Worth it to go from 8 core 2008 to 12 core 2012?

[mazuma]

Wow. There has been a lot of technical back and forth since I was last able to post. I have 14GB of RAM. It's not a lot, but I don't think it's that bad either. RAM for this model is stupid expensive. I also have a SSD as my startup/app drive. Which is nice for boot times and app launching. But, I typically am not rebooting all that often. And, closing and opening apps really doesn't happen that often either. So, before I start investing in more RAM or other upgrades I wanted to look at other options. Hence, this post.

Now for the 6-core machine. That makes perfect sense. I honestly didn't realize that model existed. I think I may have a hard time finding one. But, I will keep looking. I also considered just getting an iMac. They are supposed to be faster than the rMBP that I have. The thing that holds me back is I like the upgradability of the current Mac Pros.

So, it looks like I should be trying to track down a 6-core at this point. Anyone care to compare that against current iMacs?

 

[funwithdesign]

So, it looks like I should be trying to track down a 6-core at this point. Anyone care to compare that against current iMacs?

This is true. The absolutely best route to go is probably to find a 4.1 quad core then upgrade to 5.1 Hex core. Instructions are all over this forum.

Best of luck. For designers, RAM and clock speed are king, over number of cores. This has always been true, unless of course you are applying a lot of crackle filters to your work in Photoshop.

 

[Macshroomer]

This is true. The absolutely best route to go is probably to find a 4.1 quad core then upgrade to 5.1 Hex core. Instructions are all over this forum.

I'm not so sure that is always the best way, sometimes it is more cost effective to find a proper 6 core 3.33 as a turn key setup and just get to work. For example, if you make a certain amount per hour and outright buying a 6 core would cost you no more than say, $500 over doing the quad and then buying the W3680, are you at a break even level if you are not electro-mechanicaly inclined?

I could buy a W3690 and the heatsink paste and have no qualms about doing it because I like doing the work to a point, but lets not assume everyone is up to the task or dealing with potential issues if things go awry.

 

[funwithdesign]

I'm not so sure that is always the best way, sometimes it is more cost effective to find a proper 6 core 3.33 as a turn key setup and just get to work.

True, but I was referring to the OP mentioning possibly not being able to find a 6-core mac.

If that's the case, a more readily available 2009 4core and the hex chip would be an option.

 

[hfg]

I think we might be misaligned on this a bit, I meant as an OS / apps drive, not a scratch disk. Obviously two SSD's in RAID-0 would be stellar as a scratch disk. I just wonder why people seek out faster boot drives from the apps / OS perspective.

Just to relate my own tests and experiences: I ran my Mac Pro for awhile with 3 identical bootable OS X SSD systems installed to get a "feel" for what made a difference. All of the SSDs were 512GB 840 Pro SATA III devices.

These were configured as:
1 - SSD on standard Mac Pro drive bay sled (SATA II)
2 - SSD on PCIe Velocity Solo x2 card (SATA III)
3 - dual SSD RAID-0 on PCIe Sonnet Tempo Pro card (SATA III)

After running the various configurations (switching between them) for some time, I had to admit that for booting OS X, apps, user files, etc. ... I could not perceive much if any difference with the smaller random files being accessed, even though programs such as DiskTest clearly revealed that there was a difference. There was a slight delay when booting from PCIe based drives as it appears that OS X checks for "external" drives last during the power-on boot sequence.

I did notice a performance improvement with having my photo library (very large files) contained on the RAID-0 array.

So ... my final and current configuration is a 512GB SSD OS X disk in drive bay 1, my photo library on the 1TB RAID-0 SSD PCIe Sonnet Pro card, and other libraries and archive type data on a RAID-0 hard disks in the drive bays.

These are not "measured" results, just a "usability feel" ...

-howard

 

[Celedral]

Wow. There has been a lot of technical back and forth since I was last able to post. I have 14GB of RAM. It's not a lot, but I don't think it's that bad either. RAM for this model is stupid expensive. I also have a SSD as my startup/app drive. Which is nice for boot times and app launching. But, I typically am not rebooting all that often. And, closing and opening apps really doesn't happen that often either. So, before I start investing in more RAM or other upgrades I wanted to look at other options. Hence, this post.

Now for the 6-core machine. That makes perfect sense. I honestly didn't realize that model existed. I think I may have a hard time finding one. But, I will keep looking. I also considered just getting an iMac. They are supposed to be faster than the rMBP that I have. The thing that holds me back is I like the upgradability of the current Mac Pros.

So, it looks like I should be trying to track down a 6-core at this point. Anyone care to compare that against current iMacs?

I was really considering the new iMac, but decided against it and went with a a mac pro for the ability to upgrade GPUs. I was able to build a hexacore 3.33 mac pro with 48gb of ram, a gtx 780sc, and X2 with 840 Pro ssd for about $2400. Thats right around the price of a fully loaded 27" iMac. Performance would be identical with the i7 iMac in CPU intensive tasks, but the GPU alone in the mac pro is 2-3x the performance of their mobile counterparts.

 

[Macshroomer]

Just to relate my own tests and experiences: I ran my Mac Pro for awhile with 3 identical bootable OS X SSD systems installed to get a "feel" for what made a difference. All of the SSDs were 512GB 840 Pro SATA III devices.

These were configured as:
1 - SSD on standard Mac Pro drive bay sled (SATA II)
2 - SSD on PCIe Velocity Solo x2 card (SATA III)
3 - dual SSD RAID-0 on PCIe Sonnet Tempo Pro card (SATA III)

After running the various configurations (switching between them) for some time, I had to admit that for booting OS X, apps, user files, etc. ... I could not perceive much if any difference with the smaller random files being accessed, even though programs such as DiskTest clearly revealed that there was a difference. There was a slight delay when booting from PCIe based drives as it appears that OS X checks for "external" drives last during the power-on boot sequence.

I did notice a performance improvement with having my photo library (very large files) contained on the RAID-0 array.

So ... my final and current configuration is a 512GB SSD OS X disk in drive bay 1, my photo library on the 1TB RAID-0 SSD PCIe Sonnet Pro card, and other libraries and archive type data on a RAID-0 hard disks in the drive bays.

These are not "measured" results, just a "usability feel" ...

-howard

Great info and thank you!

I have my active library, current year raws and client projects on a 6TB RAID-0 volume taking up 2 of my 4 sleds. I have that backup to a 3TB drive in another sled, the 4th is another 3TB for other forms of hand picked backups.

I’m glad you posted this because I was also wondering about a 1TB RAID-0 SSD / PCIe option strictly for the current year raw files, video rendering, etc.. When you say you have seen a performance increase, besides data transfer rates, what have been your gains?

Edit, I just saw the comparison of the cards on Barefeats, pretty big gains over the V2 but wow, pricey setup. If I were to do this as a photo/video volume, I might as well go nuts and put two 1TB EVO's in there, LOL!

 

[hfg]

Great info and thank you!

I have my active library, current year raws and client projects on a 6TB RAID-0 volume taking up 2 of my 4 sleds. I have that backup to a 3TB drive in another sled, the 4th is another 3TB for other forms of hand picked backups.

I’m glad you posted this because I was also wondering about a 1TB RAID-0 SSD / PCIe option strictly for the current year raw files, video rendering, etc.. When you say you have seen a performance increase, besides data transfer rates, what have been your gains?

Also, how much better is the Sonnet card than the V2 in RAID-0?

Although I did try a pair of Solo x2 SSD PCIe cards in RAID-0, my notes are a bit confusing on the data rates achieved with DiskTest. There is another thread here where several posters showed their results of doing this. As I recall, the speed I observed was comparable to the Sonnet Pro card, but I needed a 1-slot solution as I have other cards installed, so the price premium of the dual-drive Sonnet was worth it to me to save a PCIe slot. My transfer rates using DiskTest are in the 950+ MB/s range with the Sonnet Tempo Pro dual SSD card.

There are speed issues with running a single Solo x2 card with 2 SSDs attached in RAID-0 due possibly to the single controller. Looking at some posted results it appears that using a single x2 card with 2 drives attached in RAID-0 is only about 50% faster than the single SSD drive on that card. However, using a pair of x2 cards each with a single SSD mounted and configured in RAID-0 delivers the 200% speed scaling that you would expect with RAID-0. Of course, the aux SATA ports could be used for Windows SSD or eSATA cable to external backup where both interfaces wouldn't be operating simultaneously.


Hope that helps...

-howard

 

[Dr. Stealth]

Fwiw

Worth it to go from 8 core 2008 to 12 core 2012? ???

My 2 Cents....

12 core is NOT overkill. If you try it, nothing less will ever compare. It's awesome fast.

My last upgrade was from a 2007 MP 2,1 8 core to a 2010 8 core that I promptly upgraded to a 12 core 3.33 GHz beast. Currently running 64 GB of ram. I use Photoshop & Illustrator almost daily. Also SolidWorks and Bunkspeed Shot via Bootcamp.

My current machine is lightyears ahead in performance compared to my old 2,1 8 core. Is Photoshop 2 times faster ? Maybe not, but almost everything else I run is at least 2x or even 3x faster....

GeekBench went from 11,500 to 30,500

I say.... GO FOR IT

 

[thekev]

Worth it to go from 8 core 2008 to 12 core 2012? ???

My 2 Cents....

12 core is NOT overkill. If you try it, nothing less will ever compare. It's awesome fast.

My last upgrade was from a 2007 MP 2,1 8 core to a 2010 8 core that I promptly upgraded to a 12 core 3.33 GHz beast. Currently running 64 GB of ram. I use Photoshop & Illustrator almost daily. Also SolidWorks and Bunkspeed Shot via Bootcamp.

My current machine is lightyears ahead in performance compared to my old 2,1 8 core. Is Photoshop 2 times faster ? Maybe not, but almost everything else I run is at least 2x or even 3x faster....

GeekBench went from 11,500 to 30,500

I say.... GO FOR IT

You didn't consider the fact that it was not able to adequately leverage all cores on the old one. I would include Solidworks modeling in that. I suspect you're getting much more of that performance from a few newer cores than your total core count. It would be interesting to hear if you ever get a chance to try similar tasks on on a 6 core of the same generation. I say 6 core because of the alignment in clock speed with your custom rig.

 

[Macshroomer]

All I really care about improving is converting raw files, everything else is plenty fast. If I could get them done in 1/2 the time it takes now, I would upgrade to whatever machine that would be.

I have a feeling it will have to be Mac Pro 7,1....not the current iteration about to come out...

 

[Macsonic]

Wow. There has been a lot of technical back and forth since I was last able to post. I have 14GB of RAM. It's not a lot, but I don't think it's that bad either. RAM for this model is stupid expensive. I also have a SSD as my startup/app drive. Which is nice for boot times and app launching. But, I typically am not rebooting all that often. And, closing and opening apps really doesn't happen that often either. So, before I start investing in more RAM or other upgrades I wanted to look at other options. Hence, this post.

Now for the 6-core machine. That makes perfect sense. I honestly didn't realize that model existed. I think I may have a hard time finding one. But, I will keep looking. I also considered just getting an iMac. They are supposed to be faster than the rMBP that I have. The thing that holds me back is I like the upgradability of the current Mac Pros.

So, it looks like I should be trying to track down a 6-core at this point. Anyone care to compare that against current iMacs?

For the Adobe apps you're using the hexcore 3.33ghz or an 8 core 3.33ghz or an iMac will be adequate for your needs. Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop are not too dependent on the number of cores but more on clock speed and ram.

 

[nateo200]

Just curious...does RAM become slightly less important when you have powerful processors? I only ask because I see people with Mac Pro's that have only 6 or 8GB's of RAM and utilize their Mac Pro's for editing...heck I see it allot on these forums (not lately though) and it just doesn't make sense to me...can anyone shed any light on this? Wouldn't you want to feed each CPU processor/thread a beefy amount of memory?

 

[Macsonic]

Just curious...does RAM become slightly less important when you have powerful processors? I only ask because I see people with Mac Pro's that have only 6 or 8GB's of RAM and utilize their Mac Pro's for editing...heck I see it allot on these forums (not lately though) and it just doesn't make sense to me...can anyone shed any light on this? Wouldn't you want to feed each CPU processor/thread a beefy amount of memory?

In my opinion ram is also as important as the processors but may also depend on how heavy your task is. For video editing 8 gig is not adequate. For some 8 gigs works if their task is light graphic design or web design. I usually look at the Activity Monitor and check the Page Ins and Page Outs and gauge from there if I have enough ram or not for the type of tasks I am doing.

 

[nateo200]

In my opinion ram is also as important as the processors but may also depend on how heavy your task is. For video editing 8 gig is not adequate. For some 8 gigs works if their task is light graphic design or web design. I usually look at the Activity Monitor and check the Page Ins and Page Outs and gauge from there if I have enough ram or not for the type of tasks I am doing.

I'd agree also...I have a full understanding of RAM (I keep up Activity monitor 24/7!) I just guess I don't understand why I see people buy a 6-core Mac Pro with only 6gigs of RAM and call themselves power users or whatever. I mean if your buying a Mac Pro doesn't it make sense to have at least 12gigs of RAM to take advantage of the processors? Maybe people are afraid to upgrade RAM modules? I suppose light graphic design 6 or 8gigs would be fine though. I've made do with less in ancient times :O haha.