09' Nehalem Quad 2.6 or Harpertown 8-core 2.8 refurb?

[chiefroastbeef]

Hello folks,

I am planning on buying a Mac Pro soon, the Harpertown 8-core refurb came up on the Hong Kong refurb page: http://store.apple.com/hk_tmp_smb_edu_13377/product/FA970ZP/A?mco=MjE0NjQ1OA

If you were in my place, would you buy the Harpertown 8-core refurb, or a Nehalem Quad 2.6? I may not need all the cores, but from what you guys are saying, 8-cores will be more "future-proof"? And I like how that sounds.

Thanks!

 

[tempusfugit]

not that i can afford one but I would tend to go with the one with faster ram, hard to say if that would be more or less future-proof. I don't know though its really a tough decision. good luck.

 

[NRose8989]

Personally I would go for the older 2.8 octo.

Mainly just because you get more physical ram slots.

The benchmarks seem to be neck to neck depending on the task.

 

[chiefroastbeef]

Thank you guys for the input, this is quite neck to neck I'll say. Both are around $2,500USD, I'll probably upgrade to a Ati 4890 video card, and get at least 8gb ram. At this point I am pointing towards the 8-core refurb, unless someone here in HK buys it before I can make a decision.

Anymore input? I appreciate it!

 

[nick9191]

http://www.macworld.com/article/139507/2009/03/macpro2009.html?lsrc=top_1

"With its improved graphics, memory bandwidth, and reduced memory latency, the 2.66GHz quad-core Mac Pro was faster than the 2.8GHz eight-core Mac Pro, and at $2,499 costs $300 less. It would be a fine purchase for anyone replacing an older Mac or buying a new one for the first time. That is especially true for people who work with processorintensive apps such as video or graphics."

 

[nanofrog]

If you're interested in placing an internal hardware RAID system in it, skip the '09 models. It's much harder to do, and will cost more as well.

The reason is, the '06 - '08's used an iPass/MiniSAS cable to attach the drives to the logic board. You could disconnect it, and attach it to a 3rd party card. You could keep the original SATA ports on the logic board for future use, run the RAID HDD's in the bays, and not have to spend an arm and a leg on external enclosures.

The '09's changed this. Now the cable is gone, and the ports are soldered directly to the logic board. So the data is routed through the unused PCIe traces in slot 4. No 3rd party card can access it. Only Apple's $700 RAID card, which is junk. The performance sucks, and it's too expensive for a 4 port card. So you're left with either some herculean effort to produce something internally with modded cables (3rd party, not factory), or go external. Not wonderful at all.

 

[Genghis Khan]

"With its improved graphics, memory bandwidth, and reduced memory latency, the 2.66GHz quad-core Mac Pro was faster than the 2.8GHz eight-core Mac Pro, and at $2,499 costs $300 less. It would be a fine purchase for anyone replacing an older Mac or buying a new one for the first time. That is especially true for people who work with processor intensive apps such as video or graphics."

I would say those tests weren't equal as they gave the Harpertown 3GB RAM as well. It should have 4GB (2x1GB on each riser)

From my research at the time of launch of the Nehalem's, I found that the Quad 2.66GHz was slightly faster at single-threaded apps, and the 2.8GHz Octo slightly faster at multi-threaded apps.

It's up to you what you want, but with price being equal, I'd go for the new Quad

 

[chiefroastbeef]

New quad it is, thank you so much guys for the input.