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What is the slowest mac pro which is equivalent to an i7 imac?
- Thread starter Qwerty11
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2009 Mac Pro with 2.93GHz Xeon is probable the closest you can get, 2.66GHz would be a bit slower but not much. Older Mac Pros use older microarchitecture and you would have to get an 8-core to get similar performance though iMac would still beat the MP in single-threaded performance.
Depends on what you are talking about. What Imac? If it is the current fastest the i7 870 2.93 you would need no less than a 8 Core. A 4 core non- Nehalem (Gainstown)microarchitecture just will not cut it.
Now 2008 models 8 core mac pro's will blow the i7 2.93 away. Any less than a 'Harpertown' processor and which is made using the same 45nm process as Nehalem and has associative cache and a large cache of 12MP. This processor is the pinnacle of the Penryn(Core) microarchitecture.
So to answer your question no less than a 2008 8 Core Model.
http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/view/201242
http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/view/327999
The Xeon Nehalem processor is a better processor than the i7 8 series in any flavor.
The Xeon Nehalem's are based on the Bloomfield and Gainstown designs. Superior to the Lynnfields based processors. They do not climb as high as the Lynnfields as far as turbo boost goes, but support three memory channels or Intels QuickPath Interconnect. The clock speed does not have to be as high to achieve the same performance.
Clock for clock, the Xeon processor is superior. just as is the consumer Xeon the Core i7 9 series of processors which share the same features as its Xeon counterpart.
2009 Mac Pro with 2.93GHz Xeon is faster than a Core i7 870 running at the same speed, regardless of what geekbench scores indicate.
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False
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/107?vs=46
It may win in couple of benchmarks but on the other hand, i7-870 wins in some as well
The MP will still be faster, because you never run it in factory spec.
Besides, what a silly question .
I was just replying to a post with false information. There is so much information missing, such as OP's usage, to really recommend anything.
Not false.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/107?vs=46
The test doesn't say weather the i7 940 is using QPI or not. The motherboard has to be configured for it. If you use every test, the i7 940 wins 18 out of 31 tests. That is 18 for the i7 940 and 13 for the i7 870.
You're comparing a 940 to a 870. The i9 series of processors are faster. Are superior in every way to the 8 series of i7's clock for clock. Overclock better, and are better binned silicon.
I am talking about the Xeon processors. They have even more features than their close cousins the i7 9 series.
Those bench marks that you posted don't take into the fact of either. We don't know if it is running in QPI mode or not.
The Xeon's have ECC Support and more QPI bandwidth than either i7's.
xeon 55xx series is dual socket capable, has the extra qpi links to talk to another cpu and the other cpu's memory controller and has ecc capable ram memory controllers and supports more than 6 memory slots per cpu and supports turbo mode and hyper threading.
i7 9xx series is socket 1366 and has qpi links to enable triple channel ram and supports up to 6 memory slots, turbo and hyper threading.
i7 8xx series is 1156 has dual channel qpi links and supports up to 4 memory slots, turbo, and hyper threading.
The i7-9×0 has a faster bus speed, utilizing a QPI bus with a max bandwidth of 4.8 gigatransfers per second (GT/s). The i7-8×0 uses a DMI bus with a bandwidth of 2.5 GT/s.
The i7s on 1366 are faster with all functions enabled---period.
This is not due to the CPUs themselves but more the socket. (Tripple channel and higher pci-e bandwidth)
I would go with the 8 core Harpertown early 08 or the 4 Core Nephalm early 09 4 core or 8 core if you can. You can get a 2.26 early 09 8 core for the price of a 2.93 imac. The Mac Pro is more upgradable than a imac and you can add a SSD easily, will last years. I just went through 5 faulty imacs with yellow tinged screens, gray banding etc. Five within two months. No more. Once you go Mac Pro you will not want another imac. Trust me.
imac 2.93
http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/view/302230
early 09 mac pro 2.66 4 core.
http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/view/249124
early 09 mac pro 2.93 4 core
http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/view/234576
early 09 mac pro 2.26 8 core.
http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/view/286624
early 08 mac pro 2.8 8 core.
http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/view/250976
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The difference between them is negligible in real life. If it wins by 0.2 in one test, so what? Do you really count that as difference
Xeons (W35xx) have ECC support, that's all. No other extra features.
i7-940 uses QPI as its interface so of course it's using it. What else would it use?
Provide some concrete evidence that they are faster. I did so and you're denying them so prove me wrong or stop spreading your BS. Yes, you get PCIe slots but that is fairly irrelevant because iMac does not extra PCIe slots. Triple-channeling = nothing in real world. This is just comparing the CPUs and their performance, not the features of their chipsets.