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8-Core Mac Pro Details Emerging?

Marx55 said:
So, first it was the number of transistors per processor, then they coupled that with higher clock speeds (MHz) and now with multi-cores inside multi-processors.

Is there a limit to such growth with the current technology?

Anything after that? The optical computer that works with light instead of electricity and thus does not heat soo much? Any roadmap?

Thanks.
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How about Quantum computers?
 
Some_Big_Spoon said:
My only hope is now that multi-core systems have gone mainstream that someone (cough -M$-cough) will make multi-processor aware apps "fashionable" and extend the trend.

The Demi-Gods may be able to back me up on this, but Apple's not been great on this front despite leading (well, NEXT) the front on main stream multi-processor systems.
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Well, since they started selling multi-processor PowerMacs, they've been quite good about it. Final Cut Pro, Motion, iTunes, and iMovie all use multiple-processors, as does anything that uses CoreAudio. I don't know about Aperture, but I'd bet it uses multithreading/multiprocessing extensively. Plus the most important app of all is quite good at utilizing multiple processors, OS X. I don't know about other Apple apps such as Pages, Keynote, iPhoto, and iWeb, but there's probably a limited amount of things they can efficiently multithread in those apps due to the nature of work being done.

Bottom line is that if you're not doing long-form processor-intensive stuff such as 2D/3D animation rendering, video encoding, mathematical/scientific analysis, running simulations, etc. then you probably won't get much benefit from more than two cores (you'll be better off with two cores running at faster clock speeds). But if you are, eight cores will be fantastic.
 
very interesting . . . . .. .


so where are the new notebooks ?


or mac mini/macbook with a lowest end ati or geforce would be cool too
just not the shared graphics ram scheiss
gives me tons tons of errors in 3d programs
 
Macrumors said:
...speculation would indicate that Apple would elect to only use the X5355 and E5345, as they are the only models that support a 1333 MHz front side bus, which is what current Mac Pros use.
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Intel's 5000 chipset runs at both speeds, so nothing would have to change on the hardware to use the 1066 MHz bus.

SRSound said:
Well I'm already finding quite a lot of hesitation over this chip because it will attempt to squeeze too much power through a smaller FSB and create a huge bottleneck in system performance!

If this is true, maybe it would be better to stick with the current Xeon chips until Clovertown is revised to address this issue.
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You'd be better off with a faster Xeon 5160 for a single-threaded application (or up to 4 single-threaded apps). This is simply due to the clock speed issue - the fastest dual-core is one notch faster than the fastest Clovertown.

Running multi-threaded or lots of apps, though, the 8 core system will never be *slower* than the 4 core one at the same GHz. Dual 1333 MHz memory busses give a lot of bandwidth....

The memory bottleneck simply means that on memory-intensive apps the 8 core won't be twice as fast as the 4 core. Probably something like 50% to 75% faster would be expected at the lower end. (Remember that 8 MiB of L2 cache - cache-friendly apps may scream!)
 
I'll be holding my Mac Pro purchase off for a while...

Now that I think about it, an 8-core system would work great when 10.5 arrives. Imagine using the "Spaces" feature in Leopard and each space running a separate application. A Mac with this much power would be perfect doing such a task.;)
 
im hoping that apple has optimized leopard to be able to assign certain applications to certain cores. just like what some of the other posters have said

4 cores for Cinema 4D
1 core for internet and mail
2 cores for photoshop
1 core for quicktime dvd playback
 
My 2.66GHz MacPro doesn't use all four cores except on rare occassions (e.g. benchmarks, quicktime, handbrake, etc.) and even then it doesn't peg them all. What I'm most interested in is offloading OpenGL to a core, the GUI to another core, etc.
 
Software makers are the ones holding computing back in this arena. They refuse to accept that CPUs aren't going to get any faster, and that they are going to have to make their applications multi-threaded. This is especially true for games. The time has come, however, and software publishers are going to have to either make their applications massively-multithreaded, or fall to the wayside and be overtaken by an amateur application maker that is already making multi-threaded apps.

cgc said:
My 2.66GHz MacPro doesn't use all four cores except on rare occassions (e.g. benchmarks, quicktime, handbrake, etc.) and even then it doesn't peg them all. What I'm most interested in is offloading OpenGL to a core, the GUI to another core, etc.
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Use BOINC, that will peg all four of your cores.
 
I'll Take A Pair Of 2.33GHz Clovertowns Please • Holy Moly Same Price As 3GHz Woodies

Anyone know the current price of each 2.66GHz Woodcrest? I just got up and am too lazy to Google yet.

At $851 seems like the 2.33GHz Clovertown is not all thaat expensive.

Thanks Umbongo.

Woodcrest:
* Xeon DP 5150: 2.66 GHz, FSB1333, 4 MB L2 cache, $690
* Xeon DP 5160: 3.00 GHz, FSB1333, 4 MB L2 cache, $851

Clovertown:
X5355 2.66GHz 1333MHz 8MB $1172
E5345 2.33GHz 1333MHz 8MB $851

Wow only $161 more than the 2.66GHz Woodcrests for each 2.33GHz Clovertown or the same price as the current 3GHz Woodcrest. Man that looks like the Dual Clovertown will only cost no more the current $3.3k 3GHz Woodcrest - maybe even a little less if Apple wants to get aggressive with like $2999. That's $700-$1k less than I was expecting. Fantastic!

So for +$642 you would gain 2.66GHz in power or one more processor's worth of crunchability. :p

Now I'm getting seriously excited. Bring 'em on!

BTW Looks like Apple is way overcharging for the 3GHz Woodcrest upgrade. Only cost them $322 more - probably less off the published price list - yet they are asking for $800. That doesn't seem fair to me. Does it to you? I would think that $500 would be a more reasonable upgrade price for something that cost them about $300.
 
Multimedia said:
Anyone know the current price of each 2.66GHz Woodcrest? I just got up and am too lazy to Google yet.

At $851 seems like the 2.33GHz Clovertown is not all thaat expensive.
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From: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/236263/

Gurutech said:
Intel Clovertown Xeon Processor

X5355 2.66GHz 1333MHz 8MB $1172
E5345 2.33GHz 1333MHz 8MB $851
E5320 1.86GHz 1066MHz 8MB $690
E5310 1.60GHz 1066MHz 8MB $455

per / 1000 cpu purchased

from
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4253

Wow.

Here is the current price of Woodcrest...
* Xeon DP 5110: 1.60 GHz, FSB1066, 4 MB L2 cache, $209
* Xeon DP 5120: 1.86 GHz, FSB1066, 4 MB L2 cache, $256
* Xeon DP 5130: 2.00 GHz, FSB1333, 4 MB L2 cache, $316
* Xeon DP 5140: 2.33 GHz, FSB1333, 4 MB L2 cache, $455
* Xeon DP 5150: 2.66 GHz, FSB1333, 4 MB L2 cache, $690
* Xeon DP 5160: 3.00 GHz, FSB1333, 4 MB L2 cache, $851

So I guess the price of MP won't be affected by that much.
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Some_Big_Spoon said:
My only hope is now that multi-core systems have gone mainstream that someone (cough -M$-cough) will make multi-processor aware apps "fashionable" and extend the trend.
Click to expand...


Also solid state drives are needed to properly service the I/O needs. Why NOT put a solid state SATA drive in one slot on a MacPro so you can use it for a swap space? Or a PCI slot based device?

Remember, price is no object! I used to run my Mac+ in ramdrive mode and it was faster that way than my friend's IIfx for apps that would fit in the limited space. External SCSI drive for strorage in that mode.

I must be old :)

Rocketman
 
Rocketman said:
Also solid state drives are needed to properly service the I/O needs. Why NOT put a solid state SATA drive in one slot on a MacPro so you can use it for a swap space? Or a PCI slot based device?

Remember, price is no object! I used to run my Mac+ in ramdrive mode and it was faster that way than my friend's IIfx for apps that would fit in the limited space. External SCSI drive for strorage in that mode.

I must be old :)

Rocketman
Click to expand...

There'a a nifty device that I use, I forget who makes it, but it's a PCIe Card that holds up to 8GB of DDR2 Ram that is recognized as a Drive, I use it for VM, Paging, and a swapfile. Makes applications start up super fast.
 
cgc said:
My 2.66GHz MacPro doesn't use all four cores except on rare occassions (e.g. benchmarks, quicktime, handbrake, etc.) and even then it doesn't peg them all. What I'm most interested in is offloading OpenGL to a core, the GUI to another core, etc.
Click to expand...

Are you trying to say that you spent to much for a computer and should have bought an iMac? What do you do with your computer. Web and email or editing HD video?
 
Pardon Me But Would You Please Track Down The Link To That Card And IM Me?

SPUY767 said:
There'a a nifty device that I use, I forget who makes it, but it's a PCIe Card that holds up to 8GB of DDR2 Ram that is recognized as a Drive, I use it for VM, Paging, and a swapfile. Makes applications start up super fast.
Click to expand...
Pardon Me But Would You Please Track Down The Link To That Card And IM Me and post it here? I need it NOW! Thanks.

I will be on this thread until the Mac Pro Clovertown option ships. :D

This is the Mac Pro I have been waiting for.
 
Multimedia said:
Pardon Me But Would You Please Track Down The Link To That Card And IM Me and post it here? I need it NOW! Thanks.

I will be on this thread until the Mac Pro Clovertown option ships. :D

This is the Mac Pro I have been waiting for.
Click to expand...


This is not the one I use but the same in concept. Gigayte i-RAM This item uses PCI and not PCIe.

The one that I use doesn't work with the Macintosh, but apparently, the PCIe/SATAII version of the one that Eld is talking about will as mine uses no SATA interface for data transfer.
 
Does It Work In G5 Quads & Mac Pros? Looks Like It's PCs Only

Eidorian said:
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2480

I know they're making a PCI Express, DDR2, SATA II version though. Old news to me...
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Thanks but that looks like it's only of PCs. Do you know it works in Mac G5 Quads and Mac Pros?

I went to the GIGA-BYTE TECHNOLOGY CO website and it looks like they don't even make that i-RAM card any more. The link to the above article is from July 25, 2005 more than a year ago.
 
Multimedia said:
Thanks but that looks like it's only of PCs. Do you know it works in Mac G5 Quads and Mac Pros?
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You only have PCI Express slots in those models. I don't know what kind of controller chip it uses but it should just show up as a normal hard drive to your SATA onboard.
 
XServe?

I originally thought that this would make a nice "best" model for the Mac Pro, but the 5160 is surely a great chip. Given the slower clock speed (although not always a good indicator) and more cores, this might be a great chip for a Server, like an updated XServe.

Not sure if the software guys are going to catch up enough in multithreading to make good use of 8 cores, but several folks on an XServe would appreciate it.
 
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