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2.66 vs 3.0??
- Thread starter madyaks
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clearly it's not a great price/performance upgrade. but there certainly will be a speed difference depending on what you do with it.
I guess it depends if you do a lot of tasks that centre around the CPU (rendering and video for example), if you don't really need the extra boost then I doubt it is worth it.
I went for the 2.66 myself as I had heard that there was only a 5% increase in speed and I did not feel justified in spending that amount of money for such a small boost. You may be able to justify the expense though
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I went for the 2.66 myself as I had heard that there was only a 5% increase in speed and I did not feel justified in spending that amount of money for such a small boost. You may be able to justify the expense though
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It's mainly just a home use machine...
It would be used for Final Cut too, but not as the main thing once a month or so. But I would be doing a lot of converting xvid to DVD....
I was just thinking getting the 2.66 and being able to add 2 gig of ram to it would be better than getting the 3.0 and not being able to upgrade the ram for a while.
And do you think I should wait until after the 8th to buy?? ( i think that's a given)
Thanks
It would be used for Final Cut too, but not as the main thing once a month or so. But I would be doing a lot of converting xvid to DVD....
I was just thinking getting the 2.66 and being able to add 2 gig of ram to it would be better than getting the 3.0 and not being able to upgrade the ram for a while.
And do you think I should wait until after the 8th to buy?? ( i think that's a given)
Thanks
If money is a concern, you are better off putting the $800 towards ram or other system upgrades. People forget that buying a computer costs additional money once you start installing upgrades. Anyway, a 2.66 with 4GB of ram is going to perform faster for most tasks than a 3.0 with only 1GB of ram.
Anything that isn't multi-processor aware is going to perform a lot better if you have faster cores. Games especially, if you are bootcamping and running Windows games. There isn't a lot of software really optomised to lots of cores right now (either OS X or Windows), so personally I'd always go for the fastest core possible (so long as you have 2Gb or more RAM). If you have less than 2Gb RAM, then the faster cores will have less benifit than more RAM...
Having a hard time not pulling the trigger on this...
Mac Pro
Two 3.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors
2GB (4 x 512MB) of 667MHz DDR2 Fully-buffered DIMM ECC
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB (2x dual-link DVI)
250GB Serial ATA (3Gb/s); 7200 rpm; 8Mb cache
16x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
3,299
Refurb from Apple....
Mac Pro
Two 3.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors
2GB (4 x 512MB) of 667MHz DDR2 Fully-buffered DIMM ECC
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB (2x dual-link DVI)
250GB Serial ATA (3Gb/s); 7200 rpm; 8Mb cache
16x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
3,299
Refurb from Apple....
Yes, definitely wait until after MacWorld.
Intel is officially releasing the Core 2 Quad at CES on the same day, so Apple could make use of it (or a related chip) in an 8-core Mac Pro. (I can just see this being the "one more thing". Or maybe they'll use the Core 2 Duo/Quad in a new mini-tower lineup. Who knows...)
Even if you don't get that particular machine, a new Mac Pro on the market would drive down the cost of the refurbs. (Plus, after MacWorld, the machine you're getting should have iLife '07 on it.)
You mean "officially for the Mac". There are plenty of Windows PCs shipping with quads in them already (I *almost* ordered a Evesham quad a few weeks ago... but thankfully I snapped out of it and ordered my MP instead!).
The Quad-core Core 2 Extreme QX6700 and Quad-core Xeon 5300 have been out since November, but as far as I know, the Core 2 Quad is not out yet and is to be announced on the 8th.
I'm also pretty sure that the Core 2 Quad (like the Core 2 Duo) cannot be used in a dual-socket configuration. If this is the case then they will likely not use this in the Mac Pro at all but rather keep the lower machines as they are (with the dual dual-core Xeons), and offer a dual quad-core Xeon option.
It is also interesting to note that the price for the C2Q is apparently going to fall to very reasonable price of $530 in Q2 of 2007 (down from $851), which could mean that later down the road we might see this in a mid-range tower (if such a beast ever comes to exist) or even as an option for the 24" iMac.
Yeah this should be interesting.. I read something about using the Core 2 Quad in a "more mainstream" or something Mac..
What ia a Mac Pro?
I would think if they offer a nice fast machine using the Core 2 they will just kill the 2.0 Ghz quad core.
And how much cheaper would they have to go in order to have people not say "why not just get Mac Pro then"
You mean like an iMac? That will really get me saving up to upgrade my 700 Mhz G4... 4-core iMac? I could really get some folding done with that!
I would imagine that it would be more along the lines of where they went with the G5.
They had a full line of dual processor machines, and when the dual core came out, they had single dual core machines, and dual dual core (quad core) for the high end.
I expect a low end mac pro with a single quad core, perhaps a mid range with dual dual cores at high clock speeds (or a single quad core at a high clock speed) and a high end dual quad core at a medium to high clock.
They had a full line of dual processor machines, and when the dual core came out, they had single dual core machines, and dual dual core (quad core) for the high end.
I expect a low end mac pro with a single quad core, perhaps a mid range with dual dual cores at high clock speeds (or a single quad core at a high clock speed) and a high end dual quad core at a medium to high clock.
Yeah that is more in line with what I was talking about..
But Jobs does love the iMac so it might get a new chip...... But heat issues?
This may very likely happen, based on the fact that the 2.66GHz quad-core Xeon 5355 is $1399 while the 2.66 dual-core Xeon 5150 is about $700 (which there would of course be two of.) It's the same price for identical performance running with the same power consumption rate as one the dual-core processors.
True, but go down in speed a tad, and you get much more performance (given that you don't need as much speed in a single processor) for the same price.
cheers.
Hmm... smaller cache though? All 4 of the cores will be sharing at least part of a cache, where as two packages with two cores each have thier own independant cache. And, all kinds of potencial bandwidth issues... I guess we'll see. There haven't been any definative benchmarks yet.
Can I ask, I'm using photoshop and painter IX.5 mostly. A few other apps but these are my bread and butter. I rarely use both apps open at the same time, the only things i have open maybe mail, safari and occasionally iphoto.
I have a mac pro 2.66 with X1900XT & 4gb memory.
Currently I get no page outs memory wise.
But should temptation kick in next year would a dual quad core macpro actually offer me any real world boost over my current setup, or would it be more processors doing nothing than actually working ?
Thanks.
I have a mac pro 2.66 with X1900XT & 4gb memory.
Currently I get no page outs memory wise.
But should temptation kick in next year would a dual quad core macpro actually offer me any real world boost over my current setup, or would it be more processors doing nothing than actually working ?
Thanks.
Not unless developers decide to finally start writing programs that use more than one core. Unless you're running 8 different programs simultaneously.
Multicore vs. Multiprocessor?
I thought having multiple processors was better than multicores. I know what the difference is physically, but whats the difference in how it works? and which is better? or would there technically not be any difference?
I thought having multiple processors was better than multicores. I know what the difference is physically, but whats the difference in how it works? and which is better? or would there technically not be any difference?