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Nehalem Mac Pros Arrive: Unboxing and Benchmarks
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Um.. The machine in this post has the ATI card (the big red part in the picture). They are shipping them, its the standalone card that needs to wait. Apple can do custom builds for shipping CPU's
Aahh, I stand corrected.
Yeah, the 8GB limit is a big concern for me, too. My G5 has 6GB of RAM in it — and that's fine, because right now, CS4 (my main applications) only address two cores (I think) and 4GB RAM max (I'm sure of this part, at least).
When I buy a new computer (when CS5 is out, or approaching), I will want at least 6GB, but I'd realy like the possibility of upgrading that significantly further, to extend the life of my machine. I can't fathom why the quads can't take 4GB chips? Or can they? Somebody risk ****ing up your brand new quad and let me know!
I'm curious if Apple's advertised RAM limit might be a little lower than the actual RAM limit in the same way that the "4GB" limit on MBPs is actually 6GB — to wit, even being able to (eventually) put 9GB or 12GB into the quad core would be a boon, even if a full 16GB from 4x4GB might have problems.
That said, if you're a tinkerer at all, the processors on these guys should be upgradeable (as the old ones are), so you might consider a cheaper octo-core for the higher RAM limit and upgrade the processor down the road when prices come down... ?
It's comparable when it comes to multi-threaded applications, but when it comes to single-threaded appliations, the 2.8 octo kicks its behind. The main reasoning is that when a single-threaded app is used, then clockspeed becomes more important b/c only one of the 8 processors are being used for the calculations.
If more applications used multi-core for their processes, then a 2.2ghz would be a viable option. If you're just planning on doing single-thread apps, liking hard core gaming, then the 2.8 is your best bet.
Can someone confirm/refute this? With sources? Specifically, whether Turbo Boost is disabled for the 2.26 and 2.66 octo and 2.66 quad core processors?
Turbo Boost is a hardware technology, right? OS makes no difference?
Also, let's get some confirmation on whether the benchmarks for the 2.26 octo are correct or not. That's a pretty big speed-up discrepancy.
Go for the octo 2.26(2009) or the octo 2.8(2008)
So I'm slightly conflicted...
I was planning on buying my first Mac desktop, but I'm hitting a snag with these benchmark results.
I plan on using the Mac desktop for a bunch of things:
1. Photo editing/retouching
2. Video editing and encoding
3. DVD production
4. Gaming
5. Boot camp and VMware with Windows/Linux
I also was planning on making this machine a certral hub for all of our mp3s, photos, and videos to share amongst the other macbooks we have in the house.
The octo 2.8(2008) machine is cheaper now, but I also like the advantages that the 2.26 octo provides such as:
1. Machine can power down cores that it's not using, saving on power usuage.
2. Longevity and future proofing with SATA super drive, extra SATA connector to enable an eSATA port.
3. Snow Leopard and future apps being written for multi-core use.
What do you guys think? I also can use an education discount for the new 2.26 machines, so at $2999 instead of the $3299 price. Sigh..
So I'm slightly conflicted...
I was planning on buying my first Mac desktop, but I'm hitting a snag with these benchmark results.
I plan on using the Mac desktop for a bunch of things:
1. Photo editing/retouching
2. Video editing and encoding
3. DVD production
4. Gaming
5. Boot camp and VMware with Windows/Linux
I also was planning on making this machine a certral hub for all of our mp3s, photos, and videos to share amongst the other macbooks we have in the house.
The octo 2.8(2008) machine is cheaper now, but I also like the advantages that the 2.26 octo provides such as:
1. Machine can power down cores that it's not using, saving on power usuage.
2. Longevity and future proofing with SATA super drive, extra SATA connector to enable an eSATA port.
3. Snow Leopard and future apps being written for multi-core use.
What do you guys think? I also can use an education discount for the new 2.26 machines, so at $2999 instead of the $3299 price. Sigh..
Sounds like what I'm doing. I have two more positive points for the 2.26 octo:
4. Motherboard will be drop-in upgradeable for higher-clock-speed octo nehalems. In the future, prices may (may!) come down some for the 2.66 and 2.93 due to possible introduction of a 3.2 version.
5. Faster RAM.
As far as (windows) gaming, I believe many games already support multiple threads (although maybe not 16 threads), and I think many more will in the future. So an 8-processor system is likely more future proof.
Where are the octo 2.66 benchmarks? My problem is whether that upgrade is worth $1260 (education) to me.
That's a great point about the future processors, but are they upgradeable? Technically they should, but has anyone checked to see if Apple hadn't solder the processors in like they did with the new Mac Mini?
Well the new 2.26GHz and the old 2.8Ghz aren't really competing processors. The 2.26GHz Xeon E5520 is a $373 processor that's intended for midrange servers. The previous 2.8GHz E5462 ($797) was intended for high end workstations, as are the two other dual processor options on the new Mac Pros.
Any limits on 4x4GB or even 4x8GB are Apple crippling the system to upsell dual socket Mac Pros. The hardware supports it even if the marketing doesn't.
None of the Mac Pros to date have been soldered in.
(In an earlier post of mine, I linked to an article about how to upgrade the processor on one of the earlier Mac Pros.)
This picture seems to suggest otherwise, although I don't know much and I could be wrong.
edit: this is what I was referring to:
Except that the uniprocessor Mac Pro is only equivalent to a $1200 PC in raw performance so even $1999 is too much.
Why does the Mac Pro have 4 or 8 slots when it's a triple channel architecture? It should have only 3, 6 or 9 slots.
I wouldn't stress out over it just yet and give Bare Feats a chance to crawl over the new systems. I remember they found 8x4GB FB-DIMMs worked just fine in the Mac Pros long before Apple admitted it. There should be no reason three 4GB DIMMs won't work unless Apple put stuff in their firmware to prevent it. Even four should probably work.
If 264 really doesn't scale well past 4 cores, couldn't an app get around that by doing two simultaneous encodes on four cores each? Or even splitting a movie in half and treating it as two separate movies?
Should. I'd like to see confirmation of it.
And even if that's true, having to use 4GB chips just to get to 12? That's pretty sad, they should have put six or eight slots in that machine.
Considering the low end went from eight cores to four, that IS slower.
And if you look at the cinebench graph, the new $3299 machine was slower than the old $2799 machine.
I'm not sure what that sentence is trying to say, but it looks pretty likely that the old 8 core will blow away the new quad core on these particular tests. The old 8 core even beat the new low end 8 core on cinebench, meaning it will be close to doubling the performance of the new quad.
Because the speed advantage is ~1% and consumers like to buy even numbers of gigabytes.
New Mac Pros for music?
Hi,
I am thinking about either buying the new 2.26 or 2.66Mhz, 6GB RAM (maybe 8) Mac Pro. Would these be better for apps such as Digital Performer 6, East West, Vienna Symphonic Instruments, Native instruments, Finale, Pro Tools and other intensive music apps than last year's Mac Pros? I will also use Adobe Creative Suite CS4.
Hi,
I am thinking about either buying the new 2.26 or 2.66Mhz, 6GB RAM (maybe 8) Mac Pro. Would these be better for apps such as Digital Performer 6, East West, Vienna Symphonic Instruments, Native instruments, Finale, Pro Tools and other intensive music apps than last year's Mac Pros? I will also use Adobe Creative Suite CS4.
Since when are workstations being compared to PCs? That's just ridiculous cuz workstations are in another category. The components are build to be really reliable. They are build to be WORKSTATIONS. Period.
You are free to go to dell and buy a gaming rig.
This picture seems to suggest otherwise, although I don't know much and I could be wrong.
edit: this is what I was referring to:
Sorry for my inexperience, but does that mean the chips are NOT soldered in?
Link?
Anyone know if they do EDU discount on the clearance models? I doubt it, but anyone know for sure?
Since when are workstations being compared to PCs? Since "workstations" shipped with performance that doesn't beat a $1200 PC.
Maybe, but it's hard to tell from these benchmarks. Could be faster than before, could be slower. Hopefully someone will do a Logic benchmark soon.
