Updated Mac Pro Benchmarks and Video of Internals

[haravikk]

Why is everyone so excited about the slide-out tray for mounting Ram? It's nothing new. Already the 1st gen MacPro had a similar system, where you could slide out two PCB's individually, each with 4 Ram slots to be filled outside the housing.

Did Apple remove that slide-out functionality in later revisions (until now)?

Nope, installing RAM in my Early 2008 Mac Pro was dead-easy. The tray is an interesting twist on it as I guess it might be a bit easier, but it's not exactly a revolution. I'm more interested in why they opted for such huge heatsinks, why not liquid cooling? They could have saved a ton of space for a couple more PCI slots, or another row of hard-drives (8 internal drives would have been SWEET).

On which note, anyone know if the two bonus internal SATA ports are still there? THe previous Mac Pros had four for each of the hard-drive bays, plus two tucked away behind the fan (data connections only), they still there?

 

[drsmithy]

Here is the PDF of my system:

You might want to explicitly note that the prices are in AU$.

US readers can probably halve them for local equivalents.

 

[drsmithy]

Why is everyone so excited about the slide-out tray for mounting Ram? It's nothing new. Already the 1st gen MacPro had a similar system, where you could slide out two PCB's individually, each with 4 Ram slots to be filled outside the housing.

More importantly, do you really upgrade RAM often enough for it to matter ?

 

[OllyW]

I'm more interested in why they opted for such huge heatsinks, why not liquid cooling? They could have saved a ton of space for a couple more PCI slots, or another row of hard-drives (8 internal drives would have been SWEET).

After all the problems with the G5 Power Macs, I don't think Apple are in any rush to use liquid cooling again.

 

[mbene12]

While the prices are pretty steep, i have shopped the "competition" and I guess they are in line for the higher end systems. The lower end seems completely out of whack though. I cant see the iMac not being a better fit for the money.

A pretty well loaded 8x2.9 with 12gb ram Mac Pro with a 30" display is running around $8500. A similarly equipped Dell (using the older 8x3.2 config as they dont have the new xeons) runs $9400. Of course you dont get the 30" display as they dont offer one, but you can get MUCH better graphics card options.

Still I dont know how will be shelling out near $10k for these things. I had a pretty nice budget for computers at work and I still raised some eyebrows with my $6500 8x2.8 Mac Pro.

 

[Taipan]

On which note, anyone know if the two bonus internal SATA ports are still there? THe previous Mac Pros had four for each of the hard-drive bays, plus two tucked away behind the fan (data connections only), they still there?

Here's what WonderSausage said:

There are only 2 SATA ports remaining and they lead to the optical drive bay. if you use only one optical drive, you could connect the second port to an eSATA adapter but the port is at the very front of the case so you'll need at least an 18" cable.

 

[0488568]

Expansion Slots
1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16_1) (Note 2)
2 x PCI Express x8 slots, running at x8 (PCIEX8_1, PCIEX8_2) (The PCIEX16_1, PCIEX8_1 and PCIEX8_2 slots conform to PCI Express 2.0 standard.)
1 x PCI Express x4 slot
1 x PCI Express x1 slot
2 x PCI slots

Can I stick a PCI x4 card in an x8 slot?

 

[drsmithy]

Can I stick a PCI x4 card in an x8 slot?

Yes.

You can even put a x8 card into a x4 slot, as long as the slot is open-ended (obviously it will only run at x4 speeds - although very few expansion cards need more than that anyway).

 

[Stoobs]

Looking at those results, I'm glad I plumped for the older 8x2.8 machine, not only is it cheaper by a considerable margin, it's not too far behind in benchmarks of the new 8x2.26 machine.

New 4x2.66 = £1900, New 8x2.26 = £2500

My New 8x2.8 = £1550.

I then upgraded to 8GB RAM, and an 8800GT, which only cost £250, bringing the total to £1800, as I already have a 1TB HDD to add in from my old PC.

I'll run cinebench on my system to get some performance numbers from it, but for me the new Mac Pros just don't offer good value for money.

I do understand that the value of sterling has dropped, but not all that much against the dollar (1.395 at the moment, and it has been down to the 1.40ish mark before..), and the component costs are actually cheaper for the new Macs (read any number of existing threads for that - I don't need to post all the numbers yet again..), so I don't understand the massive price-hike..

 

[TheThirdMan]

And since when the 2008 entry level was 8-core? There has always been a 4-core option...check your facts before posting, please.

Don't be silly. You know that for the same price in the 2008 range you could get an dual cpu. For the same price, you're getting less performance with the new mac pros.

 

[Bigdaddyguido]

Why the complaints?

So for months now, people have been saying that you wont notice a dramatic increase in speed with the new nehalem machines running old software. Its been repeated on every site, numerous times that the clock speeds wouldn't improve substantially and so initially the improvements would be lost in the woods.

However, the new cores are scalable, have a vastly better system for organizing and feeding cached memory to the processors, and finally have dropped that ******** old school style of a system bus. Snow leopard comes out in a short order, and suddenly, these core i7s are gonna look drastically different than your old santa rosa's and such.

Everyone was whining like crazy when these machines didn't come out in January, even though the chips weren't even close to existing. Now apple manages to release the computers a few weeks before the chips are available, and yet all everyone is gonna do is ignore ALL THE NEWS that has been released by respectable sites (Ars, macrumors, appleinsider, etc.) about nehalem over the last year???

Plus they added new video cards, which are substantially better, and when snow leopard hits they will be able to push a lot more than triangles.

Shut up and wait for snow leopard. Its not like these new machines fit any definition of slow (unless maybe you time traveled here from 2015).

 

[dmw007]

WOW. Those are scary fast specs. I wish I needed hardware like that.

Anyone know how quiet they are? I used to own a G5 PowerMac, and it was beyond noisy.

Are the new ones silent?

My new Mac Pro (8 core 2.26 GHz) is pretty quiet in my opinion. Having owned a 2.3 GHz DP Power Mac G5, a 2.5 GHz DP Power Mac G5, and a 2.5 GHz Power Mac G5 Quad, the Mac Pro seems to be the quietest machine out of the bunch.

The 2.3 GHz DP G5 was also fairly quiet. The liquid cooled G5's (especially the DP 2.5) sounded like a Boeing 747 at times.

 

[Flavioparentiq]

So for months now, people have been saying that you wont notice a dramatic increase in speed with the new nehalem machines running old software. Its been repeated on every site, numerous times that the clock speeds wouldn't improve substantially and so initially the improvements would be lost in the woods.

However, the new cores are scalable, have a vastly better system for organizing and feeding cached memory to the processors, and finally have dropped that ******** old school style of a system bus. Snow leopard comes out in a short order, and suddenly, these core i7s are gonna look drastically different than your old santa rosa's and such.

Everyone was whining like crazy when these machines didn't come out in January, even though the chips weren't even close to existing. Now apple manages to release the computers a few weeks before the chips are available, and yet all everyone is gonna do is ignore ALL THE NEWS that has been released by respectable sites (Ars, macrumors, appleinsider, etc.) about nehalem over the last year???

Plus they added new video cards, which are substantially better, and when snow leopard hits they will be able to push a lot more than triangles.

Shut up and wait for snow leopard. Its not like these new machines fit any definition of slow (unless maybe you time traveled here from 2015).

Amen.

I totally agree with you.

It's incredible how many whiners there are. Your 2.8 octo early 2008 system is old? That's ok, every system gets old, even the new nehalem will. It's useless to force yourself thinking that the old beats the best. It doesn't, and in few month we will all understand why. The new system is expensive and yours isn't? Maybe there is a reason somewhere... And if you are happy with your system... Perfect! There is no use on blaming the other systems around or whining about apple strategy! You can change whenever you want. Try xp, vista or a linux release (ubuntu is maybe the best for ex osx users), maybe you'll be happy, or maybe you wont' and you'll be pleased to pay more bucks for an os/hardware that most of us find the best in many aspects.

At last, but not least, it's uselss to be anxious about your performances compared to newer systems. There will always be a bigger dick around. Sitck with yours and learn how to use it

 

[Glideslope]

Amen.

I totally agree with you.

It's incredible how many whiners there are. Your 2.8 octo early 2008 system is old? That's ok, every system gets old, even the new nehalem will. It's useless to force yourself thinking that the old beats the best. It doesn't, and in few month we will all understand why. The new system is expensive and yours isn't? Maybe there is a reason somewhere... And if you are happy with your system... Perfect! There is no use on blaming the other systems around or whining about apple strategy! You can change whenever you want. Try xp, vista or a linux release (ubuntu is maybe the best for ex osx users), maybe you'll be happy, or maybe you wont' and you'll be pleased to pay more bucks for an os/hardware that most of us find the best in many aspects.

At last, but not least, it's uselss to be anxious about your performances compared to newer systems. There will always be a bigger dick around. Sitck with yours and learn how to use it

Ah, thank you. I've be waiting for a chance to post in this jackass thread.
Everyone else, wait for Snow Leopard, and chill.

 

[eeboarder]

Please note that this report describes only one set of tests using one program.

Unless you are running Cinebench, and using scripts similar to those in the bench, this information may be very misleading.

It would be foolish to make purchasing decisions based on this limited report.

Look at more benchmarks, like the ones at BareFeats http://www.barefeats.com/nehal04.html.

Your statement is very true.

 

[xbjllb]

They can be 1000 times faster

No Blu-ray, no sale.

 

[mark88]

I know they're MEGA expensive but the internals are a work of art.

 

[Flavioparentiq]

No Blu-ray, no sale.

http://www.mcetech.com/blu-ray/

 

[JasonUKBristol]

http://www.mcetech.com/blu-ray/

Thanks for that link. That looks interesting. I guess if apple brought out a blue ray player later on then it would be compatible with these new macs. Anyway I don't think the new mac screens are HD.

 

[Umbongo]

So for months now, people have been saying that you wont notice a dramatic increase in speed with the new nehalem machines running old software. Its been repeated on every site, numerous times that the clock speeds wouldn't improve substantially and so initially the improvements would be lost in the woods.

Shut up and wait for snow leopard. Its not like these new machines fit any definition of slow (unless maybe you time traveled here from 2015).

People aren't complaing because these systems are "slow. They are good, high performance systems. People are complaining because the "value" of the Mac Pro has changed.

That is because Apple have gone from a base system with two high-end Xeons to two midrange server Xeons or the option of a single socket cheap Xeon. I'm sure if Apple had gone for high pricing all along things would be different, but they didn't they went from great value for the components you got to effectivly paying a $1,000-$1500 premium for a Mac.

 

[cheesymogul]

So, without any bias, what might I be better purchasing if I were to buy this week.

When it comes to the old 2x 2.8 "Octo" versus the new 1x 2.66 "Quad", which is better?

Which would you buy if they were the same price? And which would you buy if the 2.8 was a few hundred cheaper?

I really am curious, but everyone and everything says different.

A graphic designer colleague of mine was in the exact same situation and asked me for advise.
A Photoshop CS3 test with my 2008 2.8 Ghz octo showed that many filters simultaneously use all 8 cores to a much higher extend than we expected.
Because she is looking for the long run and planning to use her machine for 6-8 years, she finally bought the octo with 4 GB RAM.
Although it did cost 200$ more than the new quad with 3 GB, we think it is still the better deal.
The true dealbreaker was the 8 GB memory limitation on the new quad.
Adobe CS5 and 6 probably will be needing at least 8 GB to run smoothly.

 

[manu chao]

Dang these things look amazing... I love the slideout ram.

I have a 8 Core 3.0Ghz with 6GBs ram, and my girlfriend is always complaining that its slower than her wimpy old dell. Like it takes forever to open microsoft word and powerpoint etc. Does anyone know how I could speed it up basic processes? Other than wait for snow leopard?

Opening applications is mainly limited to disk speed. Try a faster boot drive (or more specifically a faster drive for your applications). Either a 10000 rpm drive, a RAID (0 or other striped variants) or a SSD.

 

[TheThirdMan]

Shut up and wait for snow leopard. Its not like these new machines fit any definition of slow (unless maybe you time traveled here from 2015).

I don't get why people think snow leopard will be the second coming of christ. It may be good, but it won't improve performance to the degree that many people seem to think. There's not been any evidence of any software techology to increase speeds as dramatically as many people here seem to think, and i doubt apple have found some great secret and are waiting for snow leopard to uncover it to the world. And why does everyone think snow leopard is made for i7!? The performace increase should be linear for all multi core processors. I doubt i7's increase would be much more than regular core 2 processors.

 

[AZREOSpecialist]

There have been a lot of negative comment on these updates. I was going to get the low end octa until I saw the speed/price combination. Now I'm set to wait maybe another year....

Let's see how sales go though. One thing Apple will respond to....

Does anyone read the news? It would appear that the newest Mac announcements have met with great success and increased sales. It appears that all of this whining is actually translating into increased sales for Apple.

These new machines are great, but if Snow Leopard isn't coming out until the summer or fall, won't we have higher clock speed Mac Pros by then? Those who are holding out that Snow Leopard will give them a big boost may wish to see what hardware is available at the time Snow Leopard is introduced instead of buying now. Just my opinion.

 

[Jpoon]

Snow Leapord can do whatever it wants. In the end, software developers are going to be on the line to actually make software that utilizes multi-core processors.

I have no clue why everyone believes Snow Leapord is going to fix this, unless Apple has found some way to make the OS govern how an application uses system resources.