Imac I7 vs 2008 Octo for multitasking

[Kallel00]

I know all about the benchmarks both computers have, and how the I7 is close to the 2008 octos in term of performance.


However, I'd never worked with a dual processor computer, and would like to ask how multitask is efficient.


On a C2D, even a single core application like un-rar on an archived movie file will choke the heck out of my computer. On a quad, I can also have the same problems, for example if I do batch de-interlacing of AVCHD movies, then try to work in Lightroom & photoshop, there's noticeable slowdowns here and there.

Am I going to have the same problems on an Octo 2008, or I'd really be able to run processor intensive applications (MPEG Streamclip conversions + JES Deinterlacing for example) while doing other stuff (ie Lightroom or just browsing) without the flashy color disk of lag appearing all the time


Thanks

 

[psycodriver]

You can that problem on both. The major factor is not the how many cores it has. It's the ram and hard drives. For the ram you need at least 8 gig if you want to run many programs at once. For the hard drives you need the scatch discs on their own drives from the OS. I have a 4 core 2.93 mac pro with that set up, I can be rendering in after affects or final cut, and still work in Ps or do what ever. Just fine.

 

[bzollinger]

You should provide the specs of your machine to put things in context. It's pretty impossible to help without knowing what you've got now.

 

[gotzero]

It depends on where your bottlenecks are. The Mac Pro can address more RAM, offer far superior HDD options, access more powerful GPUs, etc.

Physical cores are always going to be more beneficial than hyperthreading. I have a well massaged 2008 8*2.8 (striped SSD boot, striped HDD data, striped scratch drives, an extra 4870 for OpenCL, a pile of RAM, etc) that I use for my main personal machine. At pretty much all times, I have two cores and 4GB devoted an XP virtualization. With the rest of the system, I manage a cluster, browse the internet, manage e-mail apps, music, stream media to everything else in the house, run computational simulations (some on the computer, some off of it).

I often have all of those things running at the same time, and have more of less forgotten what the beachball looks like.

I think that you can get a long way by optimizing your system, but you can get a lot farther with the expandability the Mac Pro offers.

There are a lot of the comparisons lately, which seem to be a little off base. I think the Imac should be thought of as a finished platform, and the Mac Pro should be regarded as a canvas ready for expansion.