Late 2007 Mac Pro vs. 2009 Mac Pro

[tilstip]

Hi,

at the moment I have a late 2007 Mac Pro:

- 8 x 3 Ghz
- 10 GB 667 Mhz Ram
- Ati Radeon 1900 XT 512 MB


I bought it only because I got it for a very, very good price one year ago.
I only paid 1700 Euros for it. But I thinkt that I don't REALLY need such a monster machine. If I didn't get this offer I think I would have bought the 4 core only machine from Apple.

I use it mostly for photography (Lightroom and Photoshop) and also some video stuff with Final Cut Pro.

What bothers me with this machine is that it sucks so much power. The 3 Ghz CPU was the fastest and most expensive BTO option you could get for the late 2007 model.
The graphics card also sucks alot power and is VERY loud.

So right now I think about replacing it with the new 2009 2,26 GHZ 4-Core Model with 8 GB of RAM and investing some money on buying two Velociraptors in RAID0 as System/Apps drive because what I experienced with my current Mac Pro and Lightroom is, that the speed of a standard harddisk is the bottleneck.

Also the 2009 model sucks less than half of the power and is alot quiter.
My current Mac Pro is like a radiator in my small room. With the graphics card it sucks constantly about 400W.

My question is how does the new 2009 4-Core Mac Pro compare to my old 2007?

What do you think?

 

[giffut]

It´s ...

... hard to messure, but the point regarding power consumption is valid. Those are Apples official figures: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2836

Does your machine run 24 hours? I don´t think you will see that much off a difference for just working a couple of hours a day.

Regarding the graphiccard: You probably either need to clean the ventilation/fan and/or replace it. Loud noises coming from graphiccards mostly refer to cooling issues or them reaching their final hours. The 1900XT was prone for heat related failures. If you keep the system, get it replaced with a newer model.

If trading it in, I would recommend the 2,26Ghz Mac Pro Octo Core, as you have much more (and cheaper) RAM upgrade paths (8 slots vs. 4 slots with the 4 core model - you need expensive 4GB modules to reach the same 16GB you can do with cheap 2GB modules on toe octo core). Espcecially Photoshop will love much RAM, Final Cut not for now, as it is still 32bit based. But running two ore more pro applications at the same time makes you need as much RAM as you can afford.

You could get good prices on eBay for this machine at the moment. You might want to check on ended auctions to figure out the overal pricing level. Don´t hesitate - lots of people try to grab some old Mac Pros right now. But solve the graphics issue before you sell it (buy a cheap Nvidia 7300gt Mac Edition and put it in there, just in case).

 

[Tesselator]

My guess is that with your proclaimed usage profile that you will save far far less than $100 per year on your power bill. Probably more like $40 a year in savings.

According to that link posted by giffut it's not even close to 1/2 the power. It's more like 90% of. Check it out:

Mac Pro (Early 2009)
8-core 2.26GHz
Two 2.26GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon "Nehalem",
6GB memory (six 1GB 1066MHz DDR3 ECC DIMMs),
640 GB Serial ATA 3 Gb/s 7200-rpm hard drive,
18x double-layer SuperDrive,
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120

CPU Idle: 146 W
CPU MAX: 309 W​

With one proc instead of two I guess it'll approximately be:

CPU Idle: 125 W
CPU MAX: 265 W​

your system now is approximately:

Mac Pro (Early 2008)
8-core 2.8GHz
Two 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon E5440,
2 GB memory (800 MHz DDR2 fully buffered DIMM ECC),
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT ,
320 GB Serial ATA 3 Gb/s 7200-rpm hard drive,
16x double-layer SuperDrive

CPU Idle: 155 W
CPU Max: 318 W​

The 3.0 is 120W max rated product while the 2.8 has an 80W max rating:

X5365 3.00 GHz 8 MB 1333 MHz 120W
E5440 2.83 GHz 12 MB 1333 MHz 80W
E5520 2.26 GHz 8 MB 1066 MHz 80W​

So this will bump it up a little to around:

CPU Idle: 160 W
CPU Max: 355 W​

Thus the single processor machine you're thinking of buying:

CPU Idle: 125 W
CPU MAX: 265 W​

and the one you have now:

CPU Idle: 160 W
CPU Max: 355 W​

Is only going to have approximately a 35W difference 95% of the time and a 90W difference 5% of the time. I guess we can average this as a 45 to 50 watt difference over all. How many hours a day do you run your Mac Pro and how much does your utility company charge per kilowatt/hour?

I bet ya after you do the math it's under $100 a year difference.

And it could be even less. If your machine is using the E5450 (12M Cache, 3.00 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB) then it's max rating is 80 Watts instead of 120 Watts. This would put it at almost exactly the same power usage or less than the new 2.26 single core system.

You can compare procs here: http://ark.intel.com/ProductCollection.aspx?familyID=594 But remember that your processors are not the only thing using power (of course ).

 

[Eithanius]

The 3.0 is 120W max rated product while the 2.8 has an 80W max rating:

X5365 3.00 GHz 8 MB 1333 MHz 120W
E5440 2.83 GHz 12 MB 1333 MHz 80W
E5520 2.26 GHz 8 MB 1066 MHz 80W​

I always believed the Clovertown X5365 has a TDP of 150W, not 120W... It was fitted on the first octo-core Mac Pro back in April 2007 which has a B3 stepping, even before Intel officially launched the processor with a cooler G0 stepping in August.

From my experience, my Clovertown at home idles at 160W and loads at 350W on stock configuration, while the Harpertown 2.8GHz in my office idles at 140W and loads at 220W on stock.

 

[Tesselator]

I always believed the Clovertown X5365 has a TDP of 150W, not 120W... It was fitted on the first octo-core Mac Pro back in April 2007 which has a B3 stepping, even before Intel officially launched the processor with a cooler G0 stepping in August.

From my experience, my Clovertown at home idles at 160W and loads at 350W on stock configuration, while the Harpertown 2.8GHz in my office idles at 140W and loads at 220W on stock.

That's better than "CPU Idle: 155 W CPU Max: 318 W" which is what Apple is saying.

As for the power of the 3.0GHz chip; yup, it seems you're right. If it's the X5365 then it's 150W - indeed. How'd that happen tho? I copy and pasted the string directly from that Intel list page. Oh well. Sorry about that. So then maybe it just might be closer to $100 a year in savings. I bet it's still under tho. <shrug>


http://ark.intel.com/cpu.aspx?groupId=30702 Max TDP: 150W


.

 

[eawmp1]

If you really don't need such a "monster machine" for what you do, you should consider an iMac, or if you have a monitor, a Mac mini. Your yearly cost saving will not recover you depreciation of your current machine. If you MUST have the latest and greatest, all you would need is a quad Mac Pro. What you paid for the 2007 Pro is about the difference between a quad and octo. Based on your stated usage you don't even need to max out the quad's RAM.

 

[bearcatrp]

Pull the 3ghz chips out and put 2. 2.33 quad chips in there. 85w rating on theses. - went from. 2ghz quad to a 2.33 octo my self.

 

[bearcatrp]

My bad. Didn't read your post right. Was thinking it was prior 2008 ones. I believe yours is concidered early 2008 model. Your will have to sell it and get a iMac to reduce your energy. The early 2006 mac pros suck juice too. I upgraded my 2006 quad to a 2.33 octo for a little boost but kept the energy consumption down with the 2.33's. Good luck on your situation.

 

[mason.kramer]

I have a 2007 8x3ghz (original Octo) w/ 10gbs and a 1900XT - we have exactly the same computer! Using the power meter built into my UPS, it sucks about 220W at the wall when I'm just browsing (minus 10 or 20 watts for the speaker system that's plugged in to the same UPS). Now, that's a lot of power, but not enough to do what you're proposing.


You'll never get the price of a 4core nehalem 2.26ghz when you sell your 2007. You'll also be taking a significant performance hit in single and multithreaded applications if you do switch. Paying money to change to worse performance doesn't seem like a deal to me. The power savings will never pay it back over the life of the computer. The only reason to do it is because you're worried about the environment.

I also have a 1900XT. It was extremely loud, but I put an accelero S2 on it. You need the optional fan for the accelero b/c passive doesn't do the job. Anyway, that was a huge improvement to my quality of life when I did that. This generation of ATI's is also pretty loud, I've been looking into it.

 

[jwt]

To the OP,

Why don't you downgrade the GPU? The ATI 2600 is more than adequate for running LR and PS and is cheap, silent, and power efficient. You might also think about a SSD as a scratch disk. Also, I don't know about the 2007 machine, but the 2008 machine has the same motherboard for dual and single CPU machines. You might look into pulling one of your CPUs out. PS and LR don't use them both, and it costs you nothing.

 

[tilstip]

Thanks to all of you for your opinions. You have convinced me.

I also have a 1900XT. It was extremely loud, but I put an accelero S2 on it. You need the optional fan for the accelero b/c passive doesn't do the job. Anyway, that was a huge improvement to my quality of life when I did that. This generation of ATI's is also pretty loud, I've been looking into it.

mason.kramer: I think I will replace my 1900XT coolor/fan. Why do you have the Accelero S2 and not the X2?

 

[mason.kramer]

Thanks to all of you for your opinions. You have convinced me.



mason.kramer: I think I will replace my 1900XT coolor/fan. Why do you have the Accelero S2 and not the X2?

Sorry - my mistake. I actually used this "S1, Rev2"

However I must say that it did not fit quite right. There were two problems:
1. The RAM sinks obstructed proper seating of the radiator. I fudged it into place, but I don't really recommend the product for the mac pro.
2. The retention clip designed to stabilize the HSF would not clip onto the side of the card, because the extender bracket fattened the width of the card.

Ultimately, it did work, but it was kludgy. I'd look around for a cooler that is confirmed to fit inside the Mac Pro.

 

[howard]

If you really don't need such a "monster machine" for what you do, you should consider an iMac, or if you have a monitor, a Mac mini. Your yearly cost saving will not recover you depreciation of your current machine. If you MUST have the latest and greatest, all you would need is a quad Mac Pro. What you paid for the 2007 Pro is about the difference between a quad and octo. Based on your stated usage you don't even need to max out the quad's RAM.

I second an iMac. It will be much quieter, and unless you've ever reached the limit of your current mac pro, you probably won't notice a difference in speed.