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2.26 8 vs 2.93 quad running photoshop

R

ronanwonders

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Hi can anyone advise, i'm upgrading from a powerbook to new mac pro and unsure which to buy... the 2.26 8 or the 2.93 quad, i've read the PS4 doesnt even notice the second chip and wont take advantage of any more than four Gs of RAM, please correct me if i'm wrong... very confusing,just want it to run as quickly as possible, my new camera shoots 24mb files and i scan a lot of work from medium format trans so need as much speed as i can get... any advice would be big help.

thanks
 
ronanwonders said:
Hi can anyone advise, i'm upgrading from a powerbook to new mac pro and unsure which to buy... the 2.26 8 or the 2.93 quad, i've read the PS4 doesnt even notice the second chip and wont take advantage of any more than four Gs of RAM, please correct me if i'm wrong... very confusing,just want it to run as quickly as possible, my new camera shoots 24mb files and i scan a lot of work from medium format trans so need as much speed as i can get... any advice would be big help.

thanks
Click to expand...

CS4 (and older) needs the best single-threaded performance it can get. Some filters benefit from multiple cores, but, in general, you'll be much happier with the 2.93 quad for photoshop. CS5 might change all that, but who knows.
 
Yup!

But I seriously doubt CS5 will change anything in that regard. It will be 64-bit though. That's something to be happy about! 🙂

To squeeze more MT prowess out it they would have to just about completely rethink the application's core architecture. That's a lot of work and expense for not all that much pay-off. So I guess they won't. Maybe some tweaks and tunes here and there as we go along tho. 😉
 
Reading all the stuff concerning Nehalem Mac Pro and Photoshop that has been written here in the forum the last weeks (and it isn´t a little), I tend to go for the 2.66 quad and put the saved money into RAM, faster drives (VelociRaptor for system/apps & perhaps RAIDO with RAID class drives) or (if you find it necessary) a SSD. All those things should bring you more speed benefit than an 8-core system with 2.26 Ghz at all.
 
MasterM6 said:
I got it and I am so happy with it that I can not put it in words! 😀
Click to expand...
"How wonderful life is, while you´re in the world..." 🙂
Still in love with your girlfriend, too? (😉)

Oh, I just want to add this to the topic.
Or this in general. Although it may cost years to proceed everything right 😀
 
One of those links kinda suggests that PS is faster on a RAID which by my tests really isn't true tho. There's something about the way PS writes layered PSD files that is inherently and internally slow. So it's like the actual file write goes from 5 to 3 seconds on a RAID but PS itself takes another 20 sec. all by itself just to get it's **** together. I suppose the 20 sec. turns into 15 sec. on a system with faster processors.

I guess if the cache were located on the RAID then that would be faster but I almost never see PS go to the cache. Maybe I just don't notice it but when I edit 7 (which is the most PS will allow me to open with my video card's memory) 12mp images at 16-BPP with 3 to 8 layers it never seems to need the disc cache. And mostly I never have more than 3 such images open at any one time.

This brings up another point to optimize for. Get a video card with a lot of memory!

For my 2¢ on which of the 09 mac's to go for... Whichever one has the fastest clocked processor. and iMac at 3.2 might be faster even than the 4 core 2.93. <shrug> Certainly the quad 2.93 is just as fast as the octad 2.93 at almost everything and probably the best Mac Pro for Photoshop specifically.
 
Tesselator said:
For my 2¢ on which of the 09 mac's to go for... Whichever one has the fastest clocked processor. and iMac at 3.2 might be faster even than the 4 core 2.93. <shrug> Certainly the quad 2.93 is just as fast as the octad 2.93 at almost everything and probably the best Mac Pro for Photoshop specifically.
Click to expand...

iMac 3.2 would be much slower. off-chip memory controller, lower IPC, mobile processor, etc.
 
Mac Husky said:
"How wonderful life is, while you´re in the world..." 🙂
Still in love with your girlfriend, too? (😉)
Click to expand...

Will kind of.. They got diffrent areas to cover sort of speak... 😉

But they both demand my time so I am trying to handle it the best I can ha ha ha
 
cmaier said:
iMac 3.2 would be much slower. off-chip memory controller, lower IPC, mobile processor, etc.
Click to expand...

Yeah, looks like you're right:

Not a huge slow-up but more than I expected.


.
 
Tesselator said:
This brings up another point to optimize for. Get a video card with a lot of memory!
Click to expand...
The NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 mit 512 MB should do well with Photoshop.
Tesselator said:
For my 2¢ on which of the 09 mac's to go for... Whichever one has the fastest clocked processor.
Click to expand...
jons said:
2.93 is the way to go with photoshop.
Click to expand...
2.66 quad shouldn´t be more than 2-6% slower than the 2.93 quad at all.
Not the world slower. But a few hundreds bucks cheaper.
 
Tesselator said:
We disagree on that I think. 🙂
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Not on the speed increase I guess, but maybe on the money worth it 😀
Never the less: I don´t say yet, that I will definetily go for an 2.66 instead of an 2.93 😉
There is still some movement in my decision finding so far.
 
Mac Husky said:
Not on the speed increase I guess, but maybe on the money worth it 😀
Never the less: I don´t say yet, that I will definetily go for an 2.66 instead of an 2.93 😉
There is still some movement in my decision finding so far.
Click to expand...

Go with the 2.93 quad. You will not regret it.
 
RebootD said:
Check out the charts at Macrumors to see the Quad 2.93 was only 3 seconds faster with Photoshop vs the baseline 2.66. To me a 2-6% gain for a 20% increase in price didn't make sense.

http://www.macworld.com/article/139919/2009/04/cto_macpro.html
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5 years ago the bump from dual 1.8Ghz to dual 2.0Ghz (200Mhz) was $500. Now the bump from 2.66Ghz to 2.93Ghz (270Mhz) is still $500. It's the same story year after year after year about "oh it's not worth it 5% gain for 20% more". Price/performance never has and never will be linear. If it was, it would cost $1070 for a single 2.26 gainestown... instead it only costs $373.

If you want to talk about what doesn't make sense, it's buying anything but a 867Mhz G4. 1/20 the speed, but at $50 it's 1/50 the price. There's your price/performance ratio.
 
Abidubi said:
5 years ago the bump from dual 1.8Ghz to dual 2.0Ghz (200Mhz) was $500. Now the bump from 2.66Ghz to 2.93Ghz (270Mhz) is still $500. It's the same story year after year after year about "oh it's not worth it 5% gain for 20% more".
Click to expand...
Maybe - but wouldn´t it make sense to put the saved money into an Intel X25-M 160GB SSD - now or in a couple of months regarding the actual price 😕
Just a question on my way to see clearer what MP would be the right for me 🙄
 
It depends. Do you need a SSD right now? Is it something thats going to make a real big difference in your use? 3 years from now are you going to be thinking "damn, why didn't I just spend that money on the 2.93, I can get a 4X bigger SSD now for the same price"? Or are you going to be ok about buying new processors and replacing them yourself (if that is indeed possible, I'm confused on that issue)?

The way I look at it, the money in the short term is best spent on the stuff you will be stuck with for the life of the computer. Thats why I went for the 2.93. I didn't touch the RAM, HDs or optical drive because I am planning to get 2 WDs in raid 0 and I am also planning to get either 6 or 12 GB (depends how quick prices drop) and when apple supports blue-ray I'll probably buy a blue-ray drive... but all those things are just getting cheaper. In a year 1TB drives will cost what 640GB drives do now. The RAM will obviously drop now that other systems will be using it. The processors might drop, but that gives you 2 options. Buy nothing now and wait 3 more years (or just wait forever), or buy new ones yourself but I really don't want to tinker with my MP until 1) someone has proven it works 2) a really good speed increase is available 3) there is a well documented step-by-step to make sure I don't break it 4) the machine is out of warranty. #4 is guarantied to happen some day, but 1,2,3 may or may not ever happen.

The only thing I did upgrade now that I could have/will later is the 4870, simply because it was $200 for 2X+ the performance.

Oh and I'm really not a fan of SSD. Couldn't care less about it personally. It's too new, over priced and unpredictable. If it were mainstream for the last 10 years you would know how it holds up over time. Right now I wouldn't trust it for long term use. And if I wanted to pay $6 per GB, I'd take a time machine back to 1999 (20GB HDs for $100).
 
Abidubi said:
If you want to talk about what doesn't make sense, it's buying anything but a 867Mhz G4. 1/20 the speed, but at $50 it's 1/50 the price. There's your price/performance ratio.
Click to expand...

Well in that case let's all sell our new systems and buy an Apple IIe! Or why not go back to using stone tablets and chisels? 😛

OUTDATED SYSTEMS ASIDE, price/performance I stand by the link that $500 for less than 6% gains overall just doesn't seem worth it when that money could buy you 4x Hard drives, a quality SSD or put it toward 12GB of ram.
 
RebootD said:
price/performance I stand by the link that $500 for less than 6% gains overall just doesn't seem worth it...
Click to expand...

The benchmark you're referring to is very misleading indeed. The PS tools, filters, and core app eat megahertz for breakfast. One cpu does not scale differently than another when it's the same architecture. Additionally when PS goes 64-bit in a few more months all of these benchmarks can be safely filed in the dust bin.
 
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