2009 Mac Pro in hand - unboxing etc.

[Tesselator]

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

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

Here's the download page for Terragen if anyone want's to try: http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/download.php?item=tg2freemac

I also repaired and corrected the "Benchmark52.tgd" scene included below. It'll be OK to test among ourselves but it's not close enough to actually compare it to the scores listed on-line.

Also Terragen is ancient now and I doubt this would actually serve as a reasonable benchmarking app. Feel free to have fun with it anyway though.

 

[Tesselator]

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.



Photoretouch Pro?

Yeah... Or if we need it to have layers in order for it to classify as an image editor then GIMP and CinePaint too.

 

[voyagerd]

Here's the download page for Terragen if anyone want's to try: http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/download.php?item=tg2freemac

I also repaired and corrected the "Benchmark52.tgd" scene included below. It'll be OK to test among ourselves but it's not close enough to actually compare it to the scores listed on-line.

Also Terragen is ancient now and I doubt this would actually serve as a reasonable benchmarking app. Feel free to have fun with it anyway though.

Ancient? They come out with new builds of Terragen 2 every couple of months! It's the best benchmarking application I have seen other than cinebench.

 

[Tesselator]

Ancient? They come out with new builds of Terragen 2 every couple of months! It's the best benchmarking application I have seen other than cinebench.

OK, I was wrong. Sorry.

 

[voyagerd]

OK, I was wrong. Sorry.

It's okay, you were probably thinking of Terragen 1. I'm listed as Echrei on the benchmarking site. I got the fastest benchmark with a Core i7 machine I built. Let's see someone with a new Mac Pro beat it! Also, go iMac.

 

[Boneoh]

Terragen 2 benchmark

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

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

I just ran this on my new machine, 2.26 octo, 16 gb, 4870. It ran in 25 minutes flat.

I am not a Terragen 2 user, so I just did the default install. On the Preferences panel, it did show 16 cores.

 

[Tesselator]

I just ran this on my new machine, 2.26 octo, 16 gb, 4870. It ran in 25 minutes flat.

I am not a Terragen 2 user, so I just did the default install. On the Preferences panel, it did show 16 cores.

I got 18m 29sec.

2006 Mac Pro 2.66 Octad (X5355)

 

[blufire]

Ancient? They come out with new builds of Terragen 2 every couple of months! It's the best benchmarking application I have seen other than cinebench.

Not to burst your bubble, but if you watch Activity Monitor, you'll see that Terragen 2 beta doesn't utilize more than about 300-400% (out of 1600% for the 16 logical core system) when rendering this file. I used 3200MB for the subdiv cache. Unless I'm doing something wrong here, there are probably much better apps (or files?) for benchmarking.

 

[jjahshik32]

I got 18m 29sec.

2006 Mac Pro 2.66 Octad (X5355)

Did you install another 4 cores to the original 2006 4 core 2.66GHz model??

I dont remember seeing a 2.66GHz 8 core model except the nehalem 2.66GHz model.

Its a shame though that the 2006 models are limited to the much older ancient cards now, only if you could put the ATI 4870 in...

 

[Tesselator]

Not to burst your bubble, but if you watch Activity Monitor, you'll see that Terragen 2 beta doesn't utilize more than about 300-400% (out of 1600% for the 16 logical core system) when rendering this file. I used 3200MB for the subdiv cache. Unless I'm doing something wrong here, there are probably much better apps (or files?) for benchmarking.

At times it used 100% of all of my procs. but that's only 800%.

Most of the time it was at 200% with all procs at 25% each.

 

[Tesselator]

Did you install another 4 cores to the original 2006 4 core 2.66GHz model??

Yes. Very shortly after I got the machine. It was a X5150 x 2 which I sold for $750 each and replaced with X5355 x 2 that I purchased for $800 each.

Its a shame though that the 2006 models are limited to the much older ancient cards now, only if you could put the ATI 4870 in...

Sure, sure... rub it in...

Hehehe, actually there are a few decent cards available and more if I flash. I hear there's some kind of bottelneck though. I dunno what it is but I hear there is one.

 

[blufire]

At times it used 100% of all of my procs. but that's only 800%.

Most of the time it was at 200% with all procs at 25% each.

You're right, I saw it spike to about 1200-1300% near the beginning, but those spikes are short in duration and very rare. The vast majority of the time was spent in the 300-400% range for the 16 logical core system.

Apps like Maxwell Render really peak it out around 1400-1600%, and that shows up in the benchmark comparisons.

 

[Boneoh]

I just ran this on my new machine, 2.26 octo, 16 gb, 4870. It ran in 25 minutes flat.

I am not a Terragen 2 user, so I just did the default install. On the Preferences panel, it did show 16 cores.

I just ran a couple more tests. This time, I rebooted and made sure that Safari, iTunes, and TimeMachine were off.

16 cores = 25 m 54 s
8 cores = 24 m 11 s

I used the original Benchmark52 downloaded from the site. It would be interesting to me to see this with 4 cores, but I have to get back to work!

 

[Tesselator]

You're right, I saw it spike to about 1200-1300% near the beginning, but those spikes are short in duration and very rare. The vast majority of the time was spent in the 300-400% range for the 16 logical core system.

Apps like Maxwell Render really peak it out around 1400-1600%, and that shows up in the benchmark comparisons.

Toward the end of the render and once in the middle for about a minute each it hit 800% (100% on all cores) for me. Not spikes... Thy filled the entire length of the graph.. Yeah, about 1min. each.

For me Safari was running both times I tested it. Once I was using iTunes too to play a net-stream at 64kbps which added exactly one minute.

 

[galstaph]

Ok, for the guys wondering about real world maxwell render on 2.26 octad
benchwell results (default render settings, low priority, maxwell osx 1.7.1) are as follows:
6m35s benchmark of 1629.21
so... if their site submission was working it would place my machine 6th on the list (yes that is faster than the 3.2Ghz Mac Pro)
gonna see if unchecking low priority speeds it up much
second run much the same: 6m35s 1630.19

 

[Markleshark]

Okay, 2.66 2009 Mac Pro.

Stock + ATI + Wireless.

I'll do it again tonight (Doing stuff™ right now) but Geektool (out of the box) came in at about 9258 IIRC.

What else can I help everyone with?

 

[Pressure]

Okay, 2.66 2009 Mac Pro.

Stock + ATI + Wireless.

I'll do it again tonight (Doing stuff™ right now) but Geektool (out of the box) came in at about 9258 IIRC.

What else can I help everyone with?

You could dump the Radeon HD 4870 EFI for our perusal

 

[Bye Bye Baby]

More pics as my eye-fi uploads them to flickr. In the meantime...

QUESTIONS ANSWERED:

- The optical drives are SATA
- Stock optical drive is an "H-L Data Storage GH41N"
- The optical drive connectors are single-piece SAS-style with power & signal
- The backplane for the 4 hot-swap bays is the MAINBOARD. There is no separate backplane. There is no cable between the mainboard and the backplane because the mainboard IS the backplane. The drive connectors are directly on the mainboard.
- There are only 2 SATA ports remaining and they lead to the optical drive bay. if you use only one optical drive, you could connect the second port to an eSATA adapter but the port is at the very front of the case so you'll need at least an 18" cable.

I do so love the inside of the Mac. It's a design thing.

 

[Tesselator]

Okay, 2.66 2009 Mac Pro.

Stock + ATI + Wireless.

I'll do it again tonight (Doing stuff™ right now)

Promises - promises... But won't your GF be mad? <blush>

but Geektool (out of the box) came in at about 9258 IIRC.

What else can I help everyone with?

You could take voyagerd up on his Terragen proposal. Too kinky?

 

[fiercetiger224]

Wow, the 2.93 Ghz Mac Pro is a beast. Too bad I don't have $6000 to spend on a computer.

 

[YahonMaizosz]

Wow, the 2.93 Ghz Mac Pro is a beast. Too bad I don't have $6000 to spend on a computer.

Touche...

 

[FreakyPhotoshop]

Should have keep the Pro line in the black box

I think Apple should have kept the pro line in the black boxes, they looked so much better. Just wants the Mac Pro look cheap now. Very nice machine, but the packaging is god awful. If they are trying to make all the packaging look the same then why did they have black boxes for the black iPhone and white boxes for the white!!!

 

[Tesselator]

Maybe they're trying to get another ecology badge by using less ink?

 

[grue]

I think Apple should have kept the pro line in the black boxes, they looked so much better. Just wants the Mac Pro look cheap now. Very nice machine, but the packaging is god awful. If they are trying to make all the packaging look the same then why did they have black boxes for the black iPhone and white boxes for the white!!!

Is this really that big of a deal? Do you put the box in your living room to show off your elite computer, and keep tissues around in case people spontaneously cream themselves?

It's a CARDBOARD. BOX. You take the computer out of it, and either put the box in storage or throw it away.

 

[Tallest Skil]

Wow, the 2.93 Ghz Mac Pro is a beast. Too bad I don't have $6000 to spend on a computer.

Developer discount, education discount, or business discount?