2009 Mac Pro in hand - unboxing etc.

[jjahshik32]

I wouldn't expect anything particularly ground breaking. I think people seem to think that somehow Snow Leopard will make single threaded applications magically run multithreaded - that's not going to happen. The big changes as far as I can tell in regards to Snow Leopard are that it should be much easier to program code to use more cores. Yes Snow Leopard has some things that will make a difference to the user in regards to multithreading, i.e. multithreaded Finder (at last) but its not going to magically make Photoshop, Safari or StuffIt expander run faster.

I think people are focusing way too much on single thread. IMHO the single thread at least on the 2.26GHz is equal to the 2.8GHz (which was already a beast itself anyway) but the real upgrade is on the memory side.

Basically you already have an incredible amount of power, now you cut latency by 40%, double the speed output of memory by 2x especially with a new architecture of the quick path interconnect and you WILL see a huge difference in real world usages.

Also the whole point of dual/quad/8 core/ 16 cores/ whatever cores in the future is for the multithread performances. And if you look strictly at the multithread performances the new Nehalems DO NOT disappoint. I mean if intel wanted to focus on single thread, then why did they bother coming up with multithread technology.

Simple because they couldnt clock any higher with one single thread to get the overall speed that you can get by clusters or multithread technology.

I guess basically when the software catches up in the end and is utilized (Snow leopard), Multithread is the new single thread. Ya get what I'm trying to say though?

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

I think people are focusing way too much on single thread. IMHO the single thread at least on the 2.26GHz is equal to the 2.8GHz (which was already a beast itself anyway) but the real upgrade is on the memory side.

Basically you already have an incredible amount of power, now you cut latency by 40%, double the speed output of memory by 2x especially with a new architecture of the quick path interconnect and you WILL see a huge difference in real world usages.

Also the whole point of dual/quad/8 core/ 16 cores/ whatever cores in the future is for the multithread performances. And if you look strictly at the multithread performances the new Nehalems DO NOT disappoint. I mean if intel wanted to focus on single thread, then why did they bother coming up with multithread technology.

Simple because they couldnt clock any higher with one single thread to get the overall speed that you can get by clusters or multithread technology.

I guess basically when the software catches up in the end and is utilized (Snow leopard), Multithread is the new single thread. Ya get what I'm trying to say though?

I do get what you're saying and I agree that multicore's the future. It has to be since they couldn't keep driving up the MHz anymore to make 'faster' chips. I still think the 2.26GHz model is not good enough for the price point, not by a long shot considering the new technology and the known cost of the processors compared ot their predecessors. The memory performance gain will boost some applications but not others. Overall I don't consider the 2.26GHz Nehalem a worthy successor to the 2.8GHz model, not when there's been a movement to a significantly better hardware platform.

Snow Leopard isn't going to magically make everything much faster on multicore systems. Have you ever programmed with threading in mind? Its not that simple, you have to play close attention to loads of things, memory management etc. Its been the golden dream to have a compiler that can take single threaded code and turn it into multithreaded code without breaking it but that's not going to happen. OpenMP's already there to simplify threading by a good deal and hopefully OpenCL will make it as much easier to utilise graphics cores etc in standard programming as OpenMP has made it easier to utilise more cores in a CPU. Snow Leopard will certainly speed things up in applications that rely heavily on core OS X libraries but its not a magic wand.
Yes Nehalem is great and all but for most applications, multithreaded applications, the gain in multithreading vs single threading will be the same across the Nehalem and the previous gen Mac Pro cpus since they're all 8 core. Yes they use 'virtual cores' and hyperthreading but in practice, that's only really helpful in certain specific coding situations. I doubt Snow Leopard is going to magically change that.
Snow Leopard should in theory make it a fair bit easier for developers to code applications that utilise all the power in a computer and its graphics chips... it'll still take a good while for developers to actually utilise that fully. Honestly, I doubt we'll get to the kind of OpenCL coding that everyone seems to be expecting until at least OS 10.7 - developers take *time*!

 

[jjahshik32]

I do get what you're saying and I agree that multicore's the future. It has to be since they couldn't keep driving up the MHz anymore to make 'faster' chips. I still think the 2.26GHz model is not good enough for the price point, not by a long shot considering the new technology and the known cost of the processors compared ot their predecessors. The memory performance gain will boost some applications but not others. Overall I don't consider the 2.26GHz Nehalem a worthy successor to the 2.8GHz model, not when there's been a movement to a significantly better hardware platform.

Snow Leopard isn't going to magically make everything much faster on multicore systems. Have you ever programmed with threading in mind? Its not that simple, you have to play close attention to loads of things, memory management etc. Its been the golden dream to have a compiler that can take single threaded code and turn it into multithreaded code without breaking it but that's not going to happen. OpenMP's already there to simplify threading by a good deal and hopefully OpenCL will make it as much easier to utilise graphics cores etc in standard programming as OpenMP has made it easier to utilise more cores in a CPU. Snow Leopard will certainly speed things up in applications that rely heavily on core OS X libraries but its not a magic wand.
Yes Nehalem is great and all but for most applications, multithreaded applications, the gain in multithreading vs single threading will be the same across the Nehalem and the previous gen Mac Pro cpus since they're all 8 core. Yes they use 'virtual cores' and hyperthreading but in practice, that's only really helpful in certain specific coding situations. I doubt Snow Leopard is going to magically change that.
Snow Leopard should in theory make it a fair bit easier for developers to code applications that utilise all the power in a computer and its graphics chips... it'll still take a good while for developers to actually utilise that fully. Honestly, I doubt we'll get to the kind of OpenCL coding that everyone seems to be expecting until at least OS 10.7 - developers take *time*!

Point taken. But I wouldnt be so surprised once Snow Leopard finally hits and surprise surprise the front page of any mac site shows the huge beneficial of the Nehalems being the center of the show in benchmarks.

For some reason, I feel as if snow leopard was truly thought out to support at least the start of the Nehalem Mac Pros. I know what you guys are thinking that it is all about the intel stuff with multicores (yes it is true) but I wouldnt be surprised if Snow Leopard's original ideology was targeted towards an architecture of the Nehalem and beyond.

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

Congratz on the machine!

 

[Keniff]

Honestly, I doubt we'll get to the kind of OpenCL coding that everyone seems to be expecting until at least OS 10.7 - developers take *time*!

This shouldn't be too far off, OS 10.6 should be released by the end of March (09).

 

[Pressure]

I really hate to post this in public, but I have to report the first dead MP!

Remember my power supply, the one that smelled so awful? Well, it finally gave in today. The smoke came out of the back when it blew itself up. It started with weird noises like the power connector wasn't properly fitted (yeah, those good old PC days) and then BOOM and all light went out.

What a sad moment.

Tough, sorry to hear!

Contact Apple ASAP

 

[summitscout]

I really hate to post this in public, but I have to report the first dead MP!

Remember my power supply, the one that smelled so awful? Well, it finally gave in today. The smoke came out of the back when it blew itself up. It started with weird noises like the power connector wasn't properly fitted (yeah, those good old PC days) and then BOOM and all light went out.

What a sad moment.

Bummer! So sorry to hear it. Really takes the polish off having a new computer. Guess it was a lemon not an apple.

 

[amoergosum]

This shouldn't be too far off, OS 10.6 should be released by the end of March (09).

Really?

 

[Jouhne]

didn't you get the memo on your shiny new iNetBookTablet ?

 

[voyagerd]

Any chance people could run this Terragen 2 Benchmark? Thanks!

http://www.3dspeedmachine.com/?page=3&scene=40

 

[Tesselator]

TBH, I can't wait to see the real-life bench mark tests of the '2.26GHz 8-core 2009' VS. the '2.8GHz and the 3.2GHz 8-core 2008' once 'Snow Leopard' is installed.

Should be interesting...

For Cinebench10 the results will not change at all. Not by more than about 0.5% at least - which is only a few points. This is because the renders use 100% of the processor(s) it's assigned to. If it does get a significant score increase then Snow Leopard will be breaking the function of Cinebench, Cinima 4D, and probably many other apps. This would be VERY bad! I for one wouldn't be able to use it.

Geekbench may change because it's already very wonky. Applications like Photoshop which are barely multi-core aware or not MC aware at all, are the subject of Snow Leopard's new distributive nature.

 

[Tesselator]

They are all correct in proportion to like-colors;

Yeah, "to like colors" but because the blue is now being offset by the length of the red, one would have to mentally adjust the starting point of each bar to make perfect sense of it.

 

[amoergosum]

I really hate to post this in public, but I have to report the first dead MP!

Remember my power supply, the one that smelled so awful? Well, it finally gave in today. The smoke came out of the back when it blew itself up. It started with weird noises like the power connector wasn't properly fitted (yeah, those good old PC days) and then BOOM and all light went out.

What a sad moment.

Sorry to hear that. I hope you'll get your replacement soon.

 

[gilroykilroy]

I'm too old for games (maybe XPlane?) but I was around our two college web interns this afternoon who were looking at a LolzCats site with Epic this and that. I smiled at their screens and told them to get back to work.

Not to derail this thread but you are never too old for WoW

I currently play WoW on a 30" Dell connected to my MBP. Can't wait to see it on my Octo 2.66 with the 4870.

 

[Horst]

??? Me? No. I dunno anything about the PS benchmarks.
...
To me the two PS benchmark downloads are probably the worst way to BM any machine.

No, not you ; the source for the PS benchmarks is even mentioned on Barefeats .
Lost some trust there ...

Anyways, it'd be interesting to try the BF Photoshop action, too bad it isn't public.

As for Photoshop, it sure isn't optimized, but it's pretty much the only image editing software in the industry , so there is no way around it if you are looking for real-world comparisons of workstations.

One thing about Cinebench 10, for Mac it is 32bit , while Cinema 4D R11 can be run as a 64bit app in OSX; I understand it mainly allows for better use of (more) RAM.
My point ? Don't know, any thoughts how that could influence benchmarks ?

Speaking of RAM, a recent article in a German Mac magazine claims that installing memory sticks in the '09 MP must be done in threes, and the 4th (+8th) slot needs to be kept empty, else you'll loose up to 30% in RAM speed.

It's mentioned in some other articles and topics, too, just haven't seen any actual test results yet.
I assume we are waiting for the diglloyd, barefeats etc. reviews ?

 

[nontroppo]

For some reason, I feel as if snow leopard was truly thought out to support at least the start of the Nehalem Mac Pros.

No it clearly wasn't, because Apple was incapable of adding SLI/crossfire support that comes as standard in the intel reference designs for Nehalem. With crossfire support, OpenCL would perform much better, utilising two GPGPUs instead of one. It is exasperating that some home-kludged cheapish PC with Vista and CUDA will thrash a Mac Pro Snow Leopard with OpenCL... Why Apple, why?

I just hope the functionality is dormant in this generation of Nehalem Mac Pros and we are just waiting for a 4870X2 with displayports to be manufactured for it to work (and that Apple finally sort out the macbook pro - two GPUs with no way to utilise them properly!!!)

 

[jjahshik32]

For Cinebench10 the results will not change at all. Not by more than about 0.5% at least - which is only a few points. This is because the renders use 100% of the processor(s) it's assigned to. If it does get a significant score increase then Snow Leopard will be breaking the function of Cinebench, Cinima 4D, and probably many other apps. This would be VERY bad! I for one wouldn't be able to use it.

Geekbench may change because it's already very wonky. Applications like Photoshop which are barely multi-core aware or not MC aware at all, are the subject of Snow Leopard's new distributive nature.

Looks like someone doesnt want to believe the geekbench scores. Maybe the Nehalem scores are a bit too high compared to the last gen in the overall department.

I think if anything geekbench is pretty accurate. Also I wonder if turbo boost was even used in those tests.

 

[jjahshik32]

I dont know why but if you up the cpu on the Mac Pros the shipping used to be 2-4 days but now its 3-5 days. Strange.

 

[Boneoh]

Any chance people could run this Terragen 2 Benchmark? Thanks!

http://www.3dspeedmachine.com/?page=3&scene=40

I figured that I would give this a try. I downloaded and installed Terragen and the benchmark.tgd file. I think I mayhave an old version of Terragen, it does
not recognize the .tgd file type when I use the Open command. Any ideas?

 

[diotav]

Probably getting a 2.26GHz 8-core with two ATi 4870 after selling my current Mac Pro.

Extra 4870 for a 2nd 30-inch ACD. I don't like extension cables.

 

[aragdog]

This will be a negative on the new Power Mac

Ok I do not want to sound negative. I have two Power Macs with tons of storage and ram. We all awaited the new one with anticipation. But no support for Blu-ray??? How ridiculous, we all wanted some form of writing and saving our great hd movies. That is myself and all of my friends who have been Apple users, I think, since 1982. We all anticipated a lot more and were totally let down. Whoever can brag about this and that and all but in my humble opinion it is totally upsetting and a huge let down.

 

[rockinrocker]

I really hate to post this in public, but I have to report the first dead MP!

Remember my power supply, the one that smelled so awful? Well, it finally gave in today. The smoke came out of the back when it blew itself up. It started with weird noises like the power connector wasn't properly fitted (yeah, those good old PC days) and then BOOM and all light went out.

What a sad moment.

And.... boom goes the dynamite.

 

[nanofrog]

I really hate to post this in public, but I have to report the first dead MP!

Remember my power supply, the one that smelled so awful? Well, it finally gave in today. The smoke came out of the back when it blew itself up. It started with weird noises like the power connector wasn't properly fitted (yeah, those good old PC days) and then BOOM and all light went out.

What a sad moment.

IIRC, some members with the earlier '08 MP's had the same issue.

I would have thought this wouldn't have been as much of an issue this time, as the PSU is likely the same part, or at least from the same manufacturer(s).

Perhaps Rev. A strikes again?

 

[Tesselator]

No, not you ; the source for the PS benchmarks is even mentioned on Barefeats .
Lost some trust there ...

Anyways, it'd be interesting to try the BF Photoshop action, too bad it isn't public.

Oh! That's not good. Maybe that will change???

As for Photoshop, it sure isn't optimized, but it's pretty much the only image editing software in the industry , so there is no way around it if you are looking for real-world comparisons of workstations.

Actually there are a whole bunch of image editors for Mac.
There are:

Aperture,
SilverFast,
PhotoLine,
LightRoom,
CaptureONE,
Photon,
RAW Developer,
Bible PRO,
LightZone,
Photo Mechanic,
Pixelmator,
DXO-Optics,
Helicon Filter,
Picasa,
RAW Therapee,
PhotoStudio,
SilkyPix.
​

And there's probably a few I'm forgetting too. Those are just the ones I would consider using professionally. But I think it's a fantastic commentary on Adobe's marketing that they're able to make people think all there is is PS. Wow! I wanna be them!

One thing about Cinebench 10, for Mac it is 32bit , while Cinema 4D R11 can be run as a 64bit app in OSX; I understand it mainly allows for better use of (more) RAM.
My point ? Don't know, any thoughts how that could influence benchmarks ?

Yes it will affect the times quite a lot! How exactly and to what degree would take either a comparison with a non-existent 64-bit version of it - or more than I know about each of the processor architectures being tested.

I have a hunch that the scores will be relative. Meaning that if Cinebench64 showed a 60% increase on the new 5500 series processors under OS X 10.5.6 then it would probably come within a percentage point or two of that on a 5300 series chip under 10.5.6 as well. It's just a hunch though.

Speaking of RAM, a recent article in a German Mac magazine claims that installing memory sticks in the '09 MP must be done in threes, and the 4th (+8th) slot needs to be kept empty, else you'll loose up to 30% in RAM speed.

Yup! That's true! I dunno about 30%... I suppose it could be that much in some cases. I got a 10 to 15% increase across the board by changing different configurations of 4 DIMMs on my older MacPro. Two in the top and two in the bottom trays in positions 1 and 2 were 10% ~ 15% faster than all four in the top or bottom tray.

If you understand RAID 0 stripping you can kind of think of it like that. Not exactly but it'll help visualize it a bit.

It's mentioned in some other articles and topics, too, just haven't seen any actual test results yet.
I assume we are waiting for the diglloyd, barefeats etc. reviews ?

I dunno. But I'll take all the benchmarks I can get. Each may add some info no matter how slight, to the overall picture.

 

[canonballs]

Actually there are a whole bunch of image editors for Mac.
There are:

Aperture,
SilverFast,
PhotoLine,
LightRoom,
CaptureONE,
Photon,
RAW Developer,
Bible PRO,
LightZone,
Photo Mechanic,
Pixelmator,
DXO-Optics,
Helicon Filter,
Picasa,
RAW Therapee,
PhotoStudio,
SilkyPix.​

I'd say only PhotoLine, Pixelmator and PhotoStudio (has that one got layers?) are photo editors in the sense that Photoshop is. (I'm not familiar with SilverFast or HeliconFilter). The rest are really Raw converters with moderate editing capabilities (no layers), or, in case of Photon or PhotoMechanic, are for viewing/culling/annotation/organization only.

And there's probably a few I'm forgetting too. Those are just the ones I would consider using professionally.

Photoretouch Pro?​