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MBPro.....4 cores = 8 threads?
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The i-series processors have HyperThreading technology which allows 2 threads to run in parallel on a single core, so in other words, 2 threads per core - so yes, quad core MBPs will actually have 8 threads. However HyperThreading is enabled only when your computer has some strain put on it (big programs running).
Holy Crap... this forum rocks! 3 answers in less than 5 minutes. And I like the answer.
so how would a cinebench test compare to one of the new MBPros with say a topped out Mac Pro 2008?
Yes indeed! I've been hanging out here a lot lately.
Regarding my use of a MBPro...I'm wondering if I'd realistically need to feed the 8 threads a full 16 GIG of RAM to render out HD frames in c4d.
My 2008 MacPro and 2009 MacPro both have 32 GIGs. It's hard for me to imagine that 8 would be enough.
That's some serious horsepower in your MacPro's. If your use is that RAM intensive, I would think that going to 8 gigs is going to be a pretty big hit in performance.
He could always buy 16 gigs of ram for the macbook pro but it would cost quite a hefty sum.
The new ones have been tested and have been shown to support up to 16 gigs. OWC sells 16 gig sets of ram for the new macbook pros. It'll set you back over $1,000 though.
I won't be using the new mbpro for authoring. It will be used for
1. Occasionally for work while on the road
2. Client presentations
3. Sofa Web browsing
4. At night as a render client (that's where the cpu beef comes in)
It's #4 where I wonder about the RAM.
I just ordered one 10 minutes ago. But now I have to decide how much third party RAM to buy.
Did you order it with the 4 gigs from Apple so you can upgrade it cheaper yourself?
Yes, super, That's what I'm looking at...I'll go with 8GB for now and see. I might need to bite the bullet and bump it to 16GB. Hopefully in 3-4 months those 8GB chip prices will drop a lot.
Yes. But I also bought the 8GB upgrade kit from OWC...it was only $112. I'll give it a spin for a few months. Maybe that will be all I need.
I never thought I'd be buying a new laptop so soon.
But when I realized that a laptop could approximate the rendering performance of buying another 8 core 2008 mac pro....wow.
It has changed the math. I'm getting one solution for my day-time needs and another solution for my over-night needs.
But when I realized that a laptop could approximate the rendering performance of buying another 8 core 2008 mac pro....wow.
It has changed the math. I'm getting one solution for my day-time needs and another solution for my over-night needs.
Not really - you still only have 4 cores. It's just that Hyperthreading makes it easier for the core to switch thread contexts (by having duplicate portions of the CPU to hold thread state). Sometimes hyperthreading is a hindrance (for example, when running SQL server, you can get bad optimization from the query optimizer).
This is probably better for something that is pulling threads from a thread pool for execution (fire and forget), but when you are doing something that actually uses all 4 cores, it can lead to suboptimization. For example - if you are encoding video, you won't gain any speed going from 4 to 8 concurrent threads unless you have IO wait states.
Just to clarify, while 8 threads can run, Hyperthreading does not mean a 1:1 ratio for threads to cores. So two threads can run on one core, but the performance is not the same as if you had 8 physical cores.
Head over to Intel's site if you want to read more on Hyperthreading. It's quite interesting how they make it work.