Multitasking addict needs new Mac Pro advice

[Sean Dempsey]

Thanks for all the amazing replies! I never knew that there were this many options for buying, customizing and using of 3rd party hardware. I am now addicted to this forum. I am going to go ahead and get an 8-core, 8GB OWC kit + the 6GB it comes with, 4TB HDDs, ATI 5870, etc. I will plan on adding SSDs and RAID performance later.

What is the purpose of 4000 gigabytes of storage?

If you don't need all that space right away, why would you have drives sitting barely used or empty, instead of a SSD?

A 60gb SSD as your system drive and then 3TB of storage is orders of magnitude better than 4TB.

Hell, do a SSD system drive, and then a 3TB raid0 (backed up to an external solution).

Such a waste to build a powerful machine, and then hamstring it buy not including a single SSD.

 

[johnesocko]

What is the purpose of 4000 gigabytes of storage?

If you don't need all that space right away, why would you have drives sitting barely used or empty, instead of a SSD?

A 60gb SSD as your system drive and then 3TB of storage is orders of magnitude better than 4TB.

Hell, do a SSD system drive, and then a 3TB raid0 (backed up to an external solution).

Such a waste to build a powerful machine, and then hamstring it buy not including a single SSD.

Yes, your probably right. I am going to add the 60GB SSD and ditch 1TB, the benchmarks are incredible on the SSDs so its hard to passup.

I am looking at the OWCs 60GB Mercury Extreme @ http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/SSDMX060/

The only thing that makes me nervous is if I will have enough space with 60gigs and I will also put the 'home' folder else where too.

 

[Honumaui]

for the boot I would go with the 120 give yourself some breathing room unless you really keep up on having the boot lean which is a pain to do I would rather have the breathing room myself

 

[johnesocko]

I jumped the gun on that last post. I have been reading about the 120 gig SSD which will make more sense.

I am still on the fence between the 3.33 hex or the 8 core, I know the 8 has more RAM for future upgrades, but I may just go ahead and buy a new computer for future upgrades. Someone needs to tell Apple that there are far too many choices!!!!!!

 

[Honumaui]

I jumped the gun on that last post. I have been reading about the 120 gig SSD which will make more sense.

I am still on the fence between the 3.33 hex or the 8 core, I know the 8 has more RAM for future upgrades, but I may just go ahead and buy a new computer for future upgrades. Someone needs to tell Apple that there are far too many choices!!!!!!

my thought the programs you listed first are going to do better with the 6 core 3.3 than the 8 core with slower speed ?

 

[sigmadog]

my thought the programs you listed first are going to do better with the 6 core 3.3 than the 8 core with slower speed ?

I agree with this, especially with regard to Adobe Illustrator and InDesign which were not optimized for multi-core systems in CS5 (the reason I am still using CS4). For these programs, you will get a faster experience from a higher processor speed than you would from more processors, since they only use one anyway.

I can't speak to the other apps, however.

 

[TheStrudel]

He stated he likes to run multiple intensive applications at the same time. The extra cores will help for that. If he's running three or more, the headroom is nice.

I haven't seen anybody testing or benchmarking that kind of multitasking, though - something to look into, I think.

 

[Honumaui]

He stated he likes to run multiple intensive applications at the same time. The extra cores will help for that. If he's running three or more, the headroom is nice.

I haven't seen anybody testing or benchmarking that kind of multitasking, though - something to look into, I think.

I have 8 core machines and 4 core machines ?
the thing I notice is yes sometimes but the other side is when you are using programs like PS you are not really doing other things ? other programs can to be running but generally they are not pushing much ? even batching in PS does not tax things so much ? the thing that becomes the bottleneck when working with a lot of programs is the file systems ! and this is then where a raid controller comes in

I am not saying yes 8 or more cores helps but I am saying give me a 6 core 3.3 over a 8 core or 12 core if the clock speed is not the same ! and then the cost is to much for no real gains

I did test it a bit ago ? and digilloyd did some and for PS found to many cores got in the way ?

when I tested stuff it helps in some rare cases such as outputing from C1 and then doing something else like building preview cache in LR but by a small margin

I dont do video seriously I play very lightly with it so what I say only relates to 2d programs like PS and layout programs etc.. not 3d or video stuff which I know can take more advantage of multi cores to a point ? and when I see 6 cores not working over %60 ? sadly the program is the weak point

just some thoughts again if video was on his list as tops I might say 3.3 6 or ? depends on budget and let video guys say what they have noticed

 

[hugodrax]

While a nice example, this is not how multiple cores work. Install MenuMeters and have it show all 8 cores, and you can see the cores go up and down in a random an arbitrary fashion.




to the OP

For what you do, with $5000 I would go for the 8-core, 16 gigs of RAM, and then get a 60gb SSD for OSX and your apps, and then a 120gb SSD for your "high use" work files, and then a 2TB drive in bay 3 for storage, and another 2TB drive in bay 4 for backups, and then a Firewire800 External drive that is large enough to copy the SSD's.

I am in a similar workflow environment as you, and I'd take SSD's over the RAM any day if I had to.

That'd put you at $5000, and if you really need more speed, raid0 the SSD's, or just raid0 them from the start.

Well yes the CPU activity will go up on all cores on a random fashion but it is workload spread on all 8 cores.

If you are running 10-15 single threaded apps on a one cpu system they will all be sharing time slices on one CPU and you will see the CPU running a consistant load (ie 40% with spikes to 100%)

Vs 8 cores all running 5% spiking to 10-12% and a much faster experience.

More cores = much better overall system response due to the fact that you have 8 cpus to absorb the load of all those single threaded apps.

more cores = much better multitasking experience.

Its like 10 port hub with 10 computers sending ethernet packets all competing for that one wire VS a 10 port ethernet switch.


I would rather have more RAM vs SSD. Ram is where you get the performance. I have 16GB of ram and a 600GB Velociraptor. Never do I feel like somehow I need an SSD. Booting up only takes like 10-15 seconds (Not like I boot up all the time, I suspend my mac pro) and apps just pop right open when I double click on them

 

[gabicava83]

This is why it's so hard to make decisions based by peoples replies sometimes via forums.

What you are saying, is originally what I though as I wanted to buy an Octo. However, after reading a lot on forums, everyones stating the hex is the one to go for in order to get overall performance.

Now I read this and think the Octo is the better choice again , specially as if required, you can turn cores off.

Did you get one yourself?

As the mac pro's aré quite expensive, it's important to make the right choice.

Virtualisation with multiple instances running , do you think that would be better suited for the hex or the base Octo?

Thanks,

G.

Well yes the CPU activity will go up on all cores on a random fashion but it is workload spread on all 8 cores.

If you are running 10-15 single threaded apps on a one cpu system they will all be sharing time slices on one CPU and you will see the CPU running a consistant load (ie 40% with spikes to 100%)

Vs 8 cores all running 5% spiking to 10-12% and a much faster experience.

More cores = much better overall system response due to the fact that you have 8 cpus to absorb the load of all those single threaded apps.

more cores = much better multitasking experience.

Its like 10 port hub with 10 computers sending ethernet packets all competing for that one wire VS a 10 port ethernet switch.


I would rather have more RAM vs SSD. Ram is where you get the performance. I have 16GB of ram and a 600GB Velociraptor. Never do I feel like somehow I need an SSD. Booting up only takes like 10-15 seconds (Not like I boot up all the time, I suspend my mac pro) and apps just pop right open when I double click on them