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2.8ghz 8-Core or the new 2.66ghz Quad Nehalem?

OK so does anybody recommend which internal HD to get to replace the stock 320GB in the 2008 MP?.
I don't need a large drive - it's for the system only (all my work is on external FW800 drives).
 
I came back from ordering a dual 2.66 '09er and went for the dual 2.8 '08.
I work with audio mostly, and I can tell you, the 08 runs fantastic.
Haven't regretted it for a second, and old/new tech: it doesn't bother me. My piano is 35 years old..!
Don't get caught up too much in the race for the fastest and the newest.
It's the mind that makes the music...:)
 
Ploki said:
what kind of drive do you need?
Click to expand...

Just a system drive at first, possibly some more internals for the other 3 bays so I can run my audio on internal drives for faster response.
Currently the ProTools session live on on external FW800 drives.

I was thinking a couple of WD black drives (500GB+) or a SSD for the OS.
 
AndyDiamond said:
Just a system drive at first, possibly some more internals for the other 3 bays so I can run my audio on internal drives for faster response.
Currently the ProTools session live on on external FW800 drives.

I was thinking a couple of WD black drives (500GB+) or a SSD for the OS.
Click to expand...

I rather like the Caviar Black - and I've found that Tom's Hardware Guide is a rather good source of info. This round-up was for 1TB drives - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hdd-terabyte-1tb,2077-2.html - but there's some more that might interest you.

It also did a group test of SSDs fairly recently - and there was a very recent article looking at whether power-saving technology handicaps SSD drives.

Barefeats is worth checking - http://www.barefeats.com/hard112.html
 
Not sure on performance, but when I'm Handbraking a DVD to the HD, I can do whatever I want with it running in the background... NO beach ball whatsoever! This machine just begs for more!

I love it! Mind you, I came from a MBP 2.4 Penryn, but still!

Mattww said:
What kind of performances does the Quad 2.66 give on the new Apple TV pre-set in Handbrake and can you run other intensive applications at the same time as Handbrake?
Click to expand...
 
3587 said:
Not sure on performance, but when I'm Handbraking a DVD to the HD, I can do whatever I want with it running in the background... NO beach ball whatsoever! This machine just begs for more!

I love it! Mind you, I can from a MBP 2.4 Penryn, but still!
Click to expand...

in due respect, handbrake isnt that intensive lol..
 
AndyDiamond said:
Thanks for the info Igantius - I'll check it out.
:)
Click to expand...

Andy, tell me what you've decided drive wise! I'm about to purchase the octo 2.8 and am also deciding how to balance out the drives for audio. I've read alot of interesting articles on digilloyd's site.
I think I'll maybe go this route:
- 1st drive: system drive
- 2nd and 3rd drive in raid stripe mode with three partitions: the first partition is a scratch disk of about 10gb for the current project I'm working on, the second partition is where I'll put all my drum/orchestral samples etc, and the third and slowest partition is to save the projects.
- 4th drive with two partitions: first partition is for itunes and movies etc. Second partition is a time machine partition to backup the projects partition.
 
Frozengeek said:
If you go for the 2008, then I'd get 2gb memory sticks, they seem to be the sweet spot. Get four of them, installed per Apple directions in your manual, and leave the rest open for future expansion. If you get the 2009, get 6gb (2gb x3) and put your 1gb sticks away for later in case you need to take the computer in for service.

The 2009 seems to have the 10-20% performance advantage, spiking higher in the video applications to 30-40%. Since memory access is so much faster, and floating point benchmarks are almost twice as fast for non-multithreaded apps, this isn't surprising. Overall, however, if you can save a couple hundred bucks on the 2008, put it into a software RAID 0 on a couple 1TB drives and you may increase your performance substantially. It seems that HD speed is the one weakness of the base models. Some folks are forking out the cash for an SSD, but there are cheaper ways to get most of the performance advantage and a lot more drive space.
Click to expand...

Just curious, as I have to send my 2.26 8 core back, there was a small dent in the top of the unit, and now I am confused on what unit to order. I am tempted just to get the 2.93 Quad. And not sure if going for the 2.66 8 core is really that much of a benefit because the price difference. This is the results I got with a recent test:


HDnut System:

This is my Mac Pro 2 x 2.26 machine: General specs
Number of Cores 8
Memory 12gig
ATI Radeon HD 4870

Well newbie here and I just ran the Cinebench R10 test: Would do a copy and paste but it won't allow me.
Processor : 2 X 2.26
MHz : 2.26
Number of CPUs : 2
Operating System : OS X 32 BIT 10.5.6

Graphics Card : ATI Radeon HD 4870
Resolution : 1920x1200
Color Depth : 32 bit

****************************************************

Rendering (Single CPU): 3340 CB-CPU
Rendering (Multiple CPU): 20050 CB-CPU

Multiprocessor Speedup: 6.39

Shading (OpenGL Standard) :5778

I just got the machine a few days ago, I use it for CS/Photoshop a lot of HD Rendering using Final Cut pro etc... Suggestions welcome on what unit to go with, as I do a ton of mulit-tasking and rendering. Using 2 24" monitors and I might slap in an extra ATI down the road as well on this 2.26 8 core, or just go with the 2.93 Quad or 2.66 8 core.
 
Sounds good Nicolas.

I've been using external drives for portability which does sacrifice some performance.

Of course, all these massive drives need backing up.
I like to keep my backup drive external also.
 
Andy, any knowledge on wether the stock 320 gb drive is good enough as boot drive? I've read a couple of times about how horrendous that drive supposedly was :confused:
 
Wait

HDnut said:
Just curious, as I have to send my 2.26 8 core back, there was a small dent in the top of the unit, and now I am confused on what unit to order. I am tempted just to get the 2.93 Quad. And not sure if going for the 2.66 8 core is really that much of a benefit because the price difference. This is the results I got with a recent test:


HDnut System:

This is my Mac Pro 2 x 2.26 machine: General specs
Number of Cores 8
Memory 12gig
ATI Radeon HD 4870

Well newbie here and I just ran the Cinebench R10 test: Would do a copy and paste but it won't allow me.
Processor : 2 X 2.26
MHz : 2.26
Number of CPUs : 2
Operating System : OS X 32 BIT 10.5.6

Graphics Card : ATI Radeon HD 4870
Resolution : 1920x1200
Color Depth : 32 bit

****************************************************

Rendering (Single CPU): 3340 CB-CPU
Rendering (Multiple CPU): 20050 CB-CPU

Multiprocessor Speedup: 6.39

Shading (OpenGL Standard) :5778

I just got the machine a few days ago, I use it for CS/Photoshop a lot of HD Rendering using Final Cut pro etc... Suggestions welcome on what unit to go with, as I do a ton of mulit-tasking and rendering. Using 2 24" monitors and I might slap in an extra ATI down the road as well on this 2.26 8 core, or just go with the 2.93 Quad or 2.66 8 core.
Click to expand...

I'd get the 2.66 quad and save the $$ for fast hard drives in an array. But everyone has a different priority. Once you enter Mac Pro zone, you pay a lot for the extra processor power but the performance bottleneck is drive speed.
 
I bought the 2.8GHz '08 octo and put two WD 640GB drives in it (the WD6400AAKS model, about $80 on newegg) and added 8GB to the 2GB it came with and I'm thrilled with it. For photoshop, digilloyd's review indicates that the '08 models are a much better deal, but whether or not that is true, what I can tell you is that this thing kicks butt running photoshop.

I like that I have two DVI connectors, and two FW400 ports, and I like that the thing is basically completely silent.

I also like that it is a proven, mature technology. I understand that it's a year old, and thus is "old" tech to some people, but I tend to keep computers a lot longer than these people, and it seems pretty darn new to me. And it can take 32GB of RAM. That will be more significant in the future than 10 or 20 percent processor advantage, I suspect.

Maybe I'm wrong. All I know is that I am quite happy with my purchase, even if I might have been better buying a quad '09 MP (which I doubt).
 
-js- said:
I bought the 2.8GHz '08 octo and put two WD 640GB drives in it (the WD6400AAKS model, about $80 on newegg) and added 8GB to the 2GB it came with and I'm thrilled with it. For photoshop, digilloyd's review indicates that the '08 models are a much better deal, but whether or not that is true, what I can tell you is that this thing kicks butt running photoshop.

I like that I have two DVI connectors, and two FW400 ports, and I like that the thing is basically completely silent.

I also like that it is a proven, mature technology. I understand that it's a year old, and thus is "old" tech to some people, but I tend to keep computers a lot longer than these people, and it seems pretty darn new to me. And it can take 32GB of RAM. That will be more significant in the future than 10 or 20 percent processor advantage, I suspect.

Maybe I'm wrong. All I know is that I am quite happy with my purchase, even if I might have been better buying a quad '09 MP (which I doubt).
Click to expand...

I doubt that too, but then again, I'm getting almost the same setup as you are this weekend, so I'm pretty biased! :)
What did you use as boot drive? The stock 320 drive? I read somewhere here that it wasn't that good. I too am going for those caviar black 640 drives.
 
Frozengeek said:
Um...check your activity monitor on your next encode then revise your opinion. I regularly max the CPU on Handbrake.
Click to expand...

i dont think you understand :confused:. CPU intensive handbrake may be, computer intensive handbrake is not.

handbrake runs itself as a low priority process, meaning that other processes will get priority over it - thus why everything else runs fine when doing encodes.
 
Hey guys, about the ram in the 2.8 mac pro... I've worked with my macbook with 3gb ram up until now, and I regularly get it filled up to 2.5gb usage. So I guess a bit more ram will be a healthy decision for the mac pro, but how much more? I keep reading about these benchmarks with 8/16/32gb's ram as *optimal* configurations, but is that really necessary if you're not using it? I know that you need to install ram in matched pairs, so I was thinking: keep the stock 2x1gb in there, and add 2x2gb, 6 total. Is that a good way to go, or should I just pony up the other 100$ and get 4x2gb for that *magic* 8gb config?
 
consider the cost of RAM for the 08s vs the 09s

that is, for the forseeable future, a HUGE advantage for the 08s in the "bang for buck" category.

You can't tell me that a quad 09 with 3gb of RAM is as fast as an octo 08 with 16 in a general environment.

Heck, for the difference in RAM costs between the two generations, you could afford an SSD boot drive for the 08.

You want to talk about a performance increase? Try triple the RAM and an Intel SSD.
 
I'm still biding my time on this. I found a store selling new 2.8's stock for 2399 online. So for me I use CS4 Design Premium, FCE 4 and Lightroom 2.

1. 2x 2.8 stock/ OWC 16GB / 1TB HD / 3870 upgrade = $2990
2. 1x 2.66 / 4870 / 1TB HD / 8GB = $3,003
3. 2X 2.26 stock / 1TB HD / 12GB = $3,750

Pretty sure the 2.26 is out of my leauge at this point because I don't use too many multi-core apps like FCP/AE etc, but it just seems stupid to get the quad core with less ram for more than 8 cores with 2x the ram doesn't it? Someone tell me I'm not crazy =)
 
I went for the older '08 2.8 ghz model. With the money I saved, I put in 4x 1tb hds, and 16gb of ram.

I make music (yes, the ram is future-proofing, but certainly not needed now!) and this thing is amazing. ALL music programs are compatible with it RIGHT now (protools, ableton, logic pro, UAD2 which i ALL use...)

Basically, I can't tell you how good it feels to load up a complex project, even w/ omnisphere, and see ALL 8 cores happily running @ 25-35%. This thing is a dream, and I can honestly say there's no way I need anything more than this.

For audio, 8-cores is a must, it can handle anything you throw at it! I would never choose a 4 core over this thing!
 
cybeross said:
I went for the older '08 2.8 ghz model. With the money I saved, I put in 4x 1tb hds, and 16gb of ram.

I make music (yes, the ram is future-proofing, but certainly not needed now!) and this thing is amazing. ALL music programs are compatible with it RIGHT now (protools, ableton, logic pro, UAD2 which i ALL use...)

Basically, I can't tell you how good it feels to load up a complex project, even w/ omnisphere, and see ALL 8 cores happily running @ 25-35%. This thing is a dream, and I can honestly say there's no way I need anything more than this.

For audio, 8-cores is a must, it can handle anything you throw at it! I would never choose a 4 core over this thing!
Click to expand...

Cool! Just bought the 08 today! Is 16gb ram really necessary though? How much do you see it use up on a busy project?
 
I was at 4 gigs for a about 2 years and thought everything was fine. The system was occasionally sluggish in large projects and 64Bit apps that wanted to use more obviously couldn't so I worked around those limitations. Occasionally it was a show-stopper but work-arounds mostly presented themselves with a little thought. About a month ago I added 8 more gigs to make 12GB total.

Everything is now faster... really, almost everything. I'm not sure why. I still have the same same 1st 4 gigs doing the 4-channel thing. <shrug> And now apps that would occasionally lag and/or shutter now run much more smoothly. Since I installed the extra I've maxed it out by doing something or another, probably on an average of once or twice a day.

With this new experience I don't want to go back to 4GB. I might feel comfortable running 8GB but not less - and especially when Snow Leopard hits!! For SL I'll probably sell off the old 1GB sticks and replace them with 2GB for 16GB total or with 4GB sticks for 24GB total.

--
I'm on a 2006 Mac Pro that I've upgraded to dual quad-core x5355 processors to bring it up to a full octad system. I edit and compose music, edit video, create 3D graphic animations, and surf the web a lot. :)
 
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