Sandy Bridge next year? really?

[Bokes]

I have an older Macpro (06) I would like to replace. There seems to be little excitement for the current offerings and a whole lot of talk about
"Sandy Bridge". What is so great about SB? And why do so many here believe it will be out next year? Look how long it took Apple to get us this Westmere.

So many seem to be willing to wait for Sandy B- real facts to support next year?

[eponym]

As far as I know consumer SB chips are slated for Q4 2010. And the server grade versions (ie Mac Pro chips) will follow later in 2011.

There's no reason to think Apple won't refresh the pros with the newest Intel chips in a year.

[Umbongo]

So far the date we have seen for Xeon processors is the second half of 2011.

Apple have released 3 of the 4 Mac Pros within 2 months of new processors. We've no idea what reason there is for the latest ones being 5 months after new processors. So with that all in mind it is perfectly feasible they will come in 2011, but I think now people should be more wary about waiting.

[apolloa]

Just buy one. Forget Sandy Bridge. The current core chips are a pretty good and a big improvement over the Core Duo's. I don't know why everyone thinks they are a 'small' upgrade when in fact the current chips are a big upgrade, they have the memory controllers on board for one plus other features which has removed the normal separate on board chip for these entirely.
I believe Xeons are the same, they just have different names and some extra functions over normal CPU's.

If we were expecting SB in 2 months I would say wait. Otherwise just buy one now. The 6 core seems to be a stonking performer reading this forum.

[Vylen]

Well, Sandy Bridge gives some interesting prospects - since they plan on having 8-core Xeons. So you can have a single-cpu 8-core Mac Pro, and a dual-cpu 16-core Mac Pro.

Pretty insane and possibly worth the wait if you realllllllllllllly need 16-cores :p

[xgman]

I doubt Apple will be in any hurry to release these. Judging from this years crop, add 5 months on to the "real" Sandy Bridge release date and even then don't hold your breath.

[Cindori]

sandy bridge is already coming in a few months, as is ATI Radeon 6000 series.

sandy bridge for servers (and macpro) will take another year tho. so q4 2011

[studiox]

Well, Sandy Bridge gives some interesting prospects - since they plan on having 8-core Xeons. So you can have a single-cpu 8-core Mac Pro, and a dual-cpu 16-core Mac Pro.

Pretty insane and possibly worth the wait if you realllllllllllllly need 16-cores :p

If you really need 16 cores, or 32 virtual cores money cant be an option and you just get a nice EFI flash next year when the new proc has been released and get them from your local pc dealer. As always they will be.. expensive. We all know what a stock 3.33G 6-core costs...

[Cindori]

If you really need 16 cores, or 32 virtual cores money cant be an option and you just get a nice EFI flash next year when the new proc has been released and get them from your local pc dealer. As always they will be.. expensive. We all know what a stock 3.33G 6-core costs...

sandy bridge will be a new socket and no one has performed a successful software efi flash yet.

[Giuly]

Well, Sandy Bridge gives some interesting prospects - since they plan on having 8-core Xeons. So you can have a single-cpu 8-core Mac Pro, and a dual-cpu 16-core Mac Pro.

Pretty insane and possibly worth the wait if you realllllllllllllly need 16-cores :p
You saw the already released Becktown Xeon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeon#6500.2F7500-series_.22Beckton.22) octo-cores, right?

Sandy/Ivy Bridge are not focussing on performance, they focus on power consumption. It gets more interesting with Haswell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haswell_(microarchitecture)), as it comes with 8 cores by default. (Means, we finally get quad core MBPs)

[Vylen]

You saw the already released Becktown Xeon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeon#6500.2F7500-series_.22Beckton.22) octo-cores, right?

Yea, but you're not going to see those in a Mac Pro...

[Giuly]

Yea, but you're not going to see those in a Mac Pro...
Well, that's Apples fault to choose Intel over AMD, as those 8 core Xeons cost $2700 (2GHz) and $3800 (2.26GHz) each.

A 2.40Ghz 8 core AMD Opteron costs ~$900, less then the Intel 6-cores. Also, AMD has released 12 core CPUs - 12x2.20GHz for $1200.

Even if AMD CPUs are slower - MacPro users who render stuff rely on parallel executon of their code, thus need more cores rather then more speed per core. A 12 core Opteron would be much faster then a 6 core Xeon when heavily rely on multitasking. (Yeah, I know, HT. But HT only uses unused parts of the core to emulate a second core, and execute another thread if the cache is to slow for the CPU to provide the data, and such stuff.) They are also higher clocked then the Xeons to compensate the architectural disadvantages.

[Hellhammer]

Sandy/Ivy Bridge are not focussing on performance, they focus on power consumption. It gets more interesting with Haswell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haswell_(microarchitecture)), as it comes with 8 cores by default. (Means, we finally get quad core MBPs)

Power efficiency means more cores and higher clocks can be used resulting better performance. Clock for clock performance will increase as well. I don't get it where the power consumption theme comes from because mobile quads are still 45W and duals are 35W, just like before. There may be more low voltage models and it looks like LGA 1155 CPUs top out at 95W but there I would guess there will be 130W LGA 2011 CPUs, just like there are LGA 1366 CPUs now.

That 8 cores by default statement is again just a rumor. It's 2.5 years till Haswell so we don't know how many cores there will be in base models

[maflynn]

Given apple's slow update cycle of the MP, I'd not hold out too much hope that we'll see this.

[Giuly]

Power efficiency means more cores and higher clocks can be used resulting better performance. Clock for clock performance will increase as well. I don't get it where the power consumption theme comes from because mobile quads are still 45W and duals are 35W, just like before. There may be more low voltage models and it looks like LGA 1155 CPUs top out at 95W but there I would guess there will be 130W LGA 2011 CPUs, just like there are LGA 1366 CPUs now.

That 8 cores by default statement is again just a rumor. It's 2.5 years till Haswell so we don't know how many cores there will be in base models
Take a 35W CPU, Sandy Bridge reduces that to - let's say - 30W, then they rise the clocks to get to 35W again.
Have a look here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Bridge_(microarchitecture)), the 35W mobile dual core i7 just raises the clock from 2.66GHz to 2.7Ghz. Still no mobile quad core i7 with 35W TDP, and this data is as of August 11th.

[Hellhammer]

Take a 35W CPU, Sandy Bridge reduces that to - let's say - 25W, then they rise the clocks to get to 35W again.
Have a look here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Bridge_(microarchitecture)), the 35W mobile dual core just raises the clock from 2.66GHz to 2.7Ghz.

There is 2.8GHz i7-640M coming later on this year which is expected to be 35W

[Giuly]

There is 2.8GHz i7-640M coming later on this year which is expected to be 35W
That's what the roadmap from May says, the new roadmap (http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http://www.computerbase.de/news/hardware/prozessoren/intel/2010/august/neue_intel_cpu-roadmap_sandy_bridge/&sl=de&tl=en) from this month slightly differs by 100MHz.

The 640M would be Arrandale, though. The Sandy Bridge one would be Core i7-2640M, and I guess would have 2.9GHz.

[Hellhammer]

That's what the roadmap from May says, the new roadmap (http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http://www.computerbase.de/news/hardware/prozessoren/intel/2010/august/neue_intel_cpu-roadmap_sandy_bridge/&sl=de&tl=en) from this month slightly differs by 100MHz.

I wasn't talking about Sandy Bridge, I was talking about Westmere and more precisely, Arrandale. However, it might have been cancelled because Sandy Bridge is coming earlier than it was supposed to be coming. Anyway, give or take 100MHz, it doesn't affect the performance that much. SB is reported to provide ~20% better clock for clock performance than Nehalem/Westmere so 2.7GHz SB would provide performance of ~3.2GHz Nehalem/Westmere, much faster than any Arrandale is.

[cube]

I want a 32-core Bulldozer.

[milo]

(Yeah, I know, HT. But HT only uses unused parts of the core to emulate a second core, and execute another thread if the cache is to slow for the CPU to provide the data, and such stuff.)

That's a common misconception. The second core isn't emulated, it's a second hardware core although a partial one. And it does provide the benefits of having extra hardware cores in many situations.

[cube]

That's a common misconception. The second core isn't emulated, it's a second hardware core although a partial one. And it does provide the benefits of having extra hardware cores in many situations.

It's not a second hardware core, there are some things duplicated (what's necessary for the core to function as multiple ones), as it's normal in such schemes, but the execution units are not replicated.

[Gloor]

What would be significant about SB except maybe more cores?
I currently have 8 core 2008 with 8gb ram and 8800gt and have two options

1) keep it and maybe buy 5870 for £370
2) sell it and get the new mid2010 with 5870 for an extra £800 with applecare (i have student disc)

Now, hellhammer thinks its not worth it but what about others? Does it makes more sense to wait for SB and then sell? Hence me asking why is SB such a big deal or would I be better of to get mid2010 now with that £800 difference?

What do you think?

[skiffx]

What would be significant about SB except maybe more cores?
I currently have 8 core 2008 with 8gb ram and 8800gt and have two options

1) keep it and maybe buy 5870 for £370
2) sell it and get the new mid2010 with 5870 for an extra £800 with applecare (i have student disc)

Now, hellhammer thinks its not worth it but what about others? Does it makes more sense to wait for SB and then sell? Hence me asking why is SB such a big deal or would I be better of to get mid2010 now with that £800 difference?

What do you think?

or you can wait another week, get 5870 PC version, flash it and it will cost you 1/3 of the Apple's price.

[Transporteur]

or you can wait another week, get 5870 PC version, flash it and it will cost you 1/3 of the Apple's price.

Where do you get a 5870 for $150?

[Gloor]

or you can wait another week, get 5870 PC version, flash it and it will cost you 1/3 of the Apple's price.

Well, if I could then it would be worth it but the cheapest one I found here :

www.overclockers.co.uk

is £290 which is not worth the trouble. If it was £120 then It would be but this way its only £80 cheaper than from Apple so in that case its better to get it officially, right?

What about that Sandy Bridge though? Shall I wait and update in 2011 or 2012? I'm happy with my current setup except the graphic card. Yes, I could have more cores for rendering but there is no such thing as enough cores when it comes to rendering :)))))

Luckily, I don't do that that often so apart from that, would I lose more money to sell now and update to 2010 or sell in 2011-2012 and get that model?

[skiffx]

Where do you get a 5870 for $150?

Well, if I could then it would be worth it but the cheapest one I found here :

www.overclockers.co.uk

is £290 which is not worth the trouble. If it was £120 then It would be but this way its only £80 cheaper than from Apple so in that case its better to get it officially, right?

What about that Sandy Bridge though? Shall I wait and update in 2011 or 2012? I'm happy with my current setup except the graphic card. Yes, I could have more cores for rendering but there is no such thing as enough cores when it comes to rendering :)))))

Luckily, I don't do that that often so apart from that, would I lose more money to sell now and update to 2010 or sell in 2011-2012 and get that model?

Pardon was thinking of 5770 prices, yeh Apple charges a premium over the PC version, but its not that significant.

So yeh if for 400 pounds more (over the GPU upgrade) you can have a newer machine, might be something to go for then.

[Chupa Chupa]

I have an older Macpro (06) I would like to replace. There seems to be little excitement for the current offerings and a whole lot of talk about "Sandy Bridge".

It's really the nature of computers. Everyone is always looking ahead to the next iteration. There is always something faster coming along, and with that hope there will be other major changes too. Consider the "low end" '09 8 Core is as fast as the top of the line '08 8 Core. But MPs are not "sexy" machines. They are work horses. No one ever got excited about a work horse.

Bottom line: buy when you need to. Obviously if a model year is about to get replaced wait a month or so, but its hard to pin down when Apple will update the MPs next. This is a great time to buy b/c you have your choice of discounted '09s or a brand new model year that will surely last 18 mos. at a min.

[deconstruct60]

I doubt Apple will be in any hurry to release these. Judging from this years crop, add 5 months on to the "real" Sandy Bridge release date and even then don't hold your breath.

They don't have to add 5 months to the Sandy Bridge update release date since the projections so far added 4-5 months to the Xeon update date (used last 2 years) anyway. Intel is moving there release of Xeons from March to June-September timeframe. So at least as likely, given current information, that Apple will be back on the release +/- 1 month window that the other Xeon system vendors will be on in 2011 as they would be on some + 5 month schedule.

Decently likelihood that what happened this Summer to folks waiting for Mac Pro update will happen next Summer for those waiting on HP/Dell/etc. updates.


Since there was as an extremely minor design/engineering update, Apple can have spent lots of time this spring/summer working on prep for the next generation design issues. Unless they cannibalized the folks assigned to Mac Pro to other stuff, there really shouldn't be much of delay since it takes over a year to get completed systems out of the door. There is nothing in shipping this version late that should significantly impede work on the getting the next version out.

The current info is that the next generation Xeons have 4x memory channel/controller capabilities so the 4 slot design of the current Mac Pro doesn't have to be tweaked much. Just some spliting of the line routing to the CPU for the 4th DIMM socket (not shared anymore).

Probably will be some choices to be made about PCI-e v3 , USB 3.0 , and other additional I/O going to add to box that could slow it past the Xeon update window that the other vendors will use, but those shouldn't be show stoppers for Apple.

[deconstruct60]

So many seem to be willing to wait for Sandy B- real facts to support next year?

Sandy Bridge is going to be incrementally faster than the current Westmere CPUs. Mainly:

1. A bit better Memory I/O bandwidth when using 4 DIMMs. (so perhaps the 3 vs. 4 threads will die off some time in late 2011- early 2012. ;) )

2. Better internal network between the cores. ( better multi-core application performance )

3. Better vector computing comparabilities. ( if have apps that heavily leverage SSE going to see significant jump in performance. )

4. Boosts in GHz. Sandy Bridge isn't a process shrink (transistors didn't get smaller) so the boost comes in "better design" in the circuits ( not smaller closer together ones). The "I must have bigger Hz" crowd will be happier. Also the next entry level dual Quad (8-core) model will most likely beat the current 3.33 Hex in more contexts (and still be cheaper. )

Will probably see speed ups from Westmere that range between 10-30% over a variety of apps. They'll be faster, but Westmere won't instantly be "stone age" antiques either.



I think there is also a misconception that the next Mac Pro will come quicker than the current one did because this one took so long. That is bogus. In part this is because the general Sandy Bridge line up is coming out for desktop systems later this Fall. The misconception is flawed because think the Sandy Bridge flavor of the Xeons is coming in March. It is not. It is going to come later. Much later.

The other secondary misconception is that Apple is going to dump Xeons an go desktop extreme version ... again... not very likely. Doesn't really buy anything in terms of cost reduction. Nevermind that Apple isn't slashing the prices of the iMac to open up room for the Mac Pro to move down into.


I think the bigger buzz was not so much the Sandy Bridge Xeon update itself but the other stuff folks speculate will be in the box on the I/O front. Namely USB 3.0 (or not ) , Light Peak ( or not ) , and better I/O (faster PCI-e slots if PCI-e v3 makes cut and the already mentioned better DIMM I/O in max configuration profile. ).

All of those makes dealing with just 4 DIMM (per CPU package) and 4 PCi-e slots easier to manage for larger workloads. The Mac Pro is more viable to the set of users to pack it to the gills with stuff.

For example you could do high end video capture off the USB 3.0 socket. (bingo don't need PCI-e slot for that. ). Likewise some "cures world hunger" capability that the Light Peak socket will bring.



P.S. With the AMD/ATI update for HD6000 series coming later this Fall, a 12 month window for Mac Pro would make it likely that will get HD6000 cards in the next gen Mac Pro given the standard "measured in months" delay between new GPU cards and Mac versions. In other words putting the Mac Pro release in March made that worse. (it was a factor contributing to older video cards in the released configs. )

[iMacmatician]

I don't get it where the power consumption theme comes from because mobile quads are still 45W and duals are 35W, just like before. That 45 W includes the integrated graphics but on the other hand some of the lower power would be from the process shrink.

[deconstruct60]

That 8 cores by default statement is again just a rumor. It's 2.5 years till Haswell so we don't know how many cores there will be in base models

8 cores of what instruction set? Once merge CPU and GPU onto a single die there are a heterogeneous set of cores on the die. So that space folks think is going to get devoted to classic x86 cores will more likely be pushed to GPGPU ones. Intel's graphics are behind the curve on performance. I can't see them staring the GPU performance to push a generic mainstream user core mix up over 4 cores.

Bringing it back to a Mac Pro and Xeon context... Yeah probably would see 8 cores on midrange Xeon models since integrating a GPU into a workstation CPU package doesn't present much sense. There may be a Xeon at that point with an integrated GPU, but it will be aimed at 1U and Blade servers where board space and costs are a premium and the graphics requirements are minimal (if there is any monitor hooked to the server at all). Any product line up that was aim at 2 package capabilities wouldn't have one.

[Concorde Rules]

This is my next step up from my 2009 MP.

Multi-CPU is the way forward :D

[Gomff]

What would be significant about SB except maybe more cores?
I currently have 8 core 2008 with 8gb ram and 8800gt and have two options

1) keep it and maybe buy 5870 for £370
2) sell it and get the new mid2010 with 5870 for an extra £800 with applecare (i have student disc)

Now, hellhammer thinks its not worth it but what about others? Does it makes more sense to wait for SB and then sell? Hence me asking why is SB such a big deal or would I be better of to get mid2010 now with that £800 difference?

What do you think?

Just depends on how much rendering you do and how truly multi threaded the rendering app that you use is. Also factor in whether faster rendering speed equates to more productivity or just that your new machine idles between 6am and 9 am when your current machine might still be working away.....And whether this is relevant or not because you're still in bed sleeping anyway.

The problem with more cores is that if you're not careful it becomes some kind of illusionary productivity boost that never actually materializes. If you really need as many cores as you can for rendering and you're not using Mac exclusive software to do it, you're better off building or buying a PC to crunch the numbers. Mac Pro's are not good value for this at the moment.....Apple and Intel are both adding a premium for the latest processors that don't stack up under most fiscal analysis. This is particularly true if you don't use a lot of multi threaded software or you don't render much of the time.

As an 08 owner, I'd recommend sticking a 5870 in there and getting another couple of years out of your current machine. Until more software catches up with all the multi core hardware tech, it's mostly just a p*ssing contest.

[GroundLoop]

As an 08 owner, I'd recommend sticking a 5870 in there and getting another couple of years out of your current machine. Until more software catches up with all the multi core hardware tech, it's mostly just a p*ssing contest.

This is my thought exactly. I am going to get at least another 3-4 years out of my 2008 (it is not a business machine, just a personal video editing machine/server).

GL

[Hellhammer]

8 cores of what instruction set? Once merge CPU and GPU onto a single die there are a heterogeneous set of cores on the die. So that space folks think is going to get devoted to classic x86 cores will more likely be pushed to GPGPU ones. Intel's graphics are behind the curve on performance. I can't see them staring the GPU performance to push a generic mainstream user core mix up over 4 cores.

With your logic, the 12-core Mac Pro with 5870 should be called 1612 core because 5870 has 1600 stream cores. Your point sounds quite far fetched to me, when we talk about CPUs, it's always the CPU cores, not GPU.

[milo]

It's not a second hardware core, there are some things duplicated (what's necessary for the core to function as multiple ones), as it's normal in such schemes, but the execution units are not replicated.

My point is that it doesn't just "emulate" a second core (which was the old way of doing it and provided very minimal benefit), it actually has additional hardware, which does boost performance almost as much as having additional full cores in some cases.

[Gloor]

Just depends on how much rendering you do and how truly multi threaded the rendering app that you use is. Also factor in whether faster rendering speed equates to more productivity or just that your new machine idles between 6am and 9 am when your current machine might still be working away.....And whether this is relevant or not because you're still in bed sleeping anyway.

The problem with more cores is that if you're not careful it becomes some kind of illusionary productivity boost that never actually materializes. If you really need as many cores as you can for rendering and you're not using Mac exclusive software to do it, you're better off building or buying a PC to crunch the numbers. Mac Pro's are not good value for this at the moment.....Apple and Intel are both adding a premium for the latest processors that don't stack up under most fiscal analysis. This is particularly true if you don't use a lot of multi threaded software or you don't render much of the time.

As an 08 owner, I'd recommend sticking a 5870 in there and getting another couple of years out of your current machine. Until more software catches up with all the multi core hardware tech, it's mostly just a p*ssing contest.

I guess you are right. Thanks for that.

Lets hope the card will be available soon and will work in 08 without any need of flashing or dumping :)

[iMacmatician]

8 cores of what instruction set? Most likely x86.

8 cores of what instruction set? Once merge CPU and GPU onto a single die there are a heterogeneous set of cores on the die. So that space folks think is going to get devoted to classic x86 cores will more likely be pushed to GPGPU ones. Intel's graphics are behind the curve on performance. I can't see them staring the GPU performance to push a generic mainstream user core mix up over 4 cores. With your logic, the 12-core Mac Pro with 5870 should be called 1612 core because 5870 has 1600 stream cores. Your point sounds quite far fetched to me, when we talk about CPUs, it's always the CPU cores, not GPU.How about…

12–1600 core Mac Pro? 12/1600? 12C/320[4+1]SP?

:D

Seriously though, as the CPU becomes more heterogeneous I think more numbers are needed to quantify things. First it was clock speed. Now it's clock speed and core count. Soon it will be CPU clock speed, CPU cores, GPU clock speed, GPU cores, and whatever specialized stuff also ends up on the chip.

[deconstruct60]

With your logic, the 12-core Mac Pro with 5870 should be called 1612 core because 5870 has 1600 stream cores.

That is not my logic at all. Not only are those cores on different dies but in completely separate packages with no direct interconnect.

When the x86 and graphics gpcpu cores are on the same die and leverage the same memory controller(s) you just cannot add cores of one type without impacting the performance of cores of the other type. You have to balance the allocation of cores.

So yes if intel wants the intgrated graphics to go faster they will have to cap the number of x86 cores significantly under 8. There is not that much memory bandwidth to go around.

I was addressing the point of 8 being a default. I don't think the overall archietcure familys going forward are going to have some fixed default. There will be variants within a family where the cores are mixed and matched in different balances.




Your point sounds quite far fetched to me, when we talk about CPUs, it's always the CPU cores, not GPU.

There is a fixed transistor and bandwidth budget. You can't willy nilly just replicate cores on a die without balancing the system. And it isn't far fetched since CPU + GPU packages will be shipping in volume in about 4 months which have to make exactly these kinds of tradeoffs.

What is more far fetched is 8 cores sharing memory bandwidth some moderly fast GPU cores. Strip off the GPU and it gets more believable. So it does come down to how many of what kind.

[VirtualRain]

There is a fixed transistor and bandwidth budget. You can't willy nilly just replicate cores on a die without balancing the system. And it isn't far fetched since CPU + GPU packages will be shipping in volume in about 4 months which have to make exactly these kinds of tradeoffs.

What is more far fetched is 8 cores sharing memory bandwidth some moderly fast GPU cores. Strip off the GPU and it gets more believable. So it does come down to how many of what kind.

I'll be curious to see how they configure things since there's also a TDP budget constraint as well. I really don't see much value outside the low-end of the market in having a GPU (that's relatively poor performing by Intel's track record) stealing transistors, bandwidth and thermal budget from the CPU.