Buying my Mac Pro on Monday! Should I pick Quad 2.93 or Octa 2.26?

[Mac Husky]

if I would be better off going to the 2.66 8 core or the 2.93 Quad

I guess there is no question, that the 2.66 8-core is going better than the quad for what you are doing?!
Question is, if you are willing to pay the price (50% more) for a 2.66 8-core instead of a 2.93 quad?

(...) not sure what the limitations are on the memory on the Quad, I read that it will go up to 16gig of memory, which is good.

Yes, it seems to work, but going for 12 or 16 GB is kind of expensive within the next weeks

 

[davewolfs]

I think for most users the Quad core makes sense unless you are rendering and actually have apps that will utilize all cores. Or you are running multiple VM's and are allocating multiple cores to each VM.

If you are doing Photoshop or Lightroom with a high MP camera i.e. 5D II/D3x the 2.93 will definitely do better then 2.26.

My only concern with these quads is that they are way overpriced (equivalent parts available for under $1500). The CPU's that these systems use are cheap where as the Octo's have some sort of unique factor to them because not only are they multi cpu but the parts are also very expensive. That being said, I'm not sure how the resale value on these quads would hold (perhaps someone can chime on on that) but my guess is that the Octo's would be much better.

As for the argument that the future is multi threaded applications, this is definitely true but we have no idea when it will arrive. By the time Photoshop and Lightroom become efficient with multiple cores, its highly likely that there will be even more capable Mac Pro's.

As for me, I'm on the fence between either a Quad 2.93, Octo 2.66 or PC ?!?

 

[HDnut]

I guess there is no question, that the 2.66 8-core is going better than the quad for what you are doing?!
Question is, if you are willing to pay the price (50% more) for a 2.66 8-core instead of a 2.93 quad?

Yes, it seems to work, but going for 12 or 16 GB is kind of expensive within the next weeks

Well, I get a educational discount because my wife is a teacher, so this is helpful. I must say I don't mind paying the extra cash as these machines tend to hold there value. My last 2006 Mac Pro sold for $2200 on ebay, which just blows my mind.


davewolfs: I agree, it is a hard call. Although like I said above these machines are built really well and hold there value, I think people forget about that. I am just about ready to talk to the Apple Final Cut Pro professionals and see what will best serve my needs. As I will be doing a lot with Blu-Ray and am starting to do, I also have a Nikon D300 and a D90 and do shoot with RAW photo's and I do rendering on one screen and photoshop on the other. My last machine took forever, this current model is much better.. I think the amount of work I do at once and the amount of rendering and photo work and HD Final Cut work the 2.93 Quad and or the 2.66 Octa will best serve my needs. I have worked on expensive PC, but I hate them now.. LOL plus I just don't have the time to build them anymore.... Just curious if anyone has looked at these?


http://store.psystar.com/home/desktops/osx/openpro-osx.html

 

[Mac Husky]

Well, I get a educational discount (...)

So do I, but it´s still a lot of money couse the rebate is not more than 13% as I figured out last week. And I am not sure, wether your experience with selling and value holding can be generalized?!

Thinking about a 6GB RAM Mac Pro 2.93 quad instead of an 2.66 quad will be about ~ € 400,- with educational discount. That´s not a big deal so far. But concerning about an 8-core 2.66 we are talking about not less than ~ € 1.630 plus - meaning ~ € 1.240 plus going from 4-core 2.93 up to 8-core 2.66.

I think, the 2.66 8-core will be the right one for you. And of course I would like to have such a maschine. Using a Nikon D300 and Photoshop CS4 also, but will not do approximately as much HD video as you may. And never ever parallel. That´s why my decission isn´t that "easy" looking at the prices below - and already nearly convinced, that the 4-core 2.66 will do best with my apps:

4-Core 2.66 6GB € 2.113,-
4-Core 2.93 6GB € 2.506,-
8-Core 2.26 6GB € 2.626,-
8-Core 2.66 6GB € 3.748,-

Educational discount included.

 

[videotastic]

Can anyone say which of these machines would be better for editing HD footage in FCP and doing work with After Effects? I love the clock speed on the 2.93, but also like the extra cores on the 2.26. Which do you think I would benefit more from?

 

[davewolfs]

Well, I get a educational discount because my wife is a teacher, so this is helpful. I must say I don't mind paying the extra cash as these machines tend to hold there value. My last 2006 Mac Pro sold for $2200 on ebay, which just blows my mind.


davewolfs: I agree, it is a hard call. Although like I said above these machines are built really well and hold there value, I think people forget about that. I am just about ready to talk to the Apple Final Cut Pro professionals and see what will best serve my needs. As I will be doing a lot with Blu-Ray and am starting to do, I also have a Nikon D300 and a D90 and do shoot with RAW photo's and I do rendering on one screen and photoshop on the other. My last machine took forever, this current model is much better.. I think the amount of work I do at once and the amount of rendering and photo work and HD Final Cut work the 2.93 Quad and or the 2.66 Octa will best serve my needs. I have worked on expensive PC, but I hate them now.. LOL plus I just don't have the time to build them anymore.... Just curious if anyone has looked at these?


http://store.psystar.com/home/desktops/osx/openpro-osx.html

Educational Pricing:

Octo 2.66 with 12GB and ATI = 4709, 4439 with 6GB
Quad 2.93 With 6GB and ATI = 3064

Regardless of the discount, there is a large difference in price (the price is the actual difference in CPU cost). I wouldn't worry about multi cores and RAW, both machines are more then capable, if final cut makes you money then by all means the difference in price will likely pay for itself.

As for a Psystar, I would not touch one with a 10 foot pole. Would I build my own machine and try to install OS X...Maybe

 

[HDnut]

Educational Pricing:

Octo 2.66 with 12GB and ATI = 4709, 4439 with 6GB
Quad 2.93 With 6GB and ATI = 3064

Regardless of the discount, there is a large difference in price (the price is the actual difference in CPU cost). I wouldn't worry about multi cores and RAW, both machines are more then capable, if final cut makes you money then by all means the difference in price will likely pay for itself.

As for a Psystar, I would not touch one with a 10 foot pole. Would I build my own machine and try to install OS X...Maybe

FCP, does make me money on the side and will likely be my full time job soon, although it is hard to leave the Medical industry because the money is good, but it is so over regulated it makes me sick! LOL Plus if I decide to off this later it will hold its value. My last Mac Pro went from some good coin on ebay last week, so that makes this upgrade less of a headache.

Mac Husky: Thanks for the info as well.

 

[MasterM6]

The call has been made.... I can honestly say this has been the hardest decision ever when it comes to buying a product. I was extremely close to change my order just when I had it confirmed...

In the end I bought the Quad 2,93! I am still not 100% sure that it was the right thing and that I should have picked the Octa 2,26...

The one thing that makes me so uncertain is that I don't now what implications Snow Leopard and Grand Central will have on the software development in the next few years... I know that no one really knows but this is a really big investment for me and I don't like it when I don´t have information on a variable.

But there is no chance I could wait for SL to be released because I have been waiting 5 months now and my Dual 2.5 G5 is on its knees. So let´s just hope it is a good call

Will have it in my hands 6-9 of april. Now it is time to take pictures of my PowerMac and put it up for sales

 

[davewolfs]

The call has been made.... I can honestly say this has been the hardest decision ever when it comes to buying a product. I was extremely close to change my order just when I had it confirmed...

In the end I bought the Quad 2,93! I am still not 100% sure that it was the right thing and that I should have picked the Octa 2,26...

The one thing that makes me so uncertain is that I don't now what implications Snow Leopard and Grand Central will have on the software development in the next few years... I know that no one really knows but this is a really big investment for me and I don't like it when I don´t have information on a variable.

But there is no chance I could wait for SL to be released because I have been waiting 5 months now and my Dual 2.5 G5 is on its knees. So let´s just hope it is a good call

Will have it in my hands 6-9 of april. Now it is time to take pictures of my PowerMac and put it up for sales

Don't feel so bad, at least you now know your system will be faster then a Dell.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2343855,00.asp

I don't think you can expect snow leopard to make much difference for single application performance.

 

[cmaier]

I don't think you can expect snow leopard to make much difference for single application performance.

Well, not with pre-existing code, but with newly compiled code, improvement in single-application performance through intelligent use of unused computing resources (extra CPU cores, extra CPUs, extra hyperthread-pseudo-cores, extra GPU cycles, etc.) is pretty much the point of SL.

 

[Jouhne]

Well, not with pre-existing code, but with newly compiled code, improvement in single-application performance through intelligent use of unused computing resources (extra CPU cores, extra CPUs, extra hyperthread-pseudo-cores, extra GPU cycles, etc.) is pretty much the point of SL.

Well, I think that we are 2 maybe 3 years away from that (minimum).
And then some apps will always be better in single thread (so high MHz).

 

[cmaier]

Well, I think that we are 2 maybe 3 years away from that (minimum).
And then some apps will always be better in single thread (so high MHz).

I think Apple's pro apps will support this long before 2 or 3 years from now. As for other apps, multi-core has been around for quite awhile, so the pressure to parallelize where possible has already been mounting for 3rd party vendors. Things that use coreimage and cocoa will probably see near-immediate boosts.

Then you have adobe, where it's anybody's guess. Clearly they are already under pressure to massively update photoshop's architecture to take advantage of 64-bit and GPU processing, but it's anybody's guess as to whether they will do so; if they gave a damn about the mac they wouldn't have foisted half the CS4 user interface abominations on us.

 

[DrawingArt]

The call has been made.... I can honestly say this has been the hardest decision ever when it comes to buying a product. I was extremely close to change my order just when I had it confirmed...

In the end I bought the Quad 2,93! I am still not 100% sure that it was the right thing and that I should have picked the Octa 2,26...

The one thing that makes me so uncertain is that I don't now what implications Snow Leopard and Grand Central will have on the software development in the next few years... I know that no one really knows but this is a really big investment for me and I don't like it when I don´t have information on a variable.

But there is no chance I could wait for SL to be released because I have been waiting 5 months now and my Dual 2.5 G5 is on its knees. So let´s just hope it is a good call

Will have it in my hands 6-9 of april. Now it is time to take pictures of my PowerMac and put it up for sales

Congrats MasterM6, great decision. I decided aswell that I'm ordering 2,93 quad 100% in next 2 weeks. Can't wait to get rid of my last PC that is my main working machine and this will end my transmition fully to macs I just fell in love with I bought white macbook 1 year ago, then 24" iMac followed on mid of March '09 and now hopefully MacPro till mid April '09.

 

[MasterM6]

Congrats MasterM6, great decision. I decided aswell that I'm ordering 2,93 quad 100% in next 2 weeks. Can't wait to get rid of my last PC that is my main working machine and this will end my transmition fully to macs I just fell in love with I bought white macbook 1 year ago, then 24" iMac followed on mid of March '09 and now hopefully MacPro till mid April '09.

Thanks
Right now I just cant wait for it to come knocking on my door!

 

[Tesselator]

Congratz!

Between the two machines I would go for the 2.93 too!


You'll dig it.

 

[HDnut]

Educational Pricing:

Octo 2.66 with 12GB and ATI = 4709, 4439 with 6GB
Quad 2.93 With 6GB and ATI = 3064

Regardless of the discount, there is a large difference in price (the price is the actual difference in CPU cost). I wouldn't worry about multi cores and RAW, both machines are more then capable, if final cut makes you money then by all means the difference in price will likely pay for itself.

As for a Psystar, I would not touch one with a 10 foot pole. Would I build my own machine and try to install OS X...Maybe

I here you on price, as I just found out today that we won't be getting back any $$ this year on our taxes, so my machine just might change or I stick with this unit and or a 2.93 Quad. This review even made it harder to decide!!

http://www.macworld.com/article/139507/2009/03/macpro2009.html

Tesselator: curious, that I will need more than 8gig, which is the only thing that is pissing me off about the Quad Core! Why not make the machine where it can go higher if needed? Doesn't make any sense, I heard rumors that one can go to 16gigs of ram, not sure on this though.

 

[topgun072003]

the quad CAN go to 16GB of memory with 4GB sticks that have now been testing and confirmed to work in the Quad MP. The only problem is that the 4GB sticks are expensive right now.

 

[Mac Husky]

(...) curious, that I will need more than 8gig, which is the only thing that is pissing me off about the Quad Core! Why not make the machine where it can go higher if needed? Doesn't make any sense, I heard rumors that one can go to 16gigs of ram, not sure on this though.

As it has been pointed out for several times the last days here in the forum, there ist no 6/8GB limitation of RAM for the quad. Have a further look at a report from OWC published this morning. But as mentioned before: no bargain But of course an option for the future. To decide wether to go for 6/12 or 8/16 GB RAM have a look at this barefeats´ article. Some interesting benchmarks concerning the upgrade from OWC here.

Congrats MasterM6, great decision. I decided aswell that I'm ordering 2,93 quad 100% in next 2 weeks.

Congrats from my side also, MasterM6. For me it is still D) a hard decision, although reasonable reasons are telling me to go for the quad. Is your decision for the 2.93 a kind of compromise solution between the little quad and the litte octo so that you won´t have to say: I went for the cheapest one?! Don´t misunderstand my question, but I just want to find out, why you didn´t go for the 2.66 quad saving a lot of money that could be spent in RAM oder some fast HDDs. The increase of clock speed is not the world with max 10%, is it?! The abough mentioned benchmarks published by OWC could be of interest for you also.

Very interesting graphics, where you can see, how much RAM you really might need comparing benchmarks for After Effects and Photoshop. And once more it is shown, that 8-core has some really benefit for apps like After Effects, but nearly no benefit for apps like Photoshop. Looking at the RAM upgrades I got the impression, that more than 6GB have no visible effekt on speed using either AE or PS (exeption - i don´t no why: 12GB in a 2.26 octo). At least no effect, that would bring me to buy more RAM so far. Am I wrong with that?! To short-sighted view?! Of course: using more parallel apps that will switch, I guess. But I don´t do much parallel work.

Finding that interesting I opened up a new thread for that here.

 

[MasterM6]

As it has been pointed out for several times the last days here in the forum, there ist no 6/8GB limitation of RAM for the quad. Have a further look at a report from OWC published this morning. But as mentioned before: no bargain But of course an option for the future. To decide wether to go for 6/12 or 8/16 GB RAM have a look at this barefeats´ article. Some interesting benchmarks concerning the upgrade from OWC here.

Congrats from my side also, MasterM6. For me it is still D) a hard decision, although reasonable reasons are telling me to go for the quad. Is your decision for the 2.93 a kind of compromise solution between the little quad and the litte octo so that you won´t have to say: I went for the cheapest one?! Don´t misunderstand my question, but I just want to find out, why you didn´t go for the 2.66 quad saving a lot of money that could be spent in RAM oder some fast HDDs. The increase of clock speed is not the world with max 10%, is it?! The abough mentioned benchmarks published by OWC could be of interest for you also.

Thanks Mac Husky
Well the main reason that I picked the Q2.93 over the Q2.66 is that I am not going to buy another computer for 4-5 years and I want it to be as powerful as possible today. As I see it those 10% can help my computer live a few extra months with me.

I don't need more RAM today then the 6Gb, and I don't need more hard drives. When I do need them I will have the money, so for now I will spend my money on a stronger "base".

I never liked the O2,26, it felt so cheap some how... Can´t really explain it as it is not cheap machine when it comes to money...

 

[Mac Husky]

Well the main reason that I picked the Q2.93 over the Q2.66 is that I am not going to buy another computer for 4-5 years and I want it to be as powerful as possible today. As I see it those 10% can help my computer live a few extra months with me.

Another lucky man who had come to a decision - enviable
The only thing I really know is: it well be an

Still inclining to a quad - as the 2.26 8-core dosn´t convince me so far for my needs and the 2.66 8-core is to expensive for me.
And still not knowing whether the 10%-speedjump from 2.66 to 2.93 quad is worth the extra money.
So I will have a second look at the OWC data later on...

 

[Tesselator]

Tesselator: curious, that I will need more than 8gig, which is the only thing that is pissing me off about the Quad Core! Why not make the machine where it can go higher if needed? Doesn't make any sense, I heard rumors that one can go to 16gigs of ram, not sure on this though.

Yeah! For sure! I don't agree at all with Apple's design decisions nor their pricing structure. I've been in the industry on both sides of the counter so to speak since there was such a thing as a "personal computer" and it just doesn't make any sense to me either. But to me the thread was about a guy who had weighed all his cookies and wanted feedback for choosing between two specific models. In my thinking the 2.93 Quad wins that debate hands down. The octad would be better if the machine were sitting in a corner unattended and just rendering scenes with very specific software - but who here does that? There are a few of us who have macs just for that but I guess our numbers are in the tiniest of minorities.

 

[Mac Husky]

But to me the thread was about a guy who had weighed all his cookies and wanted feedback for choosing between two specific models. In my thinking the 2.93 Quad wins that debate hands down.

Absolutely and without a doubt having a look at the used apps of the TO

I work in the following programs:
PS
Flash
Illustrator
Lightroom
Xcode (Low level programing C)

(...)When I am working ”hard” the most programs that I use at the same time are PS, Flash, Illustrator, Lightroom, Itunes, Firefox, Thunderbird and VLC.

He wouldn´t have noticeable benefit at all from an 8-core system - speeking of 2.26 Ghz and possibly 2.66 Ghz 8-core neither!!!

 

[MasterM6]

Absolutely and without a doubt having a look at the used apps of the TO

He wouldn´t have noticeable benefit at all from an 8-core system - speeking of 2.26 Ghz and possibly 2.66 Ghz 8-core neither!!!

Well that is true for todays apps, but I have tried to decide if I will gain more "power" within the next 4-5 years when the apps I use will become multicore compatible. That is where my biggest problem for deciding was.

 

[Mac Husky]

That is where my biggest problem for deciding was.

So is mine, but who will know by now

I think, when you are not going to change to render/encode all day long,
you will still have the faster maschine for Photoshop & Co. in some years.
Even if Photoshop becomes multicore in more functions than today. And
an other question is, if one always goes for the newest software when it
comes out. You will have fun with your for a long time I guess

 

[Tesselator]

Well that is true for todays apps, but I have tried to decide if I will gain more "power" within the next 4-5 years when the apps I use will become multicore compatible. That is where my biggest problem for deciding was.

Mmm, no, I don't think they will. As a developer I know that some apps (many apps!) and algorithms just can not be made to multi-thread well. It's not a state of application maturity but rather one of condition in present architecture. A few could stand to be tweaked a little here and there but overall what we have now is about as good as it gets. Now if Intel could design a new architecture with parallelism, shared stacks, and shared states in mind then we could be really flying! Of course you'd need a new machine for that anyway tho so you're pick is still right on the money!


EDIT:
BTW, Photoshop is already multi-core aware. many parts of it use all available processor cores. Many parts do not! If Adobe redesigned it from the ground up specifically for multi-core environments we could get some increases but still not all of it would benefit. When it goes 64-bit on Mac we'll see a difference. I doubt very seriously in this economy that Adobe would even consider redesigning the cores of all their applications just for the little bit of performance that only some users would notice tho. The 64-bit version we will get for mac is as close to a complete redesign as we're likely to see - so let's see how that goes.