Though no benchmarks have been done.. is the base 2009 8 core 2.26 as fast as the 2008 8 core 2.8?
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POLL: Is the 8 core 2.26 faster than the 8 core 2.8..thoughts..
- Thread starter carolhayes
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Someone who works at Apple (the company itself - not the store) told told me that the base 2.66GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon "Nehalem" model is 2x faster than the 2008 Dual-Xeon (8-core) Mac Pro.
Unfortunately, the 8GB ram limit kills the deal for me, as I am looking for 16GB+ of ram.
called apple this AM
I called this AM nobody knew not even the systems engineer at apple care. I am going to call now..
I called this AM nobody knew not even the systems engineer at apple care. I am going to call now..
Pardon the vulgarity, but the only term I can think of for that is "horse ****." Everyone already knows what these things perform like because they've been out since November as desktop parts. If the 2.93 octo is less than twice as fast as the 2.8 octo, there is no way a single 2.66 is faster than the 2.8 octo. It might be close, but the 2.8 octo will be faster.
Slightly. For XCode builds, which nicely test various parts of the system including I/O and processors, you're looking at less than a 7% increase in speed -- and that's according to Apple's usually generous benchmarks.
So for $3,000, you would be shaving off 40 seconds off a ten minute build.
You'd get that same 7% increase (again, according to Apple) on Photoshop and Final Cut. Rendering your video might take 38 minutes instead of 40.
It's only on the purest of pure math crunching that you'll start to blaze ahead -- and in a few cases you'll be a tad slower. The single 2.26 will be consistently slower.
It seems that early 2008 owners should obviously just go for the 4870 upgrade and be done with it. Not that that would stop the hardest of the hardcore early adopters
And those of us who are that will go for the dual 2.9s at least! This probably isn't what people want to hear -- I myself am a little disappointed. But even the rosiest synthetic pre-release benchmarks only had on the order of 2x speed increases.
- Katrina
PS. I know people will misunderstand what I'm saying about the benchmarks. So head over to http://www.apple.co/macpro/performance.html, and multiply the numbers by (3.2 / 2.8) (to see that they're faster than the trusty 2.8s) and then multiply again by (2.26 / 2.93) (to see that the 2.26s are that much slower than the 2.9s.) Inexact, but Apple benchmarks are on the sunny side of the street anyway!
slightly faster
On the phone now the systems engineer says its only slightly faster in photoshop applications... just like one of the other posts said on another thread.
On the phone now the systems engineer says its only slightly faster in photoshop applications... just like one of the other posts said on another thread.
Listen, to jump from a G4 Dual 800Mhz to the MacPro 2x2.8Ghz I have no complaints at all with whether or not the new MacPros are faster than my 2.8. The machine is insane. I'll most likely purchase whatever comes out next year or 2011. Just picture what those machines will run like.
I'm looking at either the 2.26GHz 8-Core (the jump in price to 2.66GHz is huge over here!) or a 2.93GHz Quad model. I'm hoping to see some figures comparing the old 2.8GHz Harpertown as well.
Hopefully there will be details of turbo mode - Apple mention the gain on the 2.93GHz 8-Core but not the other models or the Quad machines at all. I'm assuming this feature exists on all the new Xeon chips? I tend to keep my Macs for 5 years so it is a difficult choice! The most intensive stuff I do is video encoding which takes hours at present and I'd like be doing other stuff at the same time. Also games (be nice to play a game whilst encoding video). Audio work seems OK on my current G5 except for the fan noise - I hope the 4870 fan is nice and quiet - the last Mac Pros were really nice in that regard.
Hopefully there will be details of turbo mode - Apple mention the gain on the 2.93GHz 8-Core but not the other models or the Quad machines at all. I'm assuming this feature exists on all the new Xeon chips? I tend to keep my Macs for 5 years so it is a difficult choice! The most intensive stuff I do is video encoding which takes hours at present and I'd like be doing other stuff at the same time. Also games (be nice to play a game whilst encoding video). Audio work seems OK on my current G5 except for the fan noise - I hope the 4870 fan is nice and quiet - the last Mac Pros were really nice in that regard.
but how can you predict that because you don't know how the architecture advantages of the new chips effect performance in single-threaded apps.
AND don't forget Turbo Boost which OC's the processor on single-threaded apps when the other cores aren't being used. So with the proc OC'ing to 2.5-2.6ghz should be as fast/faster than the 2.8 even on single threads.
The Core i7s have been out since November. These are basically the same chips so its very easy to predict.
Turbo boost can only be used for a relatively short period of time. Its useless for long processing tasks.
Not really, if Nehalem detects an application that is idling the other cores it will automatically overclock the used cores a few hundred Mhz while lowering clocks on the other cores.
2 hours on phone with apple 2 calls to engineer
After two hours on the phone with great sales woman Holly who made 3 phone calls to the engineer while i waited. The 2.26 will be slightly faster not much if using photoshop. Not a big difference. SO after much debate I went with the 8 core 2.66.. more than I wanted to spend. Hopefully it will be worth it. Can't wait to see the benchmarks. Can't wait to get the computer mailed the 2.8 back today..
After two hours on the phone with great sales woman Holly who made 3 phone calls to the engineer while i waited. The 2.26 will be slightly faster not much if using photoshop. Not a big difference. SO after much debate I went with the 8 core 2.66.. more than I wanted to spend. Hopefully it will be worth it. Can't wait to see the benchmarks. Can't wait to get the computer mailed the 2.8 back today..
The 2.26GHz Nehalems are not faster then the 2.8GHz. Not the same, not even close. Lower.
Why is this so? - Because the architecture although different (Integrated memory controller and such) is actually very similar. They are built in the same way with the same base architecture. A bit like two children from the same parents. Both come from the same base design but arrive in different conclusions.
Nehalem is not a complete re-design it is a roll back of the Front Side Bus and a roll out of an integrated memory controller among other additions and a scalable Multi-Core die. Now it is important to recognise that the integrated memory controller makes the avalible memory bandwidth go through the roof but with DDR3 memory the Core 2 Quads of yesteryear were never starved for bandwidth and often in benchmarks increasing the RAM from DDR3-1333 to DDR3-1600 or even DDR3-2000+ would yield but 1-2% difference. This is relevent as the design and total memory requirements of the old chip and the new one are very similar. Latency has improved and there is your main performance increase with regards to Memory access.
But this all means nothing when you actually look at benchmarks. Core i7 (Consumer Nehalems) have been available on the market for several months now and even I upgraded from a 2.66GHz Core 2 Quad (First Quad Core ever available the QX6700) to a 2.93GHz Core i7 - What sort of performance enhancements have I seen? .... well not many it is faster no doubt about that but clock for clock I would say its around 20-25% faster. That is Clock for Clock. Now compare that to the 2.26GHz vs the 2.8 and this is a 45nm 2.8Ghz I had the original 65nm 2.66 with 8MB L2 Cache (The 2.8's had 12MB L2 Cache and much faster Buses 1600FSB, mine 1066FSB) And I just have to say no.
Ok so what have we learned? - The new 2.26GHz is not faster. The 2.66GHz however is faster then the old 2.8GHz. I notice people talking about threads (16 Threads on the new vs 8 on the old) and although it has more threads there are not many applications today that can manage 8 threads well let alone 16. Most are optimised for 1 of course. The ones that quote SMP to begin with are 2 to 4 and 8 to 16 .... really looking at a handful of apps that can do that well. When you add in to that the 16 threads are only running over 8 physical cores ... well you cant get blood out of a stone if the 8 cores are already taxed adding another 8 threads in to the mix wont get you much.
Why is this so? - Because the architecture although different (Integrated memory controller and such) is actually very similar. They are built in the same way with the same base architecture. A bit like two children from the same parents. Both come from the same base design but arrive in different conclusions.
Nehalem is not a complete re-design it is a roll back of the Front Side Bus and a roll out of an integrated memory controller among other additions and a scalable Multi-Core die. Now it is important to recognise that the integrated memory controller makes the avalible memory bandwidth go through the roof but with DDR3 memory the Core 2 Quads of yesteryear were never starved for bandwidth and often in benchmarks increasing the RAM from DDR3-1333 to DDR3-1600 or even DDR3-2000+ would yield but 1-2% difference. This is relevent as the design and total memory requirements of the old chip and the new one are very similar. Latency has improved and there is your main performance increase with regards to Memory access.
But this all means nothing when you actually look at benchmarks. Core i7 (Consumer Nehalems) have been available on the market for several months now and even I upgraded from a 2.66GHz Core 2 Quad (First Quad Core ever available the QX6700) to a 2.93GHz Core i7 - What sort of performance enhancements have I seen? .... well not many it is faster no doubt about that but clock for clock I would say its around 20-25% faster. That is Clock for Clock. Now compare that to the 2.26GHz vs the 2.8 and this is a 45nm 2.8Ghz I had the original 65nm 2.66 with 8MB L2 Cache (The 2.8's had 12MB L2 Cache and much faster Buses 1600FSB, mine 1066FSB) And I just have to say no.
Ok so what have we learned? - The new 2.26GHz is not faster. The 2.66GHz however is faster then the old 2.8GHz. I notice people talking about threads (16 Threads on the new vs 8 on the old) and although it has more threads there are not many applications today that can manage 8 threads well let alone 16. Most are optimised for 1 of course. The ones that quote SMP to begin with are 2 to 4 and 8 to 16 .... really looking at a handful of apps that can do that well. When you add in to that the 16 threads are only running over 8 physical cores ... well you cant get blood out of a stone if the 8 cores are already taxed adding another 8 threads in to the mix wont get you much.
