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Why xeon
- Thread starter mordeeb
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Indeed they are (errant apostrophes notwithstanding).
Could you advise me on which Mac will accept 192GB of RAM, please?
Indeed they are (errant apostrophes notwithstanding).
Could you advise me on which Mac will accept 192GB of RAM, please?
Late 09 Xserve ?
By sticking with xeon,they probably buy in larger quantities and get a price break. Its possible they get lower prices on Xeons than even an i7 because they buy in large numbers.
This isn't the case with the processors. The processors in the quad core Mac Pro aren't the same as those in the eight core. However it does let them have to use only one type of memory.
Oh ok if its not the same in the single socket version vs the dual socket...then my theory wouldnt apply.
Right. Games at this stage are about clocks and overclocking. This is what makes Apple not so great for games. Some Corei7 chips can be overclocked to around 4GHz with air cooling, nearly 5GHz with water cooling, and around 5.5GHz with a commercially available sub-zero cooler (typically around $500).
I haven't checked to see if anyone is building Xeon workstations that can be overclocked. There's a ZDNet utility that overclocks some Macs but it doesn't work on my 2006 machine so I dunno too much about it.
Then there's GPU overclocking which also doesn't seem to exist on Macs without very elaborate tweaks.
Indeed they are (errant apostrophes notwithstanding).
Could you advise me on which Mac will accept 192GB of RAM, please?
Well using Apple RAM prices. On the low end where they charge $50/GB that would only cost $9600, but on the high end where they charge $800 for a 4GB module then $200/GB would cost you $38,400.
I'm not sure what you mean. People who want the best game performance want to overclock their systems. The BIOS in some desktop machines is specifically designed to facilitate that.
Correct, assuming all other aspects are identical. Particularly since the Core i7 and SP Xeon (W35xx) are identical with the exception of the ECC functionality in the SP Xeon variant.
ECC adds latency to DDR3, so it's a bit slower, even if at the same clock. But a CAS Latency of 7 (stock UDIMM on the '09) isn't bad for any DDR3. Standard DDR3 is available in slightly lower CAS values, and is further improved for throughput with OC'ing. But at the sacrifice of error correction. As the system is sold as a workstation, this consideration was retained, rather than going with the performance desktop version (Core i7). Quantity costs (Q = 1000) is the same for both the Core i7 and W35xx parts respective of clock speed as published by Intel.
As for OC'able DP boards, I've not seen any yet.
I'm thinking soon though, provided board makers haven't dumped their plans as Intel did on the Skulltrail II. Correct, assuming all other aspects are identical. Particularly since the Core i7 and SP Xeon (W35xx) are identical with the exception of the ECC functionality in the SP Xeon variant.
ECC adds latency to DDR3, so it's a bit slower, even if at the same clock. But a CAS Latency of 7 (stock UDIMM on the '09) isn't bad for any DDR3. Standard DDR3 is available in slightly lower CAS values, and is further improved for throughput with OC'ing. But at the sacrifice of error correction. As the system is sold as a workstation, this consideration was retained, rather than going with the performance desktop version (Core i7). Quantity costs (Q = 1000) is the same for both the Core i7 and W35xx parts respective of clock speed as published by Intel.
As for OC'able DP boards, I've not seen any yet.
Do what?
I really am interested in this and it sounds important and relevant, but I don't understand what the heck you just said. Could you put it into layman's terms.
RAM has wait-states of sorts in-between the refreshing clock signals (kinda) so the more slash more often it has to wait the longer it will take for the other components (like the CPU) to get the information it's asking the RAM for - err, kinda. This timing ("slowness factor" ) or waiting is CL or CAS Latency (CAS stands for Column Addressing Strobe). The lower the number the faster - and more expensive - the RAM is. CL2 to CL4 are pretty typical up to about a command rate of 333 MHz. CL7 to CL9 is typical for 800 or so. There is indeed a noticeable performance difference between CL7 and CL9. There's also RAS Latency (RL) where R is Row instead of C for columns but the impact on application performance is less so we don't see that discussed as often.
here's how that works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_latency
RAM using ECC has more information per access to process so it's also slower. ECC is really only meaningful for systems which require very high stability. ECC can save you from something like sun-spot radiation or other kinds of external interference. In a server this should be a consideration. For desktops.. mm... not so much.
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) or waiting is CL or CAS Latency (CAS stands for Column Addressing Strobe). The lower the number the faster - and more expensive - the RAM is. CL2 to CL4 are pretty typical up to about a command rate of 333 MHz. CL7 to CL9 is typical for 800 or so. There is indeed a noticeable performance difference between CL7 and CL9. There's also RAS Latency (RL) where R is Row instead of C for columns but the impact on application performance is less so we don't see that discussed as often.here's how that works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_latency
RAM using ECC has more information per access to process so it's also slower. ECC is really only meaningful for systems which require very high stability. ECC can save you from something like sun-spot radiation or other kinds of external interference. In a server this should be a consideration. For desktops.. mm... not so much.
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