8-Core Mac Pro (Clovertown)

[scottlinux]

Blender http://www.blender.org/ can uses 8 cores.

 

[Multimedia]

I'm A Core Hog!

Yes, that's true.

It's also true that most of the time, most people aren't even maxing out ONE core never mind eight.

And when they do, their program won't get any faster unless it's multithreaded and able to run on multiple cores at once.

And it's also true that those people are not here. Get a clue who we are - Core Hogs!

 

[shawnce]

Yes, that's true.

It's also true that most of the time, most people aren't even maxing out ONE core never mind eight.

And when they do, their program won't get any faster unless it's multithreaded and able to run on multiple cores at once.

Lets not forget things like Spotlight that can now run more rigorously without affecting CPU resource much. You will get more intelligent software that can prepare for what you want to do so that when you go to do it it will be much more responsive. In other words just because some tasks cannot be easily broken up to leverage multiple cores doesn't mean that tasks such as those cannot be speculative run by software on idle cores in preparation for you doing the task.

 

[aegisdesign]

All that BeOS had was separate threads per window at the UI level. This does nothing for parallelizing compute tasks. These extra thread that BeOS had spent most of their time doing absolutely nothing.

Whilst true in that regard, BeOS also had threads for event queues too if you used BLooper, which could also be overused.

I think the threaded-ness just gave everyone the impression it was fast and not waiting on anything to a large extent rather than it actually being fast. Most of the speed just came from it being very lightweight and the apps written for it being written by good programers that knew how the thread.

 

[Antares]

and this got negative votes because...??????????

Yeesh!

One reason this is negative is because there were no performance numbers given.

 

[aegisdesign]

Lets not forget things like Spotlight that can now run more rigorously without affecting CPU resource much. You will get more intelligent software that can prepare for what you want to do so that when you go to do it it will be much more responsive. In other words just because some tasks cannot be easily broken up to leverage multiple cores doesn't mean that tasks such as those cannot be speculative run by software on idle cores in preparation for you doing the task.

Yes, that's definitely true. And I'd be happy to divert a whole core just to frickin WindowServer.

 

[jrhone]

Man, I don't know why people keep saying this. On OS X, *all software utilizes the extra cores*. The only way it wouldn't is if you have less than 8 processes running, which I guarantee you that you don't. (System alone requires 20-30 processes to run.)

Granted, 8 cores won't make Mail open up faster, but there are still plenty of ways to use those cores, and that's only going to increase as apps are re-written to be more heavily multi-threaded.

NOT TRUE....The Quad core G5 people are in an uproar because Logic Pro only uses 2 cores on the G5....they updated Logic Pro so it uses 4 cores, but the G5 Quad still only uses 2 cores....there are also photoshop actions that are NOT multi core aware so will only run on one core.....Hopefully 10.5 will make all this irrelevant.

 

[shawnce]

Whilst true in that regard, BeOS also had threads for event queues too if you used BLooper, which could also be overused.

Mac OS X has runloops which are flexible event processing constructs that can be run per thread. So nothing really unique in regards to BeOS in that regard.

 

[aegisdesign]

Also, the iMac is a 32-bit computer, and these are 64-bit chips, reducing any possiblity to zero.

Only the Yonah based Core Duo iMacs are 32bit (Well, and the G3/G4 too). G5 and the new iMac Core 2 Duo models on sale now are 64bit. Not that it matters per se.

 

[shelterpaw]

Yes, that's true.

It's also true that most of the time, most people aren't even maxing out ONE core never mind eight.

And when they do, their program won't get any faster unless it's multithreaded and able to run on multiple cores at once.

The Mac Pro isn't for most people. It's for professionals and professional applications, which are usally multithreaded, and will take advantage of the capabilities.

If you have a complaint about all these cores and not being able to take advantage of them, then this is not the computer for you. You're probably not using the software that will take advantage of them, so let it go and stop whining about it. For the those of us that do, this is great news.

 

[daver969]

Yes, that's true.

It's also true that most of the time, most people aren't even maxing out ONE core never mind eight.

And when they do, their program won't get any faster unless it's multithreaded and able to run on multiple cores at once.

I'm underutilizing my cpu nearly all of the time, but that's irrelevant-what really matters to me is that fraction of the time when I *am* asking it to do 4 things at once, and I want it do them at the same speed that each could be done individually.

 

[zero2dash]

How is this Apple "innovating"? Anandtech just put pre-release quad-core Intel-processor in to an Apple-computer. Apple itself had nothing to do with it. They could have used quad-core Dell-machine just as well.

The OS takes advantage of the extra 4 cores already therefore its ahead of the technology curve, correct? Gee, no innovation here...please move along folks.

As for using a Dell, sure they could've used that. Would Windows use the extra 4 cores? Highly doubtful. Microsoft has sketchy 64 bit support let alone dual core support; I'm not saying "impossible" but I haven't read jack squat about any version of Windows working well with quad cores. You think those fools (the same idiots who came up with Genuine Advantage) actually optimized their OS to run in an 8 core setup? Please pass along what you're smoking.

 

[epitaphic]

I'd be happy to divert a whole core just to frickin WindowServer.

going out on a limb here and assuming you have a heavily cluttered desktop

 

[Multimedia]

iMac Only Maxes Out At 2.33GHz C2D For The Foreseeable Future

So the question I have is can the latest iMac be CPU upgraded like the MacPro?

Only to 2.33GHz Merom C2D which is the forseeable top speed.

 

[aricher]

Clovertown is a 64-bit CPU.

Ask your PC-loving IT guy if he uses Windows XP64 and more than 4 gigabytes of RAM. If not, then 32-bit processors are apparently okay for him, too.

This was his response:

"Cloverton is not 64, Cloverton MP (Tigerton) is 64 and is still on the drawing board last I heard.

Using Windows 2003 x64 with dual AMD Opterons and 32 GB RAM. It'll smoke any of you antique Mac server wannabees..."

 

[Multimedia]

Some Of Us Need More Cores Than Others

The Mac Pro isn't for most people. It's for professionals and professional applications, which are usally multithreaded, and will take advantage of the capabilities.

If you have a complaint about all these cores and not being able to take advantage of them, then this is not the computer for you. You're probably not using the software that will take advantage of them, so let it go and stop whining about it. For the those of us that do, this is great news.

Thank you shelterpaw. And Bravo! Couldn't have said it better. Those who don't see the point of a lot of cores are not doing anything like what those of us who do are.

I'm underutilizing my cpu nearly all of the time, but that's irrelevant-what really matters to me is that fraction of the time when I *am* asking it to do 4 things at once, and I want it do them at the same speed that each could be done individually.

Zactly. This is the most reason - not that you need this level of performance 24/7. Thank you for that daver.

MORE POWER!

 

[Multimedia]

Clovertown C2Q Clovertown Core 2 Quadro Clovertown C2Q Clovertown Core 2 Quadro

This was his response: "Cloverton is not 64, Cloverton MP (Tigerton) is 64 and is still on the drawing board last I heard.

Using Windows 2003 x64 with dual AMD Opterons and 32 GB RAM. It'll smoke any of you antique Mac server wannabees..."

Your IT guy can't even spell it correctly - so how do you expect him to have a clue?

Clovertown

How do you know the IT dude typed that vs. the poster just typing what he said?

I did a direct copy-paste from my IT guy's email. What a knucklehead - him not you.

Do you think he has a clue telling him/her that Clovertown is only a 32 bit processor? He's supposedly a professional IT guy. I think it's pretty outrageous he doesn't know better.

Anyone seen this?

The real architecture changes are coming June 2008, then June 2010, then June 2012. With derivatives in the years between.

So Merom(Merom Santa Rosa)/Conroe/Woodcrest(Clovertown) are the end of the road of separate chips. No more mobile/desktop/sever chip... all are the same (should expect mobiles to have the lowest MHz, then desktop, then toping out with server)

And what's interesting is that each architecture change will be a leap in performance similar to Pentium D to Conroe transition. (source)

Screw Tigerton, Penryn's next (probably June 2007)

Thanks. Very helpful.

 

[NewbieNerd]

Your IT guy can't even spell it correctly - so how do you expect him to have a clue?

Clovertown

I think we can all read at normal size. Besides, how do you know the IT dude typed that vs. the poster just typing what he said?

 

[aegisdesign]

The Mac Pro isn't for most people. It's for professionals and professional applications, which are usally multithreaded, and will take advantage of the capabilities.

If you have a complaint about all these cores and not being able to take advantage of them, then this is not the computer for you. You're probably not using the software that will take advantage of them, so let it go and stop whining about it. For the those of us that do, this is great news.

It was just a general point, not a whine, so don't get your panties in a bunch. And some of the applications that don't take advantage of multiple cores currently are Adobe Photoshop and Quicktime which both rarely use more than two cores and sometimes only one. Both pretty important to professionals.

 

[puuukeey]

MORE POWER!

 

[kingtj]

Your I.T. guy needs to read more.....

He's totally mistaken! The Cloverton CPUs will *all* be 64-bits, as Woodcrest (found in current Mac Pros) is. Intel is not going to ever go back to a 32-bit Xeon class CPU.

The difference between Woodcrest and "Tigerton" is that Woodcrest CPUs achieve their "dual core" status by basically placing two complete Xeon CPUs under one outer casing, and making them communicate with each other through the front-side bus on the motherboard.

Cloverton will be the same way, but with 4 cores packed into one casing, instead of just two.

"Tigerton" will finally allow both cores to interconnect with each other through an internal interface built into the CPU, instead of slowing communications down by routing it off one CPU core, through the motherboard's front-side bus, and back onto the other core.

This was his response:

"Cloverton is not 64, Cloverton MP (Tigerton) is 64 and is still on the drawing board last I heard.

Using Windows 2003 x64 with dual AMD Opterons and 32 GB RAM. It'll smoke any of you antique Mac server wannabees..."

 

[aegisdesign]

going out on a limb here and assuming you have a heavily cluttered desktop

Yes, I know. it takes me a couple of days to really clutter up my desktop whilst I'm working on a project and the desktop's the handiest place to stash stuff. I've also usually got 30-40 windows open too.

If I'm busy I don't have the time to de-clutter and get back teh snappy.

 

[RedTomato]

I read the link above about the ZFS filesystem.

Hmm this could remove a lot of the pain I currently have juggling disks on the cheap.

(I hold a lot of footage of deaf people signing for a project, and don't really have any budget to pay for disk storage. I currently have about 200 GB left on a 1 TB RAID5 system inside a Powermac G3)

It seems the concept of individual volumes will vanish, and instead ZFS creates a common pool of filespace and looks after the checksums etc itself. New drives can just be thrown into the array and ZFS will look after optimising the array I/O.

Mixing 15k rpm speed demon drives with 5400rpm storage hog drives mmmm...

I look forwards to being able to buy a cheap chassis with just a power unit and space for 10 drives, and being able to put that next to my G3, and having ZFS sort out what to do with the 8-9 drives in there.

Something like that hooked up to a Cloverton should give significant HD speedup. Not as much as a ramdisk tho

One thing, the article says ZFS can cope with drives being removed from the pool. I'd like to see more detail on that. It surely copes with 1 out of 4 drives failing - what about 3 out of 4? What if 3 x 20GB 15k rpm drives fail and the 1x750GB 5400rpm drive is still up?

 

[relimw]

How much more 'blind' do you want it? All the programmer has to do at this point is use multiple threads. Even if they don't, multiple cores will be automatically used for system and other processes.

Splitting one thread so that it ran cocurent with itself is a recipie for massive trouble. Mac OS X is about as blind as any system out there for the programmer. There may be some more optimizations that the system could make in it's own handling of multiprocessing, but from a programmer's perspective it doesn't matter how many cores the system has. (Unless you really want it to.)

Programming in pthreads is a bear (at least to me) an easier method would be nice. However, when I was looking up something today I came across OpenMP which seems to greatly simply setting up threads and the like. I suppose I was just thinking of run-time parallelization.

 

[whatever]

All the people that just coughed up $3k for a quad core MacPro.

I'm one of those people who dropped $4K for a quad core MacPro and basically I'm happy that I did. It blows away everything else that is out there today and will be the top performing Mac until 2007. Apple will not be releasing an upgrade to the Mac Pro this year. No matter what anyone says.

Why you might ask, well they don't need to!

But what if the competition releases these super fast machines, won't Apple be left behind. No! What OS will these machines be running, Windows XP. One of the things that seperates Apple from everyone else is their OS. They have an OS which takes full advantage (important word is full) of the hardware. It's the big advantage that they have over Dell and HP, they create the software that runs on the computer.

So if I want to run Final Cut Pro as fast as possible on an optiomized machine, then I'll have to run it on a Mac. Alright, that's a bad example, but in a way it's not, because a lot of the people buying Mac Pros also live in Apple's Pro apps.

The next new computer we'll see from Apple anytime soon will be the MacBook Pro which will be redesigned (featuring the MacBook's keyboard), upgrades to the MacBook won't happen until January (however Apple may try to get them out in December).

Apple's goal is to have everything 64-Bit before Leopard is uncaged.