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Kentsfield, Cloverton Quad-Core CPUs Arriving Early?

Lollypop said:
At some point your going to have deminished returns. Sure multimedia apps can take advantage of a few more cores, but I dont see Mail running faster on 4 cores, nevermind 2!
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How fast do you want mail to go? The main reasons you need good processors is not for browsing, e-mail, text, and such and such. I highly doubt someone who does all these things on a five year old computer will be much slower than someone on a 16 GB RAM top of the line Powermac



Barabas said:
Why don't they just call it: Big Mac.
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I think that's the best name I've heard in this thread (sorry, Chundles)
 
As far as the name goes, how about the "Mac Quattro Pro." ;) Then maybe Apple could acquire the rights to the software and include it in the iWork suite...
 
freeny said:
Ive already trademarked "OctoCore" and "CoreOcto";)
Just keep saying it to yourself. After about the 12th time it just starts rolling off your tongue...
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El OchoCoro
 
emotion said:
We just need most software to support that efficiently now.
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It certainly will help. Though most pro apps are optimized for mulit-processors. I know much of Adobe/Macromedia's line is, well I'm not sure about the macromeida products. Apples Pro apps are and most of the DAW's are optimized, like Ableton 5.2/6.0, Cubase, Logic, Pro Tools.

It will be great is to see games optimized for this, which I do believe will happen now that most OEM's will be sporting mulitiple cores in the future.
 
shelterpaw said:
It certainly will help. Though most pro apps are optimized for mulit-processors. I know much of Adobe/Macromedia's line is, well I'm not sure about the macromeida products. Apples Pro apps are and most of the DAW's are optimized, like Ableton 5.2/6.0, Cubase, Logic, Pro Tools.

It will be great is to see games optimized for this, which I do believe will happen now that most OEM's will be sporting mulitiple cores in the future.
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I think Logic can only use two cores/processors with a cludge to use the other two on a quad (by pretending it's a remote machine). Someone told me this though so I'm not 100% on that.
 
nighthawk said:
My first job as a graphic designer I used an enhanced SE/30 (with 20" external monitor). About a year later we upgraded to the Quadras, so I guess that makes me #5?
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I think I used a SE 25 with a 12" monitor.

I also remember the first mac I purchased was the cheapest PowerMac they had. I remember upgrading the RAM from 8mb to 16mb and it cost over $300 for that 8mb chip!
 
The T1000 has 8 cores

Macnoviz said:
.... Introduction of world's first commercial 8-core system.
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Not quite the first. Sun has been shipping a commercial 8-core systems for about a year now. The T2000 has all 8 cores on one chip but each core also does four-way hyper threading so they claim 32 hardware threads. The price for an 8-core T1000 is about $8K. A system with 8 cores and 8GB RAM burns about 250W

Of course it does not run OS X but Gnome on Solaris has a very OS X -like "feel" to it.
 
The T1000 has 8 cores

Macnoviz said:
.... Introduction of world's first commercial 8-core system.
Click to expand...

Not quite the first. Sun has been shipping a commercial 8-core systems for about a year now. The T2000 has all 8 cores on one chip but each core also does four-way hyper threading so they claim 32 hardware threads. The price for an 8-core T1000 is about $8K. A system with 8 cores and 8GB RAM burns about 250W

Of course it does not run OS X but Gnome on Solaris has a very OS X -like "feel" to it.
It's a lot like a Mac Pro because Sun like Apple builds both the hardware and the OS and the machine ships with many of the same applications Both are unix based with a pretty point and click window system on top. Sun is also tranitioning to X86 but they are going much slower. So far only Sun's low-end machines have moved to AMD's Operon. All the high end stuff is still SPARC.
 
teme said:
All these rumors are making it so hard to decide when to get a new computer... my desktop and laptop are both about five years old. Though I don't have an urgent need to get a new ones, something new would surely be nice and useful.
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You essentially answered your own question. Get it when you need it, if you don't need it, then don't bother. If you're upgrading your apps in the next year or so, then it may make sense, but if you're not, then stay where you are. New is always nice until 6 months later when it's not so new and something nicer comes along.

Personally, I wouldn't hold out for some super ultra machine becuase the super ultramachine x2 will be around the corner. . If it fits my needs, then it's the choice I'll make.
 
2nd generation intel Mac Pro...
8 cores...
2^3 = 8

Mac Pro 2 Cubed

[cue 'return of the cubes']
 
guzhogi said:
However, many apps today won't see that much improvement either way (like a simple calculator, or solitare and word processing).
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If that's all your requirements are, then you would be able to get by very nicely on an old G3 system (assuming you can cram enough RAM into it.)

We have long since exceeded the amount of CPU power needed for things like basic Office apps, and are several orders of magnitude more powerful than what's needed for a calculator or solitare program!

But this really should not come as a surprise to anybody. For basic word processing (without any embedded objects), my old Apple //c with AppleWorks is more than powerful enough. And that's with a 1MHz 6502 processor, 128K of RAM and two floppy drives!

People are so used to bloatware and insane amounts of eye-candy, that they start thinking they actually need supercomputer power in order to write a memo or send a fax.
 
emotion said:
I think Logic can only use two cores/processors with a cludge to use the other two on a quad (by pretending it's a remote machine). Someone told me this though so I'm not 100% on that.
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I'm not sure either and I shouldn't have made the assumption. I know Ableton and Cubase do as I've used both and I'm now an avid Ableton user. I'd imagine Logic will take full advantage sometime soon since it's now one of Apple's pro applications. It certainly makes sense considering how bogged down your system gets once you load enough virtual instruments and effects.
 
TangoCharlie said:
If you want wild speculation, here goes....
Apple might use the Conroe and ConroeXE in the first Mac Pros and then add in support for Kentsfield (quad) when it becomes available. This could well be the reason why Intel has brought forward the release of Kentsfield.
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Somehow I doubt that Intel would change thier roadmap for/because of Apple. They are probably one of their smallest customers :p
 
Quadra!

tny said:
You realize there are probably only four people on this board who are old enough to get that joke, right? [snip]
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I'm one of them! :eek: What I woudn't have given for a Quadra 650 when they came out. I was stuck with an LC (original pizza box Mac). In fact, I'd have been happy with the LC475 (which was basically a cut-down Quadra 605)!! :)

Eventually did get an LC475... minus the case. Oh, those were the days!
 
jholzner said:
Somehow I doubt that Intel would change thier roadmap for/because of Apple. They are probably one of their smallest customers :p
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For an individual customer Apple are actually quite large. They are also high profile.
 
ChrisA said:
Not quite the first. Sun has been shipping a commercial 8-core systems for about a year now.
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Yes. This is their UltraSPARC T1 chip.
ChrisA said:
The T2000 has all 8 cores on one chip but each core also does four-way hyper threading so they claim 32 hardware threads.
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The T1 chip ships in several different configurations. 4-, 6- and 8-cores, at 1.0 or 1.2GHz. All sporting 4 threads per core.
ChrisA said:
The price for an 8-core T1000 is about $8K.
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While this is their least expensive 8-core box, you should point out (for the benefit of everyone else reading this message) that the price is not just for the CPU. It's for a high-end server that includes 8G of RAM, 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports, remote management software, Java Enterprise, and Solaris 10. All in a 1U-high rack chassis.
ChrisA said:
A system with 8 cores and 8GB RAM burns about 250W.
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You are being very misleading here. According to Sun's spec sheet, it has a 300W power supply. Peak power consumption for the entire system is 220W, and typical consumption is 180W.

But those are for the entire system. Sun's page on the UltraSPARC T1 processor itself says that the CPU (in its 32-thread configuration) consumes 72W. The rest of that power consumption is from parts other than the CPU.

It's also worth noting Intel's Xeon spec sheet, which lists the fastest chips as consuming 130W for the CPU package alone! And that is with only four threads (two cores with 2-way hyperthreading.) I can guarantee you that a system based on one of these will have peak power consumption far greater than 220W.
 
Definitely need 8 cores me.

One for running whatever program I'm working on.

One for running the OS X interface, with Core Image, and bells and whistles and brass knobs and shiny candy.

One for running Azerus or LimeWire or one of these Bittorrent clients that all seem to be in Java on the mac, and all slow my machine to a crawl..

One for running Firefox and rendering these java / flash adverts that seem to slow my machine to a crawl.

One for doing the video rendering that still slows my machine to a crawl for hours and hours.

One for running the Windows XP virtualisation machine in a window on my desktop that seemed to slow my machine to a crawl last time I tried it.

One for running whatever program I'm running inside the Windows XP virtualisation machine that regularly slows to a crawl when I'm trying to do something useful.

One to rule them all and take over from the other cores when one of them crashes as still seems to happen every now and then on OS X.

/tongue from cheek
 
Desktop CPUs

emotion said:
I have a question.

If Kentsfield is a relation of the Conroe part (ie. Core 2 Duo) then will it be capable of being configured in a pair to create a "octo" core machine?

Surely that will require a Xeon class processor (like a quad version of the Woodcrest)?

edit: quad version of Woodcrest is Clovertown.
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Intel has for the last few years restricted the "destop" parts to single socket systems. ** If Intel continues along these lines, then Kentsfield will also be restricted to single socket systems (ie a maximum of 4 cores).

Cloverton, being the "Xeon" equivalent will support multi-socket systems, taking us to the quoted 8 cores for dual-cpu systems.


====
**The Pentium III S was the last "desktop" CPU which could be used in a dual cpu configuration. P4's were always "crippled" to work only in single-cpu systems.
 
Macnoviz said:
Strike:
- release date of 10.5 revealed - possibly more stuff revealed

Insert:
-release of 10.5
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Sorry I don't see that happening... Apple has basically always given developers a few months (to several months) lead time with the next major version of Mac OS X. That has taken place yet... so I don't see it being released at WWDC 2006.
 
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