Does your 2009 Mac Pro 'stagger'?

[msmth928]

Please do this test for me:

1. Download and install Google Earth
   
2. Start Google Earth and enter an area and hit go. Then when it stops zooming in...
   
3. Drag the window around your desktop

Does it stutter/stagger in a jerky-like movement or is it completely smooth? Please let us know which Graphics Card you have too.

I've just tried this at the Apple store and it was a jerky movement - it had a NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 in it. I'm thinking maybe they're running old drivers - hence interested in what yours runs like.

 

[snouter]

I don't use Earth much, but is it downloading other parts of the map when you scroll around?

 

[msmth928]

Once you have entered an area and it zooms in, let it stop zooming in before moving it around. Just to be clear I mean drag the window around, not the 'area' inside the program itself.

Does yours stagger? If so which gpu have you got?

Just to add it does not stagger on my MBP.

 

[irrªtiºnal]

Please can somebody make this test?!!! I'm also interested in this issue...

 

[Infrared]

Try turning off road overlays, if you have them on.

 

[Cynicalone]

Very smooth here...

09 Mac Pro 2.93Ghz Octo w/4870 and 32GB of RAM

 

[hugodrax]

Smooth on my 2006 2.66 mac pro, running a 4870 card from apple.

 

[msmth928]

Well it's now happening on my MBP too! It's not constant tho, sometimes it's ok, sometimes it's laggy.

Please do post your results everyone

4870 owners - is it as quiet as the GT120? I've heard that ATI cards run hotter hense the fans run faster/noiser

 

[Tesselator]

Please do this test for me:

1. Download and install Google Earth
   
2. Start Google Earth and enter an area and hit go. Then when it stops zooming in...
   
3. Drag the window around your desktop

Does it stutter/stagger in a jerky-like movement or is it completely smooth?

2006 w/X5355 (8-core), 12GB RAM, 7300GT:

It's mostly smooth but it depends on what's turned on. 3D buildings makes it do the lag thing a little bit. Otherwise it's smoooooth. But usually I always have this in fullscreen mode so I never drag the window - except for this test.

Does Google Maps do it to you too?
http://maps.google.com/maps?t=h&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=52.51861,13.376144&spn=0.002693,0.006373&z=18

 

[Cynicalone]

4870 owners - is it as quiet as the GT120? I've heard that ATI cards run hotter hense the fans run faster/noiser

It makes some noise when you first turn on the Pro, but then it is really silent. Overall I'm very impressed with how quite the 09 model is.

 

[msmth928]

Anyone else do this test on their 2009 MP?

It makes some noise when you first turn on the Pro, but then it is really silent. Overall I'm very impressed with how quite the 09 model is.

Thanks! In that case I think I'll be leaning more towards it

 

[Roy]

It makes some noise when you first turn on the Pro, but then it is really silent. Overall I'm very impressed with how quite the 09 model is.

Now is it the 4870's fan that makes the noise or does the 4870 make the Mac Pro fans runs fast upon startup? When I startup (or a for a short time coming out of sleep) my Mac Pro intake fan (the one right up front that you can see through the little holes) is the one I hear running at high speed. The 4870 might cause the fan to run at high speed, but that's what I hear and see the fan spinning very fast.

 

[Tesselator]

The 09 models run hotter than the 08 and 06 models so the fans will be louder (if Apple is sane!) on 2009 machines.

It's still the same basic case and almost no effort was put into engineering a silent running system. If a Mac Pro system is running silent then it's almost always running too hot. Apple seemed to think this was important to people so the 06 machines (and maybe the 08 ones) had their SMC defaults set wrong in order to achieve this. People were all reporting how wonderfully quiet their macs were and at the same time their drives were hitting 45c to 55c (above the max operating temp), their RAM was running too hot, and probably their GPUs were as well.

 

[Infrared]

Now is it the 4870's fan that makes the noise or does the 4870 make the Mac Pro fans runs fast upon startup?

I'd almost place money on it being the former.

The stock fans on graphics cards tend to be quite whiny
(obviously variations are possible).

The Mac Pro's own fans make a very different kind of sound.
Much more of a pleasant whirring when they are rotating fast.

Once you know the two sounds, quite easy to tell apart.

Incidentally, there is a curious difference between the 2600XT
and the 8800GT. The 2600's fan spins up fast during a reboot.
The 8800's fan does not. Rebooting is so much nicer with the
8800GT

 

[Cynicalone]

It seems like it is the 4870 spinning up. I only hear it on a restart. I guess to better answer that question I would need to start up the Pro w/o the side cover on.

As for fan speed and noise I'm not sure about that. I have some high temps but the fans stay really quite.

 

[Mackilroy]

If you have a fast connection, Google Earth will be faster. If you have a slow connection, it'll be slower (obviously).

@Tesselator: my fan speeds are the default and all of my temps are well under 45 C.

About the fan-spin up upon startup - that's the GPU's fan.

 

[hugodrax]

Well it's now happening on my MBP too! It's not constant tho, sometimes it's ok, sometimes it's laggy.

Please do post your results everyone

4870 owners - is it as quiet as the GT120? I've heard that ATI cards run hotter hense the fans run faster/noiser

Its real quiet, much more than the 1900xt and when I play games like Quake 4 or X-plane I do not even hear it going up in speed. I am not sure if the fan is so quiet I do not notice the RPMs going up or if it is much more efficient that it generates less heat.

 

[msmth928]

If you have a fast connection, Google Earth will be faster. If you have a slow connection, it'll be slower (obviously).

We're not talking about the speed of Google Earth getting details from the web, we're talking about the OS handling it's window when you drag it around your desktop.

 

[Tesselator]

@Tesselator: my fan speeds are the default and all of my temps are well under 45 C.

What temps are those and what Mac is it? Anyway I notice many exceptions for various reasons but I was commenting on a general trend I noticed over the past 3 years gathered from reading forums and from operating my own system.