8-Core (Clovertown) Mac Pro Benchmarks

[AppliedVisual]

In this class of RAM the 2GB sticks are now less than two 1GB sticks. So I don't see why buying only 1GB sticks would be advisable any more.

It would definitely be best to use 2GB modules. They're cheaper per GB. Additinally, the memory access in the Mac Pro (or should I say with Intel's current FB-DIMM controller implementation) requires the second memory pair on each riser to communicate with the system by going through the the first pair and this can potentially add some latency.

AV was saying that the 512 sticks run half as fast as 1 and 2GB sticks. Is that not correct or did I misunderstand what he meant?

No you understood right, however this may not be the case now... After doing some more digging, this is in no way a limitation of the FB-DIMM design or a requirement. But rather initial modules in smaller capacities (256 and 512 MB) were only using one of the onboard channels to increase the latency. All I can find is various discussions and references to this happening regarding various Samsung and Kingston modules... Doesn't appear that any of this is linked to modules approved by Apple or that meet Apple's specs for the Mac Pro. So I may have been off-base. I'll see what else I can dig up...

I don't know if I'd expect that either. Has intel dropped the prices on dual core version yet? Or just introduced the quad core at higher prices?

Pricing was adjusted on tuesday for the dual-core offerings. However, I don't know what the new prices are. But this wasn't the first time prices have been adjusted since they started shipping the dual-core chips... Intel adjusts prices every few weeks. Sometimes up, but usually down.

You asked why anyone would use handbrake to rip from optical disk. I answered your question. People do it all the time, it's very common to rip DVDs.

Ripping one DVD here or there makes sense to just drop in the disc and go for it. But if you have several to do, it can be a lot faster to create images of the discs and then rip them, especially if you image with a couple systems and then have a couple others doing the ripping / re-encoding, especially if you're trying to keep the quality very high.

 

[MacsAttack]

I'm thinking about my future 8 core Macpro:
2 questions for you:
- Do you think the 8 core proc will produce a lot more heat than the current core duo 2 ? I'm asking because I need a very quiet computer ...
-As always: shall we expect this one in the Macpro before 2007 ?

thx !

1. Yes. Lots more heat. Also the PSU may not be sufficient to drive the CPUs, memory, video card. two optical drives, four hard disks, all the gizmos on the main board etc... Effectivly Intel fixed the problem with their CPUs being power hungry heat monsters with the Core 2 Duo - and then they made exactly the same mistake by creating a power hungry heat monster with their Core 2 Quads... All just to beat AMD to the "Quad Core"

2. My guess (just a guess mind) is Feb-March next year.

 

[XForge]

How long before it ends up in the MacBook Pro?

I want my 8-core MacBook!! I want my 8-core MacBook!!!

(also joking)

 

[Multimedia]

I'm thinking about my future 8 core Macpro:
2 questions for you:
- Do you think the 8 core proc will produce a lot more heat than the current core duo 2 ? I'm asking because I need a very quiet computer ...

1. Yes. Lots more heat. Also the PSU may not be sufficient to drive the CPUs, memory, video card. two optical drives, four hard disks, all the gizmos on the main board etc... Effectivly Intel fixed the problem with their CPUs being power hungry heat monsters with the Core 2 Duo - and then they made exactly the same mistake by creating a power hungry heat monster with their Core 2 Quads... All just to beat AMD to the "Quad Core"

Not exactly. If they go with an 80 watt 2.33GHz Clovertown then no. If they go with a 120 watt 2.66GHz Clovertown then yes. 3GHz Woodies are 80 watts.

-As always: shall we expect this one in the Macpro before 2007 ?

I won't. But I will hope so.

2. My guess (just a guess mind) is Feb-March next year.

That's what I expect as well - with the Stoakley-Seaburg chipset onboard.

I wonder how Handbrake, iDVD encoding, or Quicktime encoding will take advantage of the extra cores?

iDVD is not as good an encoder as Toast. If you are encoding DVD images, you should seriously consider using Toast instead. Toast can use up to 4 Mac Pro cores. Handbrake can use up to 3 Mac Pro cores. So they were made for an 8-core Mac Pro, if you, like me, run both DVD encoding and mp4 encoding at the same time in multiples. It is not unusual for me to be creating two DVD images while ripping two different sets of Handbrake batches all at the same time.

 

[newrigel]

That really depends on the program, on how "parallelizable" the application is.

The simplest way to think of it is like this: Let's say you have a program that first has to calculate A. Then, when it's done that, it uses the result of A to calculate B. Then, when it's done that, uses the result of B to calculate C, then C to D, and so on. That's a *serial* problem there. The calculation of B can't begin until A is done, so it doesn't matter how many processors you have running, all computation is held up on one spot.

On the other hand, let's say you have an application that needs to calculate A, B, C and D, but those four values are not dependent on each other at all. In that case, you can use four processors at the same time, to calculate all four values at the same time.

Think of it like baking a cake. You can't start putting on the icing until the cake is done baking. And you can't start baking the cake until the ingredients are all mixed together. But you can have people simultaneously getting out and measuring the ingredients.

So that problem is partially parallelizable, but the majority of its workload is a serial process.

Some software applications, just by their very nature, will never be able to do anything useful with multiple processors.

CONTENT CREATION PRO'S will see the benefit! Like DAW's host running multiple plugins and virtual instruments etc. Video guy's that are rendering in the background while doing a file format conversion task while @ the same time doing a cut copy paste edit on some video... Any processes that are CONCURRENT! THESE are the things that will take advantage of multiple cores... the kids on myspace farting around on the net emailing and such are really useless for multiple cores and us pro guy's NEED this multitasking power... BRING IT ON!

 

[shawnce]

In this class of RAM the 2GB sticks are now less than two 1GB sticks. So I don't see why buying only 1GB sticks would be advisable any more.

Hummm... did a little looking around and it still looks like 2x 1 GB gets you a better price then 1x 2 GB. What place did you look at?

 

[aLoC]

I currently have a 24" iMac and am very happy with it.

Will consider a Mac Pro if it gets 8 cores and they drop the FB-DIMMs. Don't want FB-DIMMs, they have the definite feel of an overcomplicated solution to a problem.

 

[shawnce]

Will consider a Mac Pro if it gets 8 cores and they drop the FB-DIMMs. Don't want FB-DIMMs, they have the definite feel of an overcomplicated solution to a problem.

FB-DIMM are likely the future... it will truly start to will shine when they make available more channels out of the memory controllers allowing bandwidth to scale and it hides memory specifics from the memory controller allowing advancements in DIMMs to remain compatible with existing systems.

 

[aLoC]

FB-DIMM are likely the future... it will truly start to will shine when they make available more channels out of the memory controllers allowing bandwidth to scale and it hides memory specifics from the memory controller allowing advancements in DIMMs to remain compatible with existing systems.

It's not the future... these kind of over-architected solutions never win. I predict CPUs, memory and memory controllers will become more tightly integrated over time, not less. FB-DIMM will be gone is a few years.

 

[AppliedVisual]

It's not the future... these kind of over-architected solutions never win. I predict CPUs, memory and memory controllers will become more tightly integrated over time, not less. FB-DIMM will be gone is a few years.

FB-DIMMs aren't going to disappear anytime soon -- not in the next few years anyway. There currently is nothing better or more reliable for installing 16GB or more in a system without dividing up RAM into multiple, independent banks and controllers, often on a per-CPU base (as is done on current NUMA, AMD Opteron and other offerings from Sun, IBM, etc..).

Probably won't see FB-DIMM style RAM on systems like the iMac anytime soon, no need for it. But for now, it's what makes the most sense for Mac Pro and Xserve.

IMO, what Apple really needs is a system between the Mac Pro and iMac. A smaller tower or cube style system with a single Kentsfield or Clovertown CPU with 2 or 3 PCI-E slots, two HDD bays, optical bay and using cheaper, more conventional RAM - like up to 8GB DDR2. Apple is ignoring an entire segment of the market and it seems like they're trying to use the small difference in price between a maxed-out 24" iMac and a relatively low-end Mac Pro as justification for nothing in the middle.

 

[Multimedia]

I Always Use Ramseeker.com Links To Price My RAM As They Offer Much Lower Price Links

Hummm... did a little looking around and it still looks like 2x 1 GB gets you a better price then 1x 2 GB. What place did you look at?

Cheapest Two x 1GB sticks kit is $331 from Omni via this Ramseeker.com link.

That to me spells crossover time since for only +$3 you only fill two slots instead of 4 for the same 4GB of RAM.

Cheapest Two x 2GB sticks kit is $665 at 18004memory via this Ramseeker kit.

I recommend you always use a Ramseeker.com path to get the best price on RAM. It you don't use Ramseeker.com their respective listed vendors will charge you a lot more when you don't use those links in the Ramseeker.com comparison chart.

 

[Multimedia]

Apple's View Of Their Customers Is Heavily Skewed Toward All-In-One Computers

IMO, what Apple really needs is a system between the Mac Pro and iMac. A smaller tower or cube style system with a single Kentsfield or Clovertown CPU with 2 or 3 PCI-E slots, two HDD bays, optical bay and using cheaper, more conventional RAM - like up to 8GB DDR2. Apple is ignoring an entire segment of the market and it seems like they're trying to use the small difference in price between a maxed-out 24" iMac and a relatively low-end Mac Pro as justification for nothing in the middle.

I agree. Apple's view of the market is very strange. They seem to think their customers either only want an all-in-one two core solution or an extremely expensive top of the line 4 or 8 core solution. Hopefully Kentsfield will find a home in a new Mac line in 2007.

 

[Counter]

iTunes saw much less improvements?

Christ.

iTunes runs perfectly well on a G4 400mhz.

8-Cores ain't for anything remotely normal, let alone listening to music.

 

[shawnce]

Cheapest Two x 1GB sticks kit is $331 from Omni via this Ramseeker.com link.

That to me spells crossover time since for only +$3 you only fill two slots instead of 4 for the same 4GB of RAM.

Cheapest Two x 2GB sticks kit is $665 at 18004memory via this Ramseeker kit.

I would recommend that you are 100% sure the RAM you get is thermally certified for the Mac Pro.

 

[gnasher729]

It depends on what the program does. Some programs don't lend themselves to multi-threading at all and others practically require it. It can be quite a chore to go back and multi-thread an existing program.

Also, some uses of a program make it easy to use multithreading, and others don't. As an example, if you use Handbrake to do H.264 encoding, it is work for the developers to use multiple cores (it has been posted here that it uses three cores) for encoding a single movie, but it would be absolutely easy to use four times as many cores to encode four movies simultaneously.

Something like that would be perfect if you want to encode four half hour movies, but awful if you want to encode a single two hour movie.

 

[Multimedia]

Encoding 4 Shorts At Once vs. 1 Long With Handbrake

Also, some uses of a program make it easy to use multithreading, and others don't. As an example, if you use Handbrake to do H.264 encoding, it is work for the developers to use multiple cores (it has been posted here that it uses three cores) for encoding a single movie, but it would be absolutely easy to use four times as many cores to encode four movies simultaneously.

Something like that would be perfect if you want to encode four half hour movies, but awful if you want to encode a single two hour movie.

I'm sorry but I don't understand what you mean. I'm kind of anti-H.264 because of how bloated the file sizes get when you use that format and because many viewers don't have H.264 players outside the Mac community. I'd rather target a file size and/or bit rate with good old fashioned universally viewable 2-pass FFmpeg encoding than not be able to do so for an H.264 encode.

My point that Handbrake could use up to 3 cores was that you could have that happening while encoding a DVD image with Toast using another 4 cores if you had an 8-core Mac without a performace-speed hit. As soon as a third process is instigated, all the programs would have to share restricted core limits but get a bunch of stuff done without us having to baby sit the queue.

I am confused by what you think about encoding 4 programs simultaneously vs. one alone. 4 simultaneously will take longer but be possilbe on the 8-core while much slower on the 4-core Macs. While one on a 4-core will do fine by itself, problem is as soon as you start doing anything else, it's speed is compromized while in an 8-core system that would-should not be the case. Does that make any sense?

 

[AppliedVisual]

Buying FB-DIMMs??? Make sure they are DUAL RANK

As I mentioned before about the lower spec FB-DIMMs only using one of the onboard buffers to improve latency (single gate / single rank), there are quite a few of these out there - especially in the 512MB capacity!

Here's the technical overview from Intel.

Anandtech had this little tidbit about single vs. dual rank modules.

While single rank FB-DIMMs are somewhat discouraged, they are quite common on the market. Kingston ships single rank FB-DIMM parts that are nearly 30% cheaper than their dual rank parts. Some of their products are labeled as such, some aren't and who knows what you're getting when buying from a third-party vendor without specifically comparing part numbers, etc.. I am under the impression that the 512MB (as well as the 1 and 2 GB) modules from Apple are all dual rank. However, how do we tell for sure about modules from the cheaper vendors like 1-800-4MEMORY, or RAM4LESS, etc.. I guess we can try to ask for more detailed specs, but I've tried that before from RAM4LESS and all I could get is that "our modules are guaranteed compatible..."

 

[daveporter]

Multiple cores are useful for more then improving the processing of multiple threaded applicaitons individually.

Multiple cores are very useful when you run more then one application at a time as long as the operating system is able to allocate core use to more than one application at a time (as OSX does quite nicely). Therefore, with multiple cores, you will get better performance for each application when more then one applicaiton is run at the same time.

When Intel multicore processors are used (as in the Mac Pro) which support hardware virtualization, you can run software (such as Parrallels Desktop) that lets your run additional operating systems (such as Windows, Solaris, and Linux) concurrently with OSX at near full native speeds since one or more cores are used for OSX and one is used for each of the virtual operating systems.

Therefore, multiple cores are still useful even if many of the applications you use are not highly multithreaded.

Dave

 

[AidenShaw]

true, but misleading

When Intel multicore processors are used (as in the Mac Pro) which support hardware virtualization, you can run software (such as Parrallels Desktop) that lets your run additional operating systems (such as Windows, Solaris, and Linux) concurrently with OSX at near full native speeds since one or more cores are used for OSX and one is used for each of the virtual operating systems.

The virtualization example is the same as your multiple application example.

Cores are not dedicated to virtual machines - each virtual machine is an application that needs to use CPU power from time to time.

With multi-core, there are more CPUs so that the VM applications can be scheduled at the same time. Just like more standard applications (or application threads) can be scheduled simultaneously.

Assigning processors to specific applications is almost always a bad idea. It is better to let the operating system schedule any thread that needs CPU on any idle CPU in a multi-CPU (multi-core) system.

 

[FFTT]

I think the number or cores will finally level off for a while once 8 core machines
become mainstream.

The next goal will be production refinements like 45 nm production for greater energy efficiency.

Software developers will need to re-train or hire new software engineers who know how to take advantage of multi-core architecture.

The big question for those who must have the newest, most powerful system will be how much RAM they'll need to take advantage of the new architecture.

There are quite a few audio/video production professionals wondering how all this
will help to improve their workflow capabilties.

 

[Multimedia]

I Think 8 to 16 Cores Will Happen Faster Than 4 Cores To 8 Is Happening

I think the number or cores will finally level off for a while once 8 core machines
become mainstream.

Mainstream? I doubt any 8+ core users will be mainstream outside of commercial use.

The next goal will be production refinements like 45 nm production for greater energy efficiency.

I'll be surprised if that won't lead to a 16-core offering about a year from now or next winter 2008 at the latest. We are about to go from 4 to 8 in little over a year and a half to begin with. So I would guestimate the graduation from 8 to 16 will be in less time than it was from 4 to 8. So i would say that would not be a leveling off.

Software developers will need to re-train or hire new software engineers who know how to take advantage of multi-core architecture.

Well I'm still into the idea that multi-tasking can be just as big a driver of the need for more cores as multi-threaded within each. So I'm not sure we need to wait for software developers to "catch up". I know I'm not alone when I say I could use 16 cores in a Mac Pro right now with the existing base of software that already exists.

The big question for those who must have the newest, most powerful system will be how much RAM they'll need to take advantage of the new architecture.

I know that the primary applications I could use all this power for do not use much ram at all. So this specification may vary a lot among users.

There are quite a few audio/video production professionals wondering how all this
will help to improve their workflow capabilties.

Wondering? I'm pretty sure most are not wondering - more like eagerly anticipating due to KNOWING it will improve workflow tremendously.

 

[wms121]

...just in case you still wanna PPC

Mercury can get you a cell plug-in for the PCI slot:

http://www.mc.com/cell/products/view/index.cfm?id=106&type=boards

Lessee....179 GFLOPS. Can't link it in tandem with IBM Blades, just Mercury
Cell's..hmmm*.

..where is my binary calculator?

WW

*{..found this stuff later:

http://www.clearspeed.com/products/cs_advance/

...Intel issues:

http://www.clearspeed.com/docs/resources/ClearSpeed_Intel_WPaper_0611.pdf

...have your cake...and pie and ice cream }

 

[zoran]

This rumor seems to be only a rumor! Its Nov 21st today, when will octos come? Next year i guess... damn it!

 

[Multimedia]

Waiting For Stoakley-Seaburg (SS) With Leopard Or Not?

This rumor seems to be only a rumor! Its Nov 21st today, when will octos come? Next year i guess... damn it!

Yeah I think this was the drop dead day for it being this year. I thought the mini would go Core 2 Duo today and even that didn't happen. So I guess the mini stays Core Duo 'til January along with the MP staying 4-core 'til January or beyond - depending on if Apple wants to wait for Stoakley-Seaburg (SS) or not:

11.13 Tech Report First Look At Clovertown:

"...However, quad-core Clovertown CPUs will also work with Intel's upcoming Stoakley platform, which is due to debut in the first quarter of next year.

The Stoakley platform is based on a 90-nano shrink of the Bensley architecture. Bensley's dual 1,066/1,333MHz front side busses return, this time with support for upcoming 45-nano Penryn chips. Stoakley also features plenty of PCI Express, with 44 lanes of PCIe joined by a pair of second-generation PCIe x16 links. Generation one PCIe links can be used to hook into a variety of peripheral chips to provide Serial ATA RAID, Gigabit Ethernet, and PCI-X connectivity.

Seaburg is the codename for Stoakley's Memory Controller Hub (MCH), which features four channels of FB-DIMMs at 533 or 667MHz. Up to 128GB of memory is supported—double that of Bensley's Blackford MCH. Seaburg also offers an enhanced memory controller that Intel says improves sustained throughput by 25% and a larger, smarter snoop filter optimized for quad-core chips..."

My gut says wait for SS as the management of all those cores will probably be much more efficient that way along with whatever help Leopard may provide as well.

I know some of us are anxious for more cores now. But perhaps we need to be a little more patient so when we get them we won't be disappointed by too little a performance boost before there's SS and Leopard inside.

 

[TBi]

Mainstream? I doubt any 8+ core users will be mainstream outside of commercial use.

Just like everything, 8 cores will become main stream sooner rather than later. If the PS3 gets popular then 7-core will be very mainstream soon enough.

As programs get more and more multithreaded the speed increases from multiple cores will get bigger and bigger. Even if you think about a browser. The browser can itself have multiple threads, for different tabs, the display area, downloading new pages, downloading in the back ground. Then think about java, flash, pdf's in browser and all this web 2.0 stuff. They can all run in separate threads. I know none of these are particularly processor intensive (yet...) but you can see where there could be a use for multi processor in the future.

In less than ten years i can see us with MMP computers, Massively multi-processor.