8 cores? are you kidding?

[SpinThis!]

I think a lot of people end up getting Mac Pros so they can actually "do" pro work but that doesn't pan out. They have the mindset that "I need this crazy ass machine to get this done." They try out Logic or Final Cut for a while then get sick of it or because most people are lazy and won't take the extra time actually learn the program. And then they don't know how to use ebay or they believe they have enough invested already, might as well "go down" with the ship and they just stick with this beast machine.

For those who actually use the machine, seeing the progress bars melt away is a beautiful thing. Lightwave or any rendering program easily uses all 8 cores. Or being able to load up multiple tracks/reverbs in Logic and barely hit the cpu. Or even encoding a dvd for your AppleTV and do it in under 15 minutes.

 

[kabunaru]

I think a lot of people end up getting Mac Pros so they can actually "do" pro work but that doesn't pan out. They have the mindset that "I need this crazy ass machine to get this done." They try out Logic or Final Cut for a while then get sick of it or because most people are lazy and won't take the extra time actually learn the program. And then they don't know how to use ebay or they believe they have enough invested already, might as well "go down" with the ship and they just stick with this beast machine.

And then they turn their Mac Pros into a normal e-mail, occasional gaming and web-surfing machine. Something a MacBook can do fine.

 

[cmuench]

I would actually argue for the 8 cores. I want to be able to simulate a whole network(1 domain controller, 1 vista desktop, 1 xp desktop, linux router, linux monitoring box) all one one machine. Currently my 2.16 C2D macbook can't handle it all. I'm seriously looking at a mac pro in 2 or 3 months. throw 4gigs of memory in their and you are good to go.

I think for those of us in the virtualization industry we welcome more cores and more memory.

fyi. At my old sysadmin job before I left we ordered blades with 2 quads 3.0 with 16gigs of memory. I filled that bad boy at 50%cpu and 75% mem in 3 days so I think for those of us who want a cheap(yes cheap) dev lab the more cores and memory the better.

Anyway just my $0.02

 

[m1stake]

The ignorance is dumbfounding.

 

[ceres]

That´s what a 1080p encoding job looks like with RipBot 264.
Despite the rather low bitrate conversion it takes 2.5hrs to complete even at code optimized 95-100 load on all 8 cores. The trend is clear. The same can be observed with multimillion pixel image manipulation and advanced search features e.g. not searching for labels but "intelligent" (as in look for blond hair in a 100000 picture database) search that will be implemented soon.
There can never be enough cpu power.

 

[randyhudson]

I think you need at least two procs for web browsing at full speed. Two procs or some other form of multithreading (hyperthreading).

I suppose you don't need it, per se, but if you wanted to listen to music or download/install a system update at the same time, it'd make a big difference.

This statement couldn't be more wrong. Decoding an mp3 takes <4% of one core, and browsing the Internet is limited by your network connection. Installing a system update is limited by your harddrive I/O.

It's pretty obvious given most of the replies here: no one is using 8 cores, except when ripping a 2-hour movie in 15 minutes. But since it takes 2 hours to actually watch each movie, why is this even that important?

 

[idyll]

can't even compare this to the 466MHz computer I started out on...

 

[iSpoody 1243]

lolol

Yep you certainly need more than one core for all this porn!

I have never heard a more true statement before

 

[arcsbite]

why do I need 8 cores?

because I'm impatient

 

[spatlese44]

It's pretty obvious given most of the replies here: no one is using 8 cores, except when ripping a 2-hour movie in 15 minutes. But since it takes 2 hours to actually watch each movie, why is this even that important?

I do want to rip movies, but 97% of the time, I'm not using my computer, so it has nothing better to do.

can't even compare this to the 466MHz computer I started out on...

Not to mention the 733MHz I'm still using.

If all I had to do to upgrade a mini is click on a $100 option, I'd do it; but I sometimes run processor intensive simulations.

 

[hexonxonx]

I do want to rip movies, but 97% of the time, I'm not using my computer, so it has nothing better to do.



Not to mention the 733MHz I'm still using.

If all I had to do to upgrade a mini is click on a $100 option, I'd do it; but I sometimes run processor intensive simulations.

I remember the days of running an old 25MHZ Packard Bell. I think it had a 50MB drive in it and the thing could not play video of any kind without stuttering every other minute or two. I was in heaven when I was able to afford the $100 to upgrade the ram to 16MB.

 

[neverownedapc]

i am sorry i started this thread, but at least we all know who us full of it.

 

[mward333]

Probably 75%.
About 20% probably actually do "Professional work" and about 5% do "Actual Professional Work" with the Quadro FX 5600 card.

I guess I'm in the minority here, probably less than 1 percent, who are using the Mac Pro for mathematical computations, instead of graphics/video/music editing. I'm a statistics professor who does computationally-intensive calculations with my machine. Recently I had all 8 cores running at near 100 percent constantly for a month. Usually I batch my jobs out to our network (we over 7000 computing nodes on our campus, networked together with Condor), but I always like to test my job carefully before I waste somebody else's processing time.

By the way, since someone always asks about my sig, I visualize large data sets, and that's why I have 3 monitors. I don't do any fast graphics, just large data displays when my calculations are finished.

I hope that answers the OP's question, at least for the strange 1 percent of us who use the Mac Pro for working.

By the way, I've never played a game on my Mac Pro or done any graphics/video/music editing. It's just my statistical and mathematical workhorse, my test-machine let's say, before I send my jobs out onto the computational network for serious multiprocessing work (which often takes many weeks at a time).