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Cynicalone

macrumors 68040
Jul 9, 2008
3,212
0
Okie land
You should be banned from the Mac Pro forum for that comment.

People with the 2.93GHz Mac Pro's (or non-base) want/need as fast as is possible. e.g. in my case, if I had a 3.2GHz Pro, i would be able to get renders done at 14% higher resolution in the same time...and that's just better...or i could get them done in 12.5% shorter time...and that's also just better...why not have better?

/rant

My point being that although the 3.2Ghz would be nice to have I don't see it happening. And the 2.93Ghz is very fast capable machine holding off an upgrade on the very low chance Apple will update just doesn't seem worth it to me.

I have the 2.93Ghz Octo right now, if I had the choice I would have went with the 3.2Ghz myself. But for most people the .27Ghz speed bump will be almost unnoticeable for the price.
 

nanofrog

macrumors G4
May 6, 2008
11,719
3
It's nice to know the 3.2GHz Gainestown's will work in DP daughter boards, even with the heat spreaders. :D

Tutor took on an expensive experiment...err...proposition. :D :p
 

Umbongo

macrumors 601
Sep 14, 2006
4,934
55
England
My point being that although the 3.2Ghz would be nice to have I don't see it happening. And the 2.93Ghz is very fast capable machine holding off an upgrade on the very low chance Apple will update just doesn't seem worth it to me.

I have the 2.93Ghz Octo right now, if I had the choice I would have went with the 3.2Ghz myself. But for most people the .27Ghz speed bump will be almost unnoticeable for the price.

Well it would depend on the price, Intel's pricing makes the 3.2GHz a logical choice over other speeds if processor power is important. Most people also aren't going to notice the .27GHz over the 2.66GHz either, but ~10% is a lot when you are taxing processor power for hour after hour, day after day.
 

nanofrog

macrumors G4
May 6, 2008
11,719
3
Remember Anand's blog says that single CPU i7 mac pro's ( even the 2.93) have heat spreaders.
Any of the Core i7/Xeon W35xx/Xeon 55xx parts available to a user in retail channels have heat spreaders. :)

Apple had to be an odd ball, and order the 2.93GHz Xeon (X5570) without them. :rolleyes: ;)
 

nanofrog

macrumors G4
May 6, 2008
11,719
3
Anand's blog says that Apple purchase them without IHS for the 8 cores
I'm going by another member's posts (different thread), that had access to multiple systems (disassembled).

Of the Octo's, only the 2.93GHz came up w/o heat spreader. The 2.26 and 2.66 parts still had them. I didn't have any reason to doubt it, as with all models available, the information would be solid.

I'll take a look at Anand's article. :)
 

dagomike

macrumors 65816
Jun 22, 2007
1,451
1
I think we will see an upgrade, but we haven't so who knows. Maybe there's a technical reason or the chips are still hard to come by or some weird agreement. Anyway I hope not because my procuement went through today for the 2.93! :)
 

dagomike

macrumors 65816
Jun 22, 2007
1,451
1
My point being that although the 3.2Ghz would be nice to have I don't see it happening. And the 2.93Ghz is very fast capable machine holding off an upgrade on the very low chance Apple will update just doesn't seem worth it to me.

I have the 2.93Ghz Octo right now, if I had the choice I would have went with the 3.2Ghz myself. But for most people the .27Ghz speed bump will be almost unnoticeable for the price.

Different strokes and all, but the clock rates suggests a 9% increase. All things equal that's significant. Pricing is highly relative to the task and upgrade cycle. That 10% would be pretty valuable over the course of the machine's life.
 

vailance

macrumors member
Nov 29, 2008
34
0
MY
saw someone did replace a quad 2.66ghz uni processor with normal Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition Processor and it works.
 

voyagerd

macrumors 65816
Jun 30, 2002
1,498
251
Rancho Cordova, CA
I was looking at what Geekbench lists as the BIOS version.
Apple Inc. MP41.88Z.0081.B04.0903051113

That benchmark that was posted an hour ago does have the same B04 version. Apple must have just started using that version of the ROM in new Mac Pros.
 

Cynicalone

macrumors 68040
Jul 9, 2008
3,212
0
Okie land
I was looking at what Geekbench lists as the BIOS version.
Apple Inc. MP41.88Z.0081.B04.0903051113

That benchmark that was posted an hour ago does have the same B04 version. Apple must have just started using that version of the ROM in new Mac Pros.

I looked at mine in Geekbench here it is
Apple Inc. MP41.88Z.0081.B04.0903051113

I purchased my Mac Pro on March 30th, but due to the wait on the RAID card it didn't ship until May 15th. Just some info if anyone is curious.
 
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