NDk5Mw

http://tesselator.gpmod.com/Images/_Equipment_n_Tutorials/Cinebench10_Numbers.jpg

[select]

Thanks guys for your detailed answers,
the fact of my indecision was based on this last point ....is convenient spend 3500-4000 for a "Refurb" Octo 3.2 with 2GB of RAM? The price is near to a 2.66 Octo (which is most powerful)....The 2.93 Quad is an excellent machine, but i would like to know if anyone of you has already tested some application audio how Cubase / Logic / Pro Tools (with several VST Pluginn) and if they need much work in multithreaded and more RAM (then Octad).

[Fomaphone]

Thanks guys for your detailed answers,
the fact of my indecision was based on this last point ....is convenient spend 3500-4000 for a "Refurb" Octo 3.2 with 2GB of RAM? The price is near to a 2.66 Octo (which is most powerful)....The 2.93 Quad is an excellent machine, but i would like to know if anyone of you has already tested some application audio how Cubase / Logic / Pro Tools (with several VST Pluginn) and if they need much work in multithreaded and more RAM (then Octad).

are you figuring in $400 for RAM on the 3.2? that'd go farther performance wise in the new machine.

[Tesselator]

All you have to do is turn off hyper-threading and it's just like a 2008 4 core.

And the 2.93 is definitely faster than the 3.2 in single threaded apps according to the graphs you put up. Unless it uses more than 4 cores, the 2.93 will probably do everything snappier. As well at 3000 the 2.93 quad is cheaper than the 3.2, which is about 3500-4000 still. http://store.apple.com/us/product/FB451LL/A?mco=MjE0NDk5Mw


No, no. Don't confuse my benchmark graph. This is the speed of the machines when 100% of 1 core is used or 100% of all cores is used. This is not for example the relative speed of the machines when 20% of one core is used or when 30% of all cores are in use. In the later situations the 3.2 should be considerably faster than the 2.93.

PS: How do you propose turning off HT? Did Apple write a system preference or boot-time option to do so?


Thanks guys for your detailed answers,
the fact of my indecision was based on this last point ....is convenient spend 3500-4000 for a "Refurb" Octo 3.2 with 2GB of RAM? The price is near to a 2.66 Octo (which is most powerful)....The 2.93 Quad is an excellent machine, but i would like to know if anyone of you has already tested some application audio how Cubase / Logic / Pro Tools (with several VST Pluginn) and if they need much work in multithreaded and more RAM (then Octad).

I use those apps. I never see all of my CPUs hit more than about 40% or 50% and that's REALLY rare. For any kind of music or audio work the 3.2 should be the fastest box Apple makes - period. Also I wouldn't say they need more work on multi-threading... I would say they've done all they can and little to nothing more in terms of MT can be added to them. Most applications actually CAN NOT be multi-threaded well.


.

[nicolasmasset]

Hi Select,

How bout a 2.8 new octo for 1800€? That's what they were going for in the UK and I might just know a place where they'd still have one.

I was in the same situation as you a few weeks ago and went for the '08 machine, due to it's stability and very good reputation. Even the manager of the apple store here told me to get one if I could find one. Unless of course, I went for the octo 2.66, which would indeed be better but cost double!!! I recently started this thread on GS (http://www.gearslutz.com/board/electronic-music-instruments-electronic-music-production/381397-ableton-live-cpu-meter-vs-actual-cpu-usage.html) which help me come to the conclusion that having 8 cores really is beneficial, as each seperate track will use it's own core. The ableton tech guy told me I might actually get worse performance with the new quads than the old octo's because Ableton cannot and will not in the near future do multithreading.

Well anyhow, I guess my philosophy was: Anything would blow my macbook out of the water, so I might as well get the cheapest option. The step up from the 2300€ 2.8 octo (with extra ram and drives) to the 4500€ 2.6 octo (with extra ram and drives), would most likely buy me a new entry level mac pro in a couple of years.

And please don't forget extra ram and drives! Ontop of the 1800€ mac pro, I've already spent another 500€ on drives and ram!

Nicolas

PS: How do you propose turning off HT? Did Apple write a system preference or boot-time option to do so?.

I suggest you guys read the protools thread (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=670297&highlight=multithreading), there's an interesting link there to a cubase site which recommends turning off hyperthreading until further notice.

[Gonk42]

The 3.2 octo refurb on the UK site is £2499 which should be around 2800 euros, I know that the exchange rate is fluctuating and our VAT is down at 15% at present but 3500 to 4000 euro sounds expensive.

[Tesselator]

I suggest you guys read the protools thread (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=670297&highlight=multithreading), there's an interesting link there to a cubase site which recommends turning off hyperthreading until further notice.

Yeah. I've read that.
we recommend turning off Hyper-Threading in the BIOS on PC systems. As this is not possible on the latest Mac Pro systems, we cannot recommend using those systems until further notice.

And this issue with a whole host of applications I might add, has always been a problem on the PCs with HT since HT first appeared. Way less than 10% of affected apps have ever offered a solution either. The resort was always to turn off HT. That's OK I guess but if you do this on Apple systems you're now not only paying $2600 more for the system but you're right back to almost exactly the same performance we had for the 06, 07, and 08 machines of the same clock and cores. Meaning that the new 2008 octad @ 2.66 will now perform and benchmark almost identically to the 2007 octad @ 2.66 - with HT off I mean. HT is the main thing that makes these 09 machines seem faster in some benchmarks. And that's assuming Apple (or some hacker) even writes a switch for it. It may prove technically very difficult on Macs... I dunno.

But the OP is interested in "the most powerful" system for the apps he specified and that's the 2008 3.2 without any doubt so none of this may even matter (to him).

The benchmarks in the graph I made which Abidubi posted, do not apply to music and audio editing. It applies to almost any app that regularly or easily maxes out one or all cores and additionally depends on HT for the high marks that the 09 machines are showing. Audio and music apps don't typically max out anything and as you have pointed out have a hard time with HT - as has always been the case.

[nicolasmasset]

Audio and music apps don't typically max out anything and as you have pointed out have a hard time with HT - as has always been the case.

On buffer size 256, I regularly max out one core in Live. Well not max out, but 70% is enough to get it crackling. That's why smart use of plugins is more important than 2.8->3.2 clock increase imo.

[ekwipt]

http://evan.se/LogicBenchmarkChart.jpg

[Tesselator]

...Well not max out, but 70%

Exactly.

________________________________________________________________
Also I was just thinking and people having trouble with HT and some audio applications might want to try installing the Processor.prefPane from the XCode tools developer kit (from Apple) and then turning off every-other CPU core. That might fix it! In fact I betcha it does - if it lists 16 cores on an Octad and 8 on a quad.

Download it from here: http://developer.apple.com/technology/tools.html
Install,
Then navigate to Macintosh HD/Developer/Extras/PreferencePanes/
Double-click on the Processor.prefPane and answer Yes when it asks you to install.

Note: If it doesn't install properly just copy Processor.prefPane manually into your
Macintosh HD/System/Library/PreferencePanes folder.


Open System Preferences,
Click Processors,
Turn off all even numbered cores.
Then just use your pro-tools (or other HT incompatible application) normally.




I'll give it a try a little later and report back.

EDIT: Oh, wait... I can't try this.. Silly me... I don't have HT capable processors. :D LOL!


.

[select]

http://evan.se/LogicBenchmarkChart.jpg

Yeah. I've read that.


And this issue with a whole host of applications I might add, has always been a problem on the PCs with HT since HT first appeared. Way less than 10% of affected apps have ever offered a solution either. The resort was always to turn off HT. That's OK I guess but if you do this on Apple systems you're now not only paying $2600 more for the system but you're right back to almost exactly the same performance we had for the 06, 07, and 08 machines of the same clock and cores. Meaning that the new 2008 octad @ 2.66 will now perform and benchmark almost identically to the 2007 octad @ 2.66 - with HT off I mean. HT is the main thing that makes these 09 machines seem faster in some benchmarks. And that's assuming Apple (or some hacker) even writes a switch for it. It may prove technically very difficult on Macs... I dunno.

But the OP is interested in "the most powerful" system for the apps he specified and that's the 2008 3.2 without any doubt so none of this may even matter (to him).

The benchmarks in the graph I made which Abidubi posted, do not apply to music and audio editing. It applies to almost any app that regularly or easily maxes out one or all cores and additionally depends on HT for the high marks that the 09 machines are showing. Audio and music apps don't typically max out anything and as you have pointed out have a hard time with HT - as has always been the case.

Now everything is clearer. In brief Audio Softwares (see the note posted by Tesselator of Steinberg) still does not make good on HT systems and ekwipt table clearly shows the superiority of the Mac Pro 2008 ... at this point, my choice would the 3.2Oct refurb at 3700eur!! I tried to find a new 2.8Oct, but are now unavailable! Refurb products are reliable? I saw that you can apply the extension AppleCare and this point agrees to buy and also the case for 3 years remaining quiet.... I think and i hope to make the right choice!

Thank you at all for your valuable suggestions

[Gonk42]

... at this point, my choice would the 3.2Oct refurb at 3700eur!! I tried to find a new 2.8Oct, but are now unavailable!

As I put in my earlier post, there is one currently on the UK site at £2499 which at 0.9£ to the euro is 2777eur. If you're in the EU I would have thought you could buy it directly (I'm not an expert but I thought that there were EU laws on free trade within the EU). Else you could use it as a bargaining point with your local Apple people to get the 3700eur price down a bit.

here is the URL:

http://store.apple.com/uk/product/FB451B/A?mco=MjE0NDk5Mw

[Mac Husky]

As far as I know, Apple Stores are not selling/sending in foreign contries at all.
Some dealers in UK might do. But they have no refurbished systems of course.

[select]

As I put in my earlier post, there is one currently on the UK site at £2499 which at 0.9£ to the euro is 2777eur. If you're in the EU I would have thought you could buy it directly (I'm not an expert but I thought that there were EU laws on free trade within the EU). Else you could use it as a bargaining point with your local Apple people to get the 3700eur price down a bit.

here is the URL:

http://store.apple.com/uk/product/FB451B/A?mco=MjE0NDk5Mw

and yes, indeed the 3.2 Reurb of the Uk Store is definitely cheaper (the price they should be), but I'm in Italy and i don't know if they can despatch in other countries. Afternoon, i call Apple and ask ...one thing that i wonder, but these "refurb" are good?

[Ploki]

refurbs have all the worn components replaced, its apple branded with same warranty:) for less.

on the side, i have the 2.8 08 and use logic with bunch of plugs and works GREAT.

[nicolasmasset]

Select, if you're interested in a 2.8 for 1800€, try www.albion.co.uk
Call up all their main store in london and ask. I just took the ferry and got one in tunbridge wells 10 days ago and they said they had some left in london! And if you call tunbridge wells, ask for jarvis and tell him I said hi! Don't know if they do shipping though, but at that price, perhaps you can pursuade them by paying a little more? ;)

[Roy]

refurbs have all the worn components replaced, its apple branded with same warranty:) for less.

on the side, i have the 2.8 08 and use logic with bunch of plugs and works GREAT.

Are you sure about this? At what point would Apple replace a component? A refurb could be an Apple Store Demonstrator model, a return within the 14 day period, and a variety of reasons. I'm sure Apple replaces defective parts, but most parts are not going to show any wear at all and Apple just warrants these refubs for one year, as the originals are, and then if a component fails during that one year, they replace it.

[Ploki]

Are you sure about this? At what point would Apple replace a component? A refurb could be an Apple Store Demonstrator model, a return within the 14 day period, and a variety of reasons. I'm sure Apple replaces defective parts, but most parts are not going to show any wear at all and Apple just warrants these refubs for one year, as the originals are, and then if a component fails during that one year, they replace it.
close enough.
i dont even have apple care for new product in my country so.. all you said sounds like a wonderful dream :S

to be honest im not sure.

[Roy]

close enough.
i dont even have apple care for new product in my country so.. all you said sounds like a wonderful dream :S

to be honest im not sure.

In one way I think refubs are expensive for a "used" product. Apple only knocks off a small percentage off the original price. In another way, I think it's great because it shows Mac's hold their value, even as a "used" machine.

[Ploki]

its used yeah, but still with warranty and "new" looks if nothing else :) not many used products have a "new" look

[Tesselator]

Very true. I've bought a few refurbished computers in the past and it's always been impossible for me to see any use on anything. It's always been identical to brand new. <shrug>

[ekwipt]

Now everything is clearer. In brief Audio Softwares (see the note posted by Tesselator of Steinberg) still does not make good on HT systems and ekwipt table clearly shows the superiority of the Mac Pro 2008 ... at this point, my choice would the 3.2Oct refurb at 3700eur!! I tried to find a new 2.8Oct, but are now unavailable! Refurb products are reliable? I saw that you can apply the extension AppleCare and this point agrees to buy and also the case for 3 years remaining quiet.... I think and i hope to make the right choice!

Thank you at all for your valuable suggestions

but i think this will change, there's no way apple will let their new computers be slower than their older ones, a software update on logic will fix this for sure, it's just a matter of time.

I think the Quad 2.93 is the best choice unless you have money to kill

Changed what i'd buy:

MacPro Quad 2.93
Intel X-25M 80Gb SSD
ATI Radeon 4970
Seagate 7200.12 500Gb Samples Drive
Logic Studio

[Tesselator]

but i think this will change, there's no way apple will let their new computers be slower than their older ones,

Well they didn't really. They adjusted their price scheduling +$1,000 ~ +$2,700 and then tried to sneak this by us by comparing each unit to the one faster from last year.

So they're basically trying to say that the 2.66 quad in 2009 is about equal to the 2.8 octad from 2008. And for a few specific parts of a few specific apps this may be true. In general of course, it's not true at all. Anyway it seems that this is the logic they're using for their new pricing - by looking at the new machines and the new prices. When (if?) they come out with a 3.2 Nehalem it will be the fastest Mac ever and probably at all things. Until then don't be fooled and compare the number of physical cores and the clocks between machines as common sense would dictate that we should. At least for general use.

Snow Leopard isn't going to change this unless they do something crazy like cripple it when installed on older machines and that just doesn't make any sense. The percentage gains the new machines see will be the same percentage gains we see on all Intel Macs across the board.

[select]

At the end, after several searches, i found a new 2.8 at 2500eur .... I have saved a lot and i keep them for a possible new purchase future .... the 3.2 refurb was too expensive and not convenient!

[Tesselator]

Congratz man. The 2.8 octad is a wonderful machine! You'll be happy! :)

[nicolasmasset]

Nice one!

[Ploki]

but i think this will change, there's no way apple will let their new computers be slower than their older ones, a software update on logic will fix this for sure, it's just a matter of time.

I think the Quad 2.93 is the best choice unless you have money to kill

Changed what i'd buy:

MacPro Quad 2.93
Intel X-25M 80Gb SSD
ATI Radeon 4970
Seagate 7200.12 500Gb Samples Drive
Logic Studio
wont be slower, but wont be significantly faster either, and i very much doubt that quad 2.93 will be faster than 2.8x8 for audio.

to the OP:
congrats :)

[ekwipt]

wont be slower, but wont be significantly faster either, and i very much doubt that quad 2.93 will be faster than 2.8x8 for audio.

to the OP:
congrats :)

Nehalem ram is a lot lower latency than the fbdimm. When logic is able to handle HT, i think it will pawn the older 2.8 octos, especially for heavy sample users (EXS or BFD etc.) when using a lot of effects the newer Nehalem design will help too.

[Tesselator]

When logic is able to handle HT, i think it will pawn the older 2.8 octos,

I don't. Nope, not at all. Also I think the question is not when but if. This issue hasn't been resolved in the past 6 or 7 years on PeeCee. Bios options have had to be used to turn off HT. And if Apple offers the same solution (and I think they might have to) then not only will they "not be significantly faster" they will actually be near identical to clock/core comparisons from 2008 or previous.

[blackcrayon]

I don't. Nope, not at all. Also I think the question is not when but if. This issue hasn't been resolved in the past 6 or 7 years on PeeCee. Bios options have had to be used to turn off HT. And if Apple offers the same solution (and I think they might have to) then not only will they "not be significantly faster" they will actually be near identical to clock/core comparisons from 2008 or previous.

Perhaps but I'd like to think that Apple, who wrote the OS, the application (in this case anyway with Logic), AND designed the hardware- would be able to figure out how to make HT work properly... None of the PC vendors would've been able to claim even 2 of any of those 3 parts of the equation.

[Infrinjensen]

I have the 1st gen Mac Pro 2.66 quad, and I want to make it faster and able to handle more with protools 8 without buying another computer... Is there a way to upgrade the processor/cores to that of the 2008 2.8 octo that everyone raves about? Will I notice that much of a difference with a 2.8 over the 2.66? I already know I'm gonna get 4 more GB ram. I like to stack lots of plug-ins.. :eek:



Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro1,1
Processor Name: Dual-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
Number Of Processors: 2
Total Number Of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per processor): 4 MB
Memory: 5 GB
Bus Speed: 1.33 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MP11.005C.B08