More Mac Pro Benchmarks (Inclucing a single Quad Core)

[Gunga Din]

http://www.macworld.com/article/131782/2008/01/macprobench2.html?t=205

Very interesting !

From further review of these tests. I've changed my mind about purchasing the 8 Core Stock. I was gonna pick up the Stock Mac Pro this weekend with the ATI card but now i'll order the 4 Core with the 8800 GT card instead.

The Stock with ATI card would have run me $2599 (EDU discount and Tax Free) (I would have upgraded vid card to 8800gt later and that would have cost me another $300)

If I order online and have it shipped (EDU but with Tax) the price will be $2468 but that includes the 8800 GT.

So the 8 Core stock will end up costing me $550 more. The benchmarks/performance for the 8 core vs the 4 core doesnt seem worth the added $550. I can upgrade my ram and HD (just ordered a 10k rpm WD Raptor HD) with the money I save.

 

[ErikAndre]

Many thanks... i've been following up on this. Great to see the 3.0 finally came in!

 

[4God]

Wow, very interesting indeed. Thanks for that. It will be very interesting also to see the results of the 3.2 once they receive/test it.

 

[schreck]

This makes me feel good about purchasing my single quad. Just received it yesterday, and I am still in awe. It's a brilliant machine, I could go on for hours talking about it.

 

[conancn]

http://www.macworld.com/article/131782/2008/01/macprobench2.html?t=205

Very interesting !

From further review of these tests. I've changed my mind about purchasing the 8 Core Stock. I was gonna pick up the Stock Mac Pro this weekend with the ATI card but now i'll order the 4 Core with the 8800 GT card instead.

The Stock with ATI card would have run me $2599 (EDU discount and Tax Free) (I would have upgraded vid card to 8800gt later and that would have cost me another $300)

If I order online and have it shipped (EDU but with Tax) the price will be $2468 but that includes the 8800 GT.

So the 8 Core stock will end up costing me $550 more. The benchmarks/performance for the 8 core vs the 4 core doesnt seem worth the added $550. I can upgrade my ram and HD (just ordered a 10k rpm WD Raptor HD) with the money I save.

same here, this would confirm my decision too.

 

[4God]

Deleted.

 

[aibo]

8 core = bragging rights

 

[miloblithe]

Also, down the road, as more programs are written to take advantage of 8 cores, the advantage might become more and more useful. Most of the scores were more or less the same except:

Cinema 4D XL Render
Compressor 3 MPEG2 Encode
Handbrake H264 Encode

They see, on average, it looks like about a 33% advantage.

I think in the course of time, you'll see more and more programs show those kinds of advantages.

 

[firstyearprof]

I'm sorry, but for those who say that 8 cores are just for bragging rights, I say BS. If you are working on a single process, then by all means, you should buy the 4 cores. But if you are running multiple jobs, say in batch mode, then 8 cores allows you to run 8 jobs, whereas 4 cores allows you to run 4 jobs. That's more than worth the extra money for the work that I do.

 

[Gunga Din]

I'm sorry, but for those who say that 8 cores are just for bragging rights, I say BS. If you are working on a single process, then by all means, you should buy the 4 cores. But if you are running multiple jobs, say in batch mode, then 8 cores allows you to run 8 jobs, whereas 4 cores allows you to run 4 jobs. That's more than worth the extra money for the work that I do.

Sure, for some you would need the 8 cores. I don't play on running more than 4 programs at once or need the 8 cores for the programs I'll be using the Mac for.

Heck my single core PC Pentium 4 can run, iTunes, Lord of the Rings Online, A few Internet windows open and my chat system with no problems.

I plan on using imovie and some animation stuff, maybe edit some movies etc, but I shouldnt need 8 cores to do the things i'm thinking about.

But you have to admit that if your not using programs that need 8 cores, then the 4 core machine is still very impressive.

Also for gamers, you dont need more than one core at this time, and at most 2 cores for the newest games. To write software to take advantage of multiple cores is very difficult and not cost effective for game development at this time. (Friend who is software engineer told me about this) So if you are interested in games, go with the 4 core and 8800 gt.

 

[irishgrizzly]

So on the handbrake encode where the scores go like this;

Mac Pro Xeon/3GHz (8 cores) 1:02
Mac Pro Xeon/2.8GHz (8 cores) 0:54

and you'd expect it to be the other way round – why is this? Is this due to the software tripping itself up with so many cores to choose from. I'd have thought they numbers would have been even at least.

 

[WardC]

So on the handbrake encode where the scores go like this;

Mac Pro Xeon/3GHz (8 cores) 1:02
Mac Pro Xeon/2.8GHz (8 cores) 0:54

and you'd expect it to be the other way round – why is this? Is this due to the software tripping itself up with so many cores to choose from. I'd have thought they numbers would have been even at least.

This test (I am guessing...pretty sure) - is the 2007 8-core 3GHz "Clovertown" machine, with the 667MHz RAM and the slower bus, less cache, versus the new 2.8GHz 8-core "Harpertown" machine, with a much faster 800MHz RAM bus and a whopping 12MB cache. These improvements to the hardware with the new Mac Pro machines could easily make a 2.8GHz 2008 machine faster than one of the older 2007 3.0GHz 8-core Mac Pros in some tests.

Edit: Actually the bus speed on the new machines is 1366MHz I think, but the RAM speed used is 800MHz, it is a higher speed RAM than the older Mac Pros

 

[network23]

I'm really on the fence here, not yet decided whether to go for the 4- or 8-core 2.8 GHz.

I may not need the extra power, but resale value of the 8-core should be higher than the BTO 4-core.

 

[Mattww]

This test (I am guessing...pretty sure) - is the 2007 8-core 3GHz "Clovertown" machine, with the 667MHz RAM and the slower bus, less cache, versus the new 2.8GHz 8-core "Harpertown" machine, with a much faster 800MHz RAM bus and a whopping 12MB cache. These improvements to the hardware with the new Mac Pro machines could easily make a 2.8GHz 2008 machine faster than one of the older 2007 3.0GHz 8-core Mac Pros in some tests.

Edit: Actually the bus speed on the new machines is 1366MHz I think, but the RAM speed used is 800MHz, it is a higher speed RAM than the older Mac Pros

The bus speed on all the new 2008 Mac Pro model is 1600MHz. The 2006/2007 models were all 1333MHz

 

[irishgrizzly]

This test (I am guessing...pretty sure) - is the 2007 8-core 3GHz "Clovertown" machine, with the 667MHz RAM and the slower bus, less cache, versus the new 2.8GHz 8-core "Harpertown" machine, with a much faster 800MHz RAM bus and a whopping 12MB cache. These improvements to the hardware with the new Mac Pro machines could easily make a 2.8GHz 2008 machine faster than one of the older 2007 3.0GHz 8-core Mac Pros in some tests.

Edit: Actually the bus speed on the new machines is 1366MHz I think, but the RAM speed used is 800MHz, it is a higher speed RAM than the older Mac Pros

Reading it again, it has the 2007, but the 2008 3GHz is there too;
Mac Pro Xeon/2.8GHz (8 cores) 0:46
Mac Pro Xeon/3GHz (8 cores) 0:52
Mac Pro Xeon/3GHz (8 cores) (2007) 1:02
el
Strange, non?

Maybe it's too early for some of these benchmarks – os and application updates will help smooth out a lot of these quirky results I imagine.

 

[deathshrub]

This test (I am guessing...pretty sure) - is the 2007 8-core 3GHz "Clovertown" machine, with the 667MHz RAM and the slower bus, less cache, versus the new 2.8GHz 8-core "Harpertown" machine, with a much faster 800MHz RAM bus and a whopping 12MB cache. These improvements to the hardware with the new Mac Pro machines could easily make a 2.8GHz 2008 machine faster than one of the older 2007 3.0GHz 8-core Mac Pros in some tests.

Edit: Actually the bus speed on the new machines is 1366MHz I think, but the RAM speed used is 800MHz, it is a higher speed RAM than the older Mac Pros

Wrong. Don't spread FUD. The FSB on the Early 2008 Mac Pro is 1600 MHz.



Taken from page 86 of the Early 2008 Mac Pro user guide.