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Apple Consulting/Onsite Situation Help

H

hobes270

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 29, 2008
105
0
In a little dilemma. I have a lot of these as I am a Apple consultant and do onsite work.

Here is the situation... got a dude who uses Adobe CS4 ALOT, and uses Final Cut Studio every so often. He wants to have these machines for a decent amount of time. He is wanting me to choose for him between two options for his needs, he says he needs something portable. (it dont have to be the best portable machine though, he says)

1. Get a 09 2.26Ghz Mac Pro 8 core and also get a 2.4ghz uMacBook.

or

2. Get a 09 2.66Ghz Quad MAc Pro with the 2.66ghz uMacBook Pro.

I was reading somewhere that the 2.66Ghz quad runs some programs faster or something becasue of the higher clock speed if your not using all 8 cores? IDK but any help is much appreciated!! :)

Oh yea, either way he will have the ATI 4870 card in the MP.
 
hobes270 said:
WOW!! :D HAHA YEA this is sweet and a half, no responses ha!
Click to expand...

Well, I haven't responded because I'm new here, and new guys should never hand out advice.

But since you asked, I'd lean towards the second option mainly because I don't have much confidence in the quality of MacBooks (based on my experience with a couple iBooks), and secondarily because I've heard that a lot of CS4 apps aren't all that multi-processor aware (except for After Effects, I believe), so the customer will get a better bang with the processor speed bump than with multi-processors.

That's my opinion. But what do I know, I'm just a dumb graphic designer.
 
Surely as an Apple consultant you should know this stuff already, and not have to resort to asking an internet forum?


Go for option two, except with a 2.92 Quad.
 
I have been an Apple consultant for about 12 years now. Some of the newer apps I am not up to date on how they going about using CPU,GPU and RAM. Another opinion can never hurt in todays world, I have learned that.

Sorry I asked.....
 
peskaa said:
Surely as an Apple consultant you should know this stuff already, and not have to resort to asking an internet forum?
Click to expand...
Not necessarily, as the OP may be extremely familiar with the hardware, but not the software packages.

Just a thought. ;)
 
As far as option #1, does the camera operate on USB or FW ... since the Aluminum MacBook lack FW, this may delete this choice as an option.

All that would be left with a FW camera is the plastic MacBook or upgrading to the Pro.
 
Yea, I asked him about that, he states that the camera is FW. He said it is not crucial to use FCS on the road though.

If I happen to do option 2, is it worth the additional $500 for a processor upgrade to the 2.93? But if your at that price, shouldn't you just do the 8 core? Or will the 2.26ghz 8 core not do as well as the 2.93 quad becasue the programs he uses will only use 4 cores and the 2.93 has a higher clock speed?

I am not sure at all about these programs, if the 8 core will benefit him over the 4 enough to dish out the extra money.
 
Final Cut will likely be taking advantage of 8-cores quicker than Adobe, since Adobe has to put out their Cocoa version first.

However #1 with the plastic case won't be too bad either, grab a FW port and a less dent resistant case at the expense of an easy to upgrade HD.

While not hooking up the camera on the road may not be crucial, it however is nice to do if you want to look at something on-site.

A 2.0GHz White MacBook with 4GB/320GB drive likely will still come in less than the same configuration in the uMacBook.
 
How about buying the Mac Pro 2.26GHz 8-core + Unibody MacBook Pro 15" 2.66GHz like I do. :)
 
hobes270 said:
WOW!! :D HAHA YEA this is sweet and a half, no responses ha!
Click to expand...

You expect an answer within an hour of posting?
- just ridiculous

It is not what program you use, it is how you use it that will determine if you need the extra power or not.

You can say you use Photoshop, but if you are not using it past what Microsoft Paint can do, then a Mini is enough.
The same goes for Final Cut Studio 2 as well, it just depends on what he is actually doing.

So until you know that, you can't get a definitive answer.
Go with the 4-core unless he will need more then 8GB RAM.

Try Googling, I swear it is fun:
homepage.mac.com/boots911/.Public/PhotoshopAccelerationBasics2.4W.pdf
 
hobes270 said:
If I happen to do option 2, is it worth the additional $500 for a processor upgrade to the 2.93? But if your at that price, shouldn't you just do the 8 core? Or will the 2.26ghz 8 core not do as well as the 2.93 quad becasue the programs he uses will only use 4 cores and the 2.93 has a higher clock speed?
Click to expand...

$500 for the CPU is worth it - you'll be getting a faster clock on the CPU, which will give you a boost in single-threaded applications (which is most of them). The 2.26 Octo would give you quite a big drop in single-threaded applications, despite costing around the same.

FCP *may* run faster on an octo 2.26 once Apple update for multi-threading, but the Quad isn't going to be a slouch by any means. Adobe's applications are definitely in need of the clock speed rather than cores, and seeing as Adobe are so slow at adopting 64bit support, expecting them to go multi-core any time soon is like wishing for the moon.
 
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