Confused about MP08 compared to MP09...

[spiritlevel]

I have a MP dual quad 2.8 that I bought in Feb 08. It cost me about £1650.

I just looked on the UK Apple store and I see that the current MPs start at £1899 for a single quad 2.66 and a dual quad 2.66 is £3,619! - more than double the price I paid for my dual 2.8...

which leaves me feeling a bit confused...

I understand that the processors have changed from Penryn to Nehalem - but how much difference does that actually make?

How does my 08 compare to the 09 models - is the single quad 2.66 Nehalem faster than my dual quad 2.8 Penryn? How about the dual quad 2.66 compared to mine?

I was thinking about upgrading - in the past this has always meant getting a new machine with a higher clock speed. It seems a little weird to me to "upgrade" from a dual quad intel xeon 2.8 to a single or dual quad intel xeon 2.66 that costs twice what the 2.8 did...

 

[Umbongo]

I have a MP dual quad 2.8 that I bought in Feb 08. It cost me about £1650.

I just looked on the UK Apple store and I see that the current MPs start at £1899 for a single quad 2.66 and a dual quad 2.66 is £3,619! - more than double the price I paid for my dual 2.8...

which leaves me feeling a bit confused...

I understand that the processors have changed from Penryn to Nehalem - but how much difference does that actually make?

How does my 08 compare to the 09 models - is the single quad 2.66 Nehalem faster than my dual quad 2.8 Penryn? How about the dual quad 2.66 compared to mine?

I was thinking about upgrading - in the past this has always meant getting a new machine with a higher clock speed. It seems a little weird to me to "upgrade" from a dual quad intel xeon 2.8 to a single or dual quad intel xeon 2.66 that costs twice what the 2.8 did...

Apple changed their pricing that is why it seems confusing. With the old pricing model a dual 2.66GHz would be around £2000. The upgrade isn't worth it unless your 2.8GHz is overwhelmed by what you are doing and can really take advantage of multiple threads.

 

[gugucom]

I agree with Umbongo. If you can load the cores with commercial work that makes the machine pay back you probably want to wait for the 2010 Mac Pro. It is likely to beat the 2009 by a fair margin like 50%.