I just recently got my Mac Pro, upgraded from a G5 and the speed is just amazing. At the moment, I do not have the beast apps that push my 8 core to the limit, such as CS5, except that's the main one I heard of, hopefully FCP 8 will (that's another topic). Plus I have been out of the game for a bit so I have not really looked around. I have some apps coming, such as CS5, but what others really take advantage of the power? No matter how odd they may be.
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Apps to push a Mac Pro to the limits
- Thread starter Soura2112
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I haven't seen my activity monitor but I'd imagine Handbrake (transcoding DVDs into MPEG-4, etc.) taxes the system pretty heavily.
I don't really get the intention here. 
Shouldn't you be the person that selects the apps for your work, rather than random people of the internetz that have no clue what your work is?
It's a little pointless to suggest XCode for compiling large scale projects of you're not a XCode developer, don't you think?
If you're looking to max out your CPU's, open 16 terminals and type in yes > /dev/null.
Shouldn't you be the person that selects the apps for your work, rather than random people of the internetz that have no clue what your work is?
It's a little pointless to suggest XCode for compiling large scale projects of you're not a XCode developer, don't you think?
If you're looking to max out your CPU's, open 16 terminals and type in yes > /dev/null.
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I don't really get the intention here.
I suppose it's rather like when you buy a new hammer and take it home. Even if you don't have any projects at the moment, you simply have to look around for some loose nails to hammer in.
I suppose it's rather like when you buy a new hammer and take it home. Even if you don't have any projects at the moment, you simply have to look around for some loose nails to hammer in.
A very expensive hammer... it baffles me that someone would buy an 8-core Mac Pro without knowing *exactly* what he plans to do with it.
matlab from mathworks could put any computer to it's knees if you write something really nasty
*amen*
Video and photo
To answer one of the responses I do video and photo work. I typically never leave that area. I have downloaded the trial version of CS5 until I buy it and instal my other Adobe and other programs. If I buy a Lamborghini I'm not going to drive 200 MPH on my local streets I would have to wait till I got way out of town, so just curious what other programs make the new Mac Pros really go. Thanks to all the cool replies. Always seems to be someone who has something negative to say, never get that, makes these forums useless. Though it's fun to aggravate these people, makes me want to buy a 12 core to play black jack on. I have learned to remember those screen names for my "no help list".
Thanks for the info to those who use their Pros outside of video and photo design, or what can be done outside my area of design or apps I have yet to get on board with yet.
The speed is amazing! Sadly all my discs are hidden in my garage to reinstall. Not cool! Found a lot today thankfully. Wish migration was a little better, been just getting the basics loaded again, music, pics, movies etc.
To answer one of the responses I do video and photo work. I typically never leave that area. I have downloaded the trial version of CS5 until I buy it and instal my other Adobe and other programs. If I buy a Lamborghini I'm not going to drive 200 MPH on my local streets I would have to wait till I got way out of town, so just curious what other programs make the new Mac Pros really go. Thanks to all the cool replies. Always seems to be someone who has something negative to say, never get that, makes these forums useless. Though it's fun to aggravate these people, makes me want to buy a 12 core to play black jack on. I have learned to remember those screen names for my "no help list".
Thanks for the info to those who use their Pros outside of video and photo design, or what can be done outside my area of design or apps I have yet to get on board with yet.
The speed is amazing! Sadly all my discs are hidden in my garage to reinstall. Not cool! Found a lot today thankfully. Wish migration was a little better, been just getting the basics loaded again, music, pics, movies etc.
If you just want to test, Handbrake is a free alternative.
When encoding my dvd-library to mp4 on my 8-core early 2008 model, it worked at 95% load for 5 months almost continuously, with only short breaks.
I was very happy the last 5% was enough to work decently with almost all other tasks, which impressed me a lot.
When encoding my dvd-library to mp4 on my 8-core early 2008 model, it worked at 95% load for 5 months almost continuously, with only short breaks.
I was very happy the last 5% was enough to work decently with almost all other tasks, which impressed me a lot.
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Check out the distributed computing forum. You can load up Boinc and crunch some data to help out scientific projects. It will definitely use as much of your computer as you let it.
Check out the distributed computing forum. You can load up Boinc and crunch some data to help out scientific projects. It will definitely use as much of your computer as you let it.
To be fair, that's mostly Motion.
Depends on the app.... The video apps will do a pretty decent job with multicore.
Boinc will max out every thread at max speed. Pick a project and crunch some data for a good cause to. Otherwise, process a AVCHD file to another codec provided the software will use every thread.
Cool info
Thanks. I use handbreak for movie transfers to my iPad, iPhone and Apple TV, I can't believe the difference from the other Macs in my house. That's one of the projects I'm doing at the moment to save drive space plus for our new Apple TV a Christmas present for my dad, thankfully almost done. I took a tiny vacation right after I got my Pro up, so I'm about 5 days behind where I want to be, and like I mentioned discs and serial codes were all over the place. I learned my lesson about codes. I found odd because when I got my MacBook Pro in 08 I did transfers simply from a external drive from the G5 to MacBook and all apps worked fine, no discs were needed. Migration just didn't really do much except take up a ton of Hard Drive space, expected, but not much worked, so I just put the 2 drives from my G5 in my new Pro and transferring that way, slower but better then migration for me at least.
My brother is being cool and hooking me up with a list of apps I want to learn, not sure if I want to take classes from a college, though I already graduated awhile back or teach myself. It's nice to take a class and not worry about grades or attendance if I'm working. These apps are not a passion like video apps, music apps, or photo apps such as Photoshop (I certainly need a book for CS5 cause it's been years and I was using CS2 for years), so lots to learn.
Before I took a simple media class back in 2004ish I had no clue I had a passion for the apps I listed I use. So I'm always on the look out for learning more especially now that I own a computer that can handle these products cause I was stuck for awhile with my G5 that didn't allow much these past 2 years. I'm not a fan on working on a MacBook pro, just not for me, little stuff yes, big no.
I don't care if they use all the cores, I went with 8 so I could future proof a bit. Yeah I know technology will change and there is no way to future proof for to long, just being careful. I payed almost the same for my G5 so I figured that in also.
Thanks again for the info. I admit being out of the pro game and all the new technology they put in pros (did know until 07). For awhile I thought my side business was done but after a few talks with people it's back, so trying to play catch up.
Thanks again to the cool Mac geeks, I say that as a good thing!
Thanks. I use handbreak for movie transfers to my iPad, iPhone and Apple TV, I can't believe the difference from the other Macs in my house. That's one of the projects I'm doing at the moment to save drive space plus for our new Apple TV a Christmas present for my dad, thankfully almost done. I took a tiny vacation right after I got my Pro up, so I'm about 5 days behind where I want to be, and like I mentioned discs and serial codes were all over the place. I learned my lesson about codes. I found odd because when I got my MacBook Pro in 08 I did transfers simply from a external drive from the G5 to MacBook and all apps worked fine, no discs were needed. Migration just didn't really do much except take up a ton of Hard Drive space, expected, but not much worked, so I just put the 2 drives from my G5 in my new Pro and transferring that way, slower but better then migration for me at least.
My brother is being cool and hooking me up with a list of apps I want to learn, not sure if I want to take classes from a college, though I already graduated awhile back or teach myself. It's nice to take a class and not worry about grades or attendance if I'm working. These apps are not a passion like video apps, music apps, or photo apps such as Photoshop (I certainly need a book for CS5 cause it's been years and I was using CS2 for years), so lots to learn.
Before I took a simple media class back in 2004ish I had no clue I had a passion for the apps I listed I use. So I'm always on the look out for learning more especially now that I own a computer that can handle these products cause I was stuck for awhile with my G5 that didn't allow much these past 2 years. I'm not a fan on working on a MacBook pro, just not for me, little stuff yes, big no.
I don't care if they use all the cores, I went with 8 so I could future proof a bit. Yeah I know technology will change and there is no way to future proof for to long, just being careful. I payed almost the same for my G5 so I figured that in also.
Thanks again for the info. I admit being out of the pro game and all the new technology they put in pros (did know until 07). For awhile I thought my side business was done but after a few talks with people it's back, so trying to play catch up.
Thanks again to the cool Mac geeks, I say that as a good thing!
Handbrake got my Q9550 hackintosh to 85 degrees celsius so I guess that's an app to push the limits.
Depends on your system. It can't max out 24 threads and I've never seen it use more than 70% on my 16 thread Mac Pro. If you run two instances at once, you're fine though.
The only thing I've seen bring my Mac Pro to it's knees so far is Mac Par Deluxe when it's unpacking a blu-ray rip. It's kinda pathetic really. I basically can't do anything else while that's going on because the whole system gets very choppy and unresponsive.
Perhaps the tone of your original post suggested to more than a few that you were looking for some CPU-intensive software to search out on piratebay.
I too have an 8-core Mac Pro, but I have no intention of wasting other peoples time, asking them what cool software would tax my MP. Especially if I had no intention of purchasing or trying any of it.
Aside, I hope you find CS5 rocks on your new 'puter. I'd like to try it out and buy it too, but the cost is prohibitive. And just to confirm what others have said, I do a lot of video encodes on it also (alas not for generating revenue), these definitely clear out the cobwebs, the only drawback of course is they're over in less than a few hours, rather than the days it would take on a dual G5.