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BareFeats speed comparison: 4-Core vs 8-Core
- Thread starter sigmadog
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If anything, I would much rather have a 2.66GHz OCTO with 6GB of RAM than a 2.93GHz QUAD with 32GB of RAM.
Yeah, but the question is, would you rather have a 2.26GHz Octo with 6GB (or even 12GB) vs. a 2.93GHz Quad with 6 (or 12GB)?
I think these benchmarks prove that unless you are heavily reliant on the few professional apps that can really utilize that many cores, you are better off with the Quad.
Even if you are heavily reliant on the few pro apps that can use that many cores, it's clear from this review that you may have to spend time doing trial and error runs with your software to see what yields the biggest gains... who would have guessed the compressor runs best on the Octo with 6 threads?! That makes zero sense to me.
Finally, with the entry-level Octo do you realize that most of your day-to-day tasks are just chugging along at 2.26GHz? That's barely better than a low-end Macbook. 12GB or 8 cores aint going to help you load these forums any faster... for many things, clock speed is still king. (BTW there were at least a couple of people here who purchased the entry-Octo machines and returned them promptly because they felt sluggish for exactly this reason).
These are just a few of the main reasons, I selected a Quad. While I'm admittedly very biased, I think my reasoning is sound (at least to me LOL)... and I'm having real trouble understanding the reasoning for anyone to buy the entry level Octo for anything other than bragging rights. Anyone serious about multi-threaded performance is probably making money with their machine and is likely undaunted by the extra cost of the 2.66 or 2.93 Octo upgrades which would probably pay for themselves with just a couple of small jobs.
BTW, I wish people would stop hanging on to Snow Leopard as being the next best thing since sliced bread or multi-core processors. OS X has been SMP capable since inception... it's the applications that are lagging.
Yeah, but the question is, would you rather have a 2.26GHz Octo with 6GB (or even 12GB) vs. a 2.93GHz Quad with 6 (or 12GB)?
I think these benchmarks prove that unless you are heavily reliant on the few professional apps that can really utilize that many cores, you are better off with the Quad.
Even if you are heavily reliant on the few pro apps that can use that many cores, it's clear from this review that you may have to spend time doing trial and error runs with your software to see what yields the biggest gains... who would have guessed the compressor runs best on the Octo with 6 threads?! That makes zero sense to me.
Finally, with the entry-level Octo do you realize that most of your day-to-day tasks are just chugging along at 2.26GHz? That's barely better than a low-end Macbook. 12GB or 8 cores aint going to help you load these forums any faster... for many things, clock speed is still king. (BTW there were at least a couple of people here who purchased the entry-Octo machines and returned them promptly because they felt sluggish for exactly this reason).
These are just a few of the main reasons, I selected a Quad. While I'm admittedly very biased, I think my reasoning is sound (at least to me LOL)... and I'm having real trouble understanding the reasoning for anyone to buy the entry level Octo for anything other than bragging rights. Anyone serious about multi-threaded performance is probably making money with their machine and is likely undaunted by the extra cost of the 2.66 or 2.93 Octo upgrades which would probably pay for themselves with just a couple of small jobs.
BTW, I wish people would stop hanging on to Snow Leopard as being the next best thing since sliced bread or multi-core processors. OS X has been SMP capable since inception... it's the applications that are lagging.
Nicelly said, I agree! In 14 days I'll be able to say how I'm satisfied with my 2.93 Quad.
What do you perceive as the gains coming in Snow Leopard?
From what I've seen, Snow Leopard will apparently make it easier to develop multi-threaded applications. It will also apparently include some tuning to the task schedular.
It's not going to turn single-threaded code into multi-threaded code, and it's not going to fix poorly coded multi-threaded apps.
Whatever benefits it brings, will be realized on everything from dual-cores to quad-cores to octa-cores.
Just don't expect it to unleash the power of your octo-core... that just isn't going to happen until the app developers do more to thread their apps and keep in mind that not all applications or tasks lend themselves to multi-threading.
I would actually expect an across-the-board speed increase in all apps because the OS is now pretty much fully 64-bit, and thus can take advantage of extended register sets, etc. At AMD when we designed AMD64 (which Intel appropriated), we saw that even 32-bit code running under a 64-bit OS increased in speed by around 10-15%.
Like every new OS, the eye candy, new security, etc. will offset any of the performance increases they get.
Maybe. Apple isn't Microsoft. If anything, sl seems to be all about slinning things down and optimizing things. I'm willing to bet you see speed improvements across the board.
Yep! I think so too... But as you stated it'll be mainly due to the new 64-bit components. This will affect all Mac Pros relatively in the same percentage.
It's good news! I'm buying SL the day it hits! (like I did Leopard too.)
It's good news! I'm buying SL the day it hits! (like I did Leopard too.)
I agree... Hopefully folks don't misinterpret my comments about multi-threading and SL to imply there won't be any benefits... I'm just skeptical that Snow Leopard will single-handedly unleash the potential of the octo core platforms... IMHO it will not... so buying a 2.26 Octo in hopes that SL will suddenly transform it into a power-house machine on every-day apps, is bound to end in disappointment.
I agree. I expect to see something like 10% speed improvement on existing apps, across the board. Perhaps more on some things that used to rely on 32-bit OS calls.
Multi-threaded apps I expect little additional improvement until developers deliver updates, and even then I don't expect to see massive improvements except maybe in highly parallelizable tasks like encoding, image processing, etc.
This is the reason why I'm waiting for snow leopard to release before choosing a mac pro. I guess base it off which benefits most after some reviews. Especially to see if apple speed bumps anything in the mac pro line ups.