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petitrouge

macrumors newbie
Original poster
darn you all, i was *set* to go 3.2quad + upgrade ram + ssd elsewhere ... until i read all your posts and everyone seems to go for the hex. i am in a market for mac pro NOW (i'm making the switch, already have mac cs5 in hand, my win boxxtech tower of 4 years is maxed out and primary drive failed last week).

i use cs5 (PS, FW, DW, Illustrator, all at once). occasional video work; likely more in the future just 'cuz clients ask for it. but that's just opining.

but really, isn't hex overkill for those ("kill this butterfly with a 9lb cannonball")!?!?! ... ... 😛

it seems like a number of folks went quad -> hex and i'm thinking it's just peer pressure of this forum. 😛
 
I work strictly in FCP 90% of the time and Compressor, AE, PS and IL the other 10% (usually all running at once as well). I'm going quad all the way. The money you save is NOT worth the extra cores when it could be spent on a nice monitor, more RAM or storage.

Don't let the power monkeys here get to you. I bet 95% of the clowns who say they need 12-cores don't even come close utilizing it (while of course, some do though). The 3.2 4-core will be smoking fast for you and I can't see spending that extra for a 6-core when the money can be spent elsewhere on much more valuable things then a slight speed increase in the apps that can utilize all cores.
 
Yeah, in your case (which seems to be low resolution on-screen stuff), I don't think the extra power would justify the cost. You'd be better to spend that money on extras or upgrade your rig again a year earlier.
 
advres said:
I work strictly in FCP 90% of the time and Compressor, AE, PS and IL the other 10% (usually all running at once as well). I'm going quad all the way. The money you save is NOT worth the extra cores when it could be spent on a nice monitor, more RAM or storage.

Don't let the power monkeys here get to you. I bet 95% of the clowns who say they need 12-cores don't even come close utilizing it (while of course, some do though). The 3.2 4-core will be smoking fast for you and I can't see spending that extra for a 6-core when the money can be spent elsewhere on much more valuable things then a slight speed increase in the apps that can utilize all cores.
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THANKS!! i just wanted to feel some moderate affection for the quad before i drop the $. 😉 it makes upgrades faaaar less painful. now i just need to sift through all the SSD advice for OS/apps. unless you or someone else can link me to the 120gb (?) drive du jour ... 😀
 
petitrouge said:
THANKS!! i just wanted to feel some moderate affection for the quad before i drop the $. 😉 it makes upgrades faaaar less painful. now i just need to sift through all the SSD advice for OS/apps. unless you or someone else can link me to the 120gb (?) drive du jour ... 😀
Click to expand...

I'm not claiming to know much about SSD's but I have heard nothing but good things about these and it seems their benchmarks put Crucial and Intel to shame.
 
The 3.2 Quad is a good choice in my opinion. I have last years 2.93 Quad with 6GB and SSD storage and it is blindingly fast and I can't really stress it out with Aperture, CS5, or FCP.

advres said:
I'm not claiming to know much about SSD's but I have heard nothing but good things about these and it seems their benchmarks put Crucial and Intel to shame.
Click to expand...

It's true, the Sandforce SSD's are currently the best all-around choice (OCZ or OWC) due to their good random and sequential performance as well as their robustness under heavy use, but it's not true to say they shame Intel. While they do have better write performance, let's keep in mind that the most important performance metric for an SSD on an Apps/OS drive is random read performance, something the Intel's were designed specifically to excel at...

22700.png
 
ordered a 3.2 quad today! i live a mile from an apple store and the biz guy gave me 5% off for being a small 3-person web dev team (me, myself & i). lol. i'll take whatever break i can get. 😀
 
petitrouge said:
ordered a 3.2 quad today! i live a mile from an apple store and the biz guy gave me 5% off for being a small 3-person web dev team (me, myself & i). lol. i'll take whatever break i can get. 😀
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Huge congrats on the order and special pricing ~~~~~~~ 😀

Here's a good breakdown of SSD's from barefeats:
http://www.barefeats.com/mbpp19.html

FWIW, I've been very pleased with the Crucial C300. I'd recommend at least taking a good look at that drive.

I'm 90% convinced of going with the 3.2 Quad myself. Just want to see the reviews of the video cards so I can spec the computer properly.

cheers
JohnG
 
petitrouge said:
i use cs5 (PS, FW, DW, Illustrator, all at once). occasional video work; likely more in the future just 'cuz clients ask for it.
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None of those programs "peg" the processor.

The hex is really best for audio, video and 3d folks who render and compress frequently.

The Quad 3.2 could support a pretty decent video workload, and it's most certainly adequate for where it seems like you are at with video.

The SSD will be the thing that makes you go "wow!"
 
snouter said:
The SSD will be the thing that makes you go "wow!"
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Actually, when it comes to work flow, an SSD is probably the single biggest waste of money out there for a video editor. It does NOTHING to speed up your day to day activities and for those of us Pros that use this stuff for work, our machines and apps stay on and open 24/7.

I would rather spend that money and be WOWed by a good screen. That is where the WOW comes from with serious editors.
 
advres said:
Actually, when it comes to work flow, an SSD is probably the single biggest waste of money out there for a video editor. It does NOTHING to speed up your day to day activities and for those of us Pros that use this stuff for work, our machines and apps stay on and open 24/7.

I would rather spend that money and be WOWed by a good screen. That is where the WOW comes from with serious editors.
Click to expand...

Have you ever tried one out? Meaning actually swapping your mechanical one and then seeing the difference in performance?
Personally I was blown away, it gave my 2.5 yr old MBP a second wind BIG TIME. Running boot off of anything but an ssd today is a waste.
 
Quad v 8core

In similar position to previous posters, looking to move up from 2.66 Dual to new MP, but was waiting for Westmere 8 core. I work in FCP and spent a lot of empty time compressing output to Windows Media, H.264, mpeg2. So, I need something faster.

Should I forget about 8 or 12 core and going for quad core? Is that shift up in speed minimal compared to say maxing out ram? Or even getting an SSD drive?

Given the cost of SSD drives, should I look to get one as the operating drive with all the apps etc on it and then stick with the standard sata2 drives for media? Or the reverse?

In the next two weeks at current rates, I have up to 20hrs of rendering so I was thinking of getting something in fast just to help with that.
 
AfterglowMP said:
In similar position to previous posters, looking to move up from 2.66 Dual to new MP, but was waiting for Westmere 8 core. I work in FCP and spent a lot of empty time compressing output to Windows Media, H.264, mpeg2. So, I need something faster.
Click to expand...


How about get a matrox MXO2 Mini + MAX and save couple of thousand bucks? Speeds up you encodings quite enormously and you get decent monitoring as well. That way you could skip this generation of MPs and jump aboard again when the programs have matured to take advantage of all of the cores.

http://www.matrox.com/video/en/products/mac/mxo2_family/mxo2_mini/
 
Outputting

Have the MXO mini but not the maxx. At the time I didn't need it. MXO's a great device and one cheeky way it's sped life up is by feeding out to a DVD recorder real time sequences that have not been fully rendered so a 15minute film takes 15min instead the 1hr approx for converting to mpeg2, authoring DVD, burning it, etc.

But the maxx only assists with h264 and flash, right?
 
skiffx said:
Have you ever tried one out? Meaning actually swapping your mechanical one and then seeing the difference in performance?
Personally I was blown away, it gave my 2.5 yr old MBP a second wind BIG TIME. Running boot off of anything but an ssd today is a waste.
Click to expand...

You obviously didn't read my post. For us editing there is no speed advantage. OUr apps stay open, we aren't booting our system daily. And my friend who runs a multibay post house actually took the SSDs out of their systems because they were too fast and all the drivers for their cards couldn't load fast enough during boot and they couldn't connect to their SAS. Like I said, that money, FOR A FCP EDIT SYSTEM, is a waste of money that could be better used elsewhere.
 
advres said:
Actually, when it comes to work flow, an SSD is probably the single biggest waste of money out there for a video editor. It does NOTHING to speed up your day to day activities and for those of us Pros that use this stuff for work, our machines and apps stay on and open 24/7.

I would rather spend that money and be WOWed by a good screen. That is where the WOW comes from with serious editors.
Click to expand...

He's not a video editor.

He's a Graphic Design and web guy dabbling in video and expecting to get more into video.

I've always bought good screens, so I appreciate a good screen, but I don't think that's what we are talking about here.
 
snouter said:
Except the OP is not talking about a FCP EDIT SYSTEM.
Click to expand...

So you agree with me that it won't help but you still felt the need to make this comment? I know he isn't looking for a strict edit system but my point is exactly the same. The money for a graphic designer, editor, effect artist, etc is much better spent on other stuff than an SSD. I thought that was obvious, but I guess people here just love to argue semantics.
 
advres said:
So you agree with me that it won't help but you still felt the need to make this comment? I know he isn't looking for a strict edit system but my point is exactly the same. The money for a graphic designer, editor, effect artist, etc is much better spent on other stuff than an SSD. I thought that was obvious, but I guess people here just love to argue semantics.
Click to expand...

The SSD would help.

Video editing requires more space than SSD can reasonably offer and platter drives do a fine job with video. Oh, wait, HE'S NOT A VIDEO EDITOR.

The OP wants to build a system for graphic/web design and you are trying to build a FCP EDIT SYSTEM. I think you are the one who loves to argue.

For what he does, he'd be very happy with a 3.2 Quad and an SSD for less money than a hex 3.33.
 
if you want to argue semantics, er, syntax, OP (me) is a she, not a he. 😛

i appreciate the input. as i said, i stuck with my gut, 3.2quad, will order a SSD, upgrade RAM and i'm also going to upgrade my monitor soon. i have a decent dell right now, but i'm going bigger. 😀 the fact of the matter is, half of my work is just the brilliant code that i type out of my head LOL but for the other half that relies on cs5, ... i like my machines to SCREAM!!!!!!!!!!
 
I would hold off on any SSD purchase for a few month's. The Intel G3 drives are coming in the next few months.

Even if the G3's are to expensive for your budget, the G2's should be discounted to clear inventory.
 
petitrouge said:
darn you all, i was *set* to go 3.2quad + upgrade ram + ssd elsewhere ... until i read all your posts and everyone seems to go for the hex. i am in a market for mac pro NOW (i'm making the switch, already have mac cs5 in hand, my win boxxtech tower of 4 years is maxed out and primary drive failed last week).

i use cs5 (PS, FW, DW, Illustrator, all at once). occasional video work; likely more in the future just 'cuz clients ask for it. but that's just opining.

but really, isn't hex overkill for those ("kill this butterfly with a 9lb cannonball")!?!?! ... ... 😛

it seems like a number of folks went quad -> hex and i'm thinking it's just peer pressure of this forum. 😛
Click to expand...

I think that the hexacore is reasonable because five years from now many Mac programs will be using as many cores as possible because by then they will have gotten the hang of using GCD, so six cores will be usable, plus it is faster/more cores than the quad. Even if you assume a program has perfect multithreading the hexacore is more powerful than the lowest Octocore (however the Octo offers upgradability)
 
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