Now that Leopard is out I am curious if we will start to see fine grained, multithreaded applications coming to market that will take advantage of 8 or more cores?
I can only assume that CPUs are going to keep gaining more cores and I'm exited about the future, but I'm in a quandry. I started a thread about 2 weeks ago questioning which computer to buy. I've reached a settlement with my employer's workers comp insurance carrier and I can finally afford a Mac Pro.
All I'm really interested in that requires CPU power is video encoding. My current Mac mini (G4) takes 6 hours to encode 1.5 hours of video to h.264. I was advised to just get another mini beacuse because in 3 years the new mini's will out perform todays Mac Pros. Kinda makes sense as my mini is almost better than a 2001 Power Mac.
That all changes though if over the next year applications start to really take advantage of a 3 GHz, 8 core Mac Pro. A future 2 or 4 core mini surely will not out perform today's 8 core Mac Pro if applications get better threading, right?
I'm sorry as I have rambled on and on, please forgive me. I know MacRumors has a vibrant, technically skilled member base and I hope someone will help me.
Should I spend the money for an 8 core Mac Pro (or whatever MacWorld '08 brings) and bank on multithreaded apps (like VisualHub) or should I just get a Mac mini and replace it every 2 or 3 years with another low-end Mac?
Thanks
I can only assume that CPUs are going to keep gaining more cores and I'm exited about the future, but I'm in a quandry. I started a thread about 2 weeks ago questioning which computer to buy. I've reached a settlement with my employer's workers comp insurance carrier and I can finally afford a Mac Pro.
All I'm really interested in that requires CPU power is video encoding. My current Mac mini (G4) takes 6 hours to encode 1.5 hours of video to h.264. I was advised to just get another mini beacuse because in 3 years the new mini's will out perform todays Mac Pros. Kinda makes sense as my mini is almost better than a 2001 Power Mac.
That all changes though if over the next year applications start to really take advantage of a 3 GHz, 8 core Mac Pro. A future 2 or 4 core mini surely will not out perform today's 8 core Mac Pro if applications get better threading, right?
I'm sorry as I have rambled on and on, please forgive me. I know MacRumors has a vibrant, technically skilled member base and I hope someone will help me.
Should I spend the money for an 8 core Mac Pro (or whatever MacWorld '08 brings) and bank on multithreaded apps (like VisualHub) or should I just get a Mac mini and replace it every 2 or 3 years with another low-end Mac?
Thanks