2011 Quad Core Macbook Pro v 2010-2011 Quad Core Mac Pro

[percival504]

I have a simple question (I think). Is a Mac Pro (either a 3.2 Quad Core or last year's 2.66 Quad Core) going to be faster at multi-tasking and data hosting (?) than a 2011 quad core MacBook Pro? I know that that may be an inane question, but I've read so much about processor speed, 1066 v 1333 RAM, Hex Core being outperformed by Six-Core and Quad Core, and the lack of multi-processor benefit for most existing application that I cannot come to a straight up conclusion. Caveat: I know that the Mac Pro is generally a machine for the hard core editing professionals and that editing photos and videos requires a lot of power - the kind of power that most others do not need and will never (not in the near term, at least) use.

By multitasking I just mean: virtual machines, having 15 tabs at a time open for research purposes, flash videos (webinars and training), some adobe acrobat, PS CS5, dreamweaver, pages, numbers, iTunes, Filemaker Pro, Preview, etc (that is what I have open now). I am also using my computer as a server that will allow access to certain documents (and possibly programs).

I am disinclined to go with an iMac (no particular reason - I already know that it would cost less than a Mac Pro, but that is not necessarily a factor here). Unless Apple will release a new Mac Pro inn the next 6-8 weeks, I cannot wait and so would buy a new one or a refurbed one.

Your opinions would be greatly appreciated. TIA.

 

[wonderspark]

I have a simple question (I think). Is a Mac Pro (either a 3.2 Quad Core or last year's 2.66 Quad Core) going to be faster at multi-tasking and data hosting (?) than a 2011 quad core MacBook Pro? I know that that may be an inane question, but I've read so much about processor speed, 1066 v 1333 RAM, Hex Core being outperformed by Six-Core and Quad Core, and the lack of multi-processor benefit for most existing application that I cannot come to a straight up conclusion. Caveat: I know that the Mac Pro is generally a machine for the hard core editing professionals and that editing photos and videos requires a lot of power - the kind of power that most others do not need and will never (not in the near term, at least) use.

By multitasking I just mean: virtual machines, having 15 tabs at a time open for research purposes, flash videos (webinars and training), some adobe acrobat, PS CS5, dreamweaver, pages, numbers, iTunes, Filemaker Pro, Preview, etc (that is what I have open now). I am also using my computer as a server that will allow access to certain documents (and possibly programs).

I am disinclined to go with an iMac (no particular reason - I already know that it would cost less than a Mac Pro, but that is not necessarily a factor here). Unless Apple will release a new Mac Pro inn the next 6-8 weeks, I cannot wait and so would buy a new one or a refurbed one.

Your opinions would be greatly appreciated. TIA.

Hex is six, so I think you mean Octo core being outperformed by Hex and Quad, right?

If you do the math on various processors, you can see what would be faster than what, roughly. (3.33x6=19.98, 2.4x8=19.2, etc.) Then you can weigh in with how various programs only use one, two, four threads and so on, and how single-threaded hex(6)-cores will turbo boost to 3.6GHz, and through it all you can figure out what the outcome might look like. Also, lots of bench tests to peruse. Wonderful fun!

Cutting through all that, I would think a laptop can handle "virtual machines, having 15 tabs at a time open for research purposes, flash videos (webinars and training), some adobe acrobat, PS CS5, dreamweaver, pages, numbers, iTunes, Filemaker Pro, Preview, etc (that is what I have open now). I am also using my computer as a server that will allow access to certain documents (and possibly programs)." What will matter most is RAM over cores, in my opinion. I found that editing video using Premiere and After Effects requires about 26GB of RAM. I had pageouts and issues with 16GB which went away with 32GB. Mind you, that's running CS5 Pr, AE, PS, Firefox, maybe iTunes sometimes, Preview, and various little things like Geektool, Hardware Monitor and Audiogalaxy. Pr and AE are obviously huge RAM eaters, and you may get along fine with way less.

That's my input.

 

[percival504]

Thank you for the courtesy of a well considered, on point reply. You are right: I meant Octo, not Hex.

If I understand you correctly, even the MBP would handle my needs well assuming that RAM is not an issue. So if 16GBs will do it, I do not need to consider the Mac Pro.

Thank you very much. P504.

 

[derbothaus]

Thank you for the courtesy of a well considered, on point reply. You are right: I meant Octo, not Hex.

If I understand you correctly, even the MBP would handle my needs well assuming that RAM is not an issue. So if 16GBs will do it, I do not need to consider the Mac Pro.

Thank you very much. P504.

Video Card, heat and noise and 2.5" Hard Disk only should be thought through as well. The Pro has the Macbook beat on those features. But it sounds like MBP could fit the bill for you. Really it is about if you need portability or not. If not, a Mac Pro will most certainly outlast a MBP in years but that also depends on your buying cycles. A Mac Pro Quad 2010 has a slightly slower processor than the 2011 MBP's, The MBP has SATAIII (possibly faster), the Mac Pro is faster in all other aspects.

 

[thekev]

Video Card, heat and noise and 2.5" Hard Disk only should be thought through as well. The Pro has the Macbook beat on those features. But it sounds like MBP could fit the bill for you. Really it is about if you need portability or not. If not, a Mac Pro will most certainly outlast a MBP in years but that also depends on your buying cycles. A Mac Pro Quad 2010 has a slightly slower processor than the 2011 MBP's, The MBP has SATAIII (possibly faster), the Mac Pro is faster in all other aspects.

They really should have bumped it at least to the faster quad Xeon option given the price drops on cpus. It's sort of silly where that model sits in terms of speed factor at the moment. I'm not buying one on the end of a cycle (I didn't expect it to last THIS long), so I'm seeing what they do with the line. I'd end up going with at least the 6 core with a bunch of upgrades, so $5k ish with everything included around the tail end of a product cycle just seems brutal.

Edit: that's not including displays and stuff I already own

 

[derbothaus]

...so $5k ish with everything included around the tail end of a product cycle just seems brutal.

That's the kicker. If your work demands it, you can write it off, or it does not cost you anything anyway then by all means, who cares right? But if someone is to buy now for personal use the end of cycles in Appleland make zero fiscal sense. You can build a PC with exact same HW for under 1800.00. Maybe even less than that. I like my "OS X Tax" to be maybe a couple hundred bucks only over bare HW which in Appleland is start of cycle.

 

[10k300]

Hello,

I'd like to chime in quickly here, as I have all of the above hardware we're talking about.

The MBP 2011 QC 15/17 is MUCH, MUCH faster than the 2009/2010 MP QC in ALL CPU bound activities. If you work involves disk i/o obviously there will be a compromise, unless you run an SSD in the MBP, in which case the MBP will win hands down.
(forgot to say, if you have a 2009/2010 MP, it will be slower than MBP even if you put an SSD in the MP, the MP is SATA II - the MBP is SATA III - believe it or not, the SATA III SSD's e.g. vertex 3, can write/read at 400-450MB/sec - much more than the SATA II interface can hold -- this is another MAJOR PLUS for MBP 2011 vs MP 2009/10)

Just ask my MP 2x X5570, it hasn't been powered on in about 10 days. 15 days since my MBP 2011 QC 2.3/SSD/6750M arrived on site.

One of the main reasons I bought an MP was that I need dual display. Now with thunderbolt, you can run 2-3-4 displays off of one MBP with the ATI card. I'm not saying the MP has no purpose, I have 3 of them and I bought all 3 new so believe me it pains me to say this - but the MBP Sandy Bridge, is VERY, VERY fast. If you don't need PCI-E or RAID, I honestly can't see many reasons for buying an MP.

(obviously, when the E5 MP is released, it will //BLOW AWAY// the MBP 2011 and previous MP's)

 

[Fastball32]

One of the main reasons I bought an MP was that I need dual display. Now with thunderbolt, you can run 2-3-4 displays off of one MBP with the ATI card.

A Thunderbolt connection is only limited to 2 Displays daisy-chained (6 total peripherals), so the max screens you can have with a 2011 MacBook Pro with discreet graphics would be two 27" displays along with the laptop screen. A Mac Mini with ATI graphics can handle two Thunderbolt displays along with 1920x1200 screen via HDMI (total 3 external displays).

The ability to drive multiple screens is the main reason I have a Mac Pro. I am very tempted to use a MacBook Pro as my soul and only computer, however until I can daisy-chain 3 external displays (i hate having 2 displays, also want eyefinity for Windows games), I will continue to hold on to my Mac Pro.

 

[10k300]

Hi

Thank you for that clarification, I didn't know you can only run 2 screens off the MBP. It's still pretty cool that that's possible, especially if you consider that just a couple of years ago people were buying PCI-e external cases for video cards to run dual monitors!

Do you know if the 13" with Intel 3000 could run 2 x Thunderbolt displays as well?

 

[wonderspark]

Hello,

I'd like to chime in quickly here, as I have all of the above hardware we're talking about.

The MBP 2011 QC 15/17 is MUCH, MUCH faster than the 2009/2010 MP QC in ALL CPU bound activities. If you work involves disk i/o obviously there will be a compromise, unless you run an SSD in the MBP, in which case the MBP will win hands down.
(forgot to say, if you have a 2009/2010 MP, it will be slower than MBP even if you put an SSD in the MP, the MP is SATA II - the MBP is SATA III - believe it or not, the SATA III SSD's e.g. vertex 3, can write/read at 400-450MB/sec - much more than the SATA II interface can hold -- this is another MAJOR PLUS for MBP 2011 vs MP 2009/10)

Just ask my MP 2x X5570, it hasn't been powered on in about 10 days. 15 days since my MBP 2011 QC 2.3/SSD/6750M arrived on site.

One of the main reasons I bought an MP was that I need dual display. Now with thunderbolt, you can run 2-3-4 displays off of one MBP with the ATI card. I'm not saying the MP has no purpose, I have 3 of them and I bought all 3 new so believe me it pains me to say this - but the MBP Sandy Bridge, is VERY, VERY fast. If you don't need PCI-E or RAID, I honestly can't see many reasons for buying an MP.

(obviously, when the E5 MP is released, it will //BLOW AWAY// the MBP 2011 and previous MP's)

Cool that your MacBook Pro laptops are running so fast! You should run the Photoshop test here and see if you can beat those other scores! I only got 11.7 seconds with my Mac Pro. It would be cool to see you beat that 8.4 second time! There's a 2011 MacBook Pro with a Vertex 3 SSD on there that ran it in 18.3 seconds, but yours should do it in maybe 10 seconds? Try it!

 

[10k300]

Mine took 21 seconds to make this test.

Maybe because I'm running it now with 4GB RAM ? Is this test ram bound?

10.7.2 / CS5 PS

----------

I'm going to run this test on my X5570x2 MP and update the thread when I get home. That box has 24G 8500R in it.

BTW - I see you have a 6 core in your 2009, this means you probably upgraded to 5,1 firmware, right? If so, does the machine actually use the RAM at 1333Mhz now? I have 8500R/1066Mhz in my MacPro because I figured it wouldn't use that 1333Mhz speed anyway. Does your MP actually recognize it as 1333?

*I did upgrade my 2009 to a 5,1 using the netkas f/w hack and was running E5630's in it for a long time until I got this pair of X5570

 

[wonderspark]

Mine took 21 seconds to make this test.

Maybe because I'm running it now with 4GB RAM ? Is this test ram bound?

10.7.2 / CS5 PS

----------

I'm going to run this test on my X5570x2 MP and update the thread when I get home. That box has 24G 8500R in it.

BTW - I see you have a 6 core in your 2009, this means you probably upgraded to 5,1 firmware, right? If so, does the machine actually use the RAM at 1333Mhz now? I have 8500R/1066Mhz in my MacPro because I figured it wouldn't use that 1333Mhz speed anyway. Does your MP actually recognize it as 1333?

*I did upgrade my 2009 to a 5,1 using the netkas f/w hack and was running E5630's in it for a long time until I got this pair of X5570

It does run at 1333, which is nice.

I used the same firmware upgrade, which made my old stock quad CPU run at 1333MHz as well, prior to the W3680. (I had the W3580 3.33GHz Quad.)

Well, dang... I was hoping you would smash the record on that test. I think it tests a bit of everything... CPU, RAM, disk I/O and so on, but I'm not sure. It's supposed to be "real world" based.

 

[percival504]

That is exactly the information I needed! Thank you so much for the input! P504.

Hello,

I'd like to chime in quickly here, as I have all of the above hardware we're talking about.

The MBP 2011 QC 15/17 is MUCH, MUCH faster than the 2009/2010 MP QC in ALL CPU bound activities. If you work involves disk i/o obviously there will be a compromise, unless you run an SSD in the MBP, in which case the MBP will win hands down.
(forgot to say, if you have a 2009/2010 MP, it will be slower than MBP even if you put an SSD in the MP, the MP is SATA II - the MBP is SATA III - believe it or not, the SATA III SSD's e.g. vertex 3, can write/read at 400-450MB/sec - much more than the SATA II interface can hold -- this is another MAJOR PLUS for MBP 2011 vs MP 2009/10)

Just ask my MP 2x X5570, it hasn't been powered on in about 10 days. 15 days since my MBP 2011 QC 2.3/SSD/6750M arrived on site.

One of the main reasons I bought an MP was that I need dual display. Now with thunderbolt, you can run 2-3-4 displays off of one MBP with the ATI card. I'm not saying the MP has no purpose, I have 3 of them and I bought all 3 new so believe me it pains me to say this - but the MBP Sandy Bridge, is VERY, VERY fast. If you don't need PCI-E or RAID, I honestly can't see many reasons for buying an MP.

(obviously, when the E5 MP is released, it will //BLOW AWAY// the MBP 2011 and previous MP's)

 

[10k300]

Did the benchmark on the beast (2x X5570 2.93 with 24G)
ATI 6870 etc..

20 seconds

 

[10k300]

I guess I'd feel pretty dumb if (maybe I do?) for having a 1800 euro Macbook, which is exactly as fast (if not faster) than a 5000 euro mac pro...

<<word to the wise, macbook pro 2011 is /VERY/ fast>>

 

[wonderspark]

Why would you feel dumb? One is portable, the other is expandable. If you sell all the Mac Pros, you come out way ahead. Sounds good to me!

 

[Fastball32]

Hi

Thank you for that clarification, I didn't know you can only run 2 screens off the MBP. It's still pretty cool that that's possible, especially if you consider that just a couple of years ago people were buying PCI-e external cases for video cards to run dual monitors!

Do you know if the 13" with Intel 3000 could run 2 x Thunderbolt displays as well?

The 13" MacBook Pro is able to run 2 Thunderbolt Displays in a daisy-chain, however the internal MacBook screen will then automatically turn off.
The 15 & 17" MacBook Pro's with discreet graphics will be able to power 2 Thunderbolt Displays along with the laptop screen.

I suggest if you plan on using a 13" MBP with 2 Thunderbolt Displays, you should at least have 8GB of Ram because the Intel 3000 shares system memory, so max it out to at least 8gb.

The 2011 MacBook Air's only power 1 Thunderbolt Display along with the internal laptop screen.

Ivy Bridge's integrated GPU for this year will allow 4K display support, so even the 2012 baseline MacBook Air's and Mac Mini's should be able to support at least 2 thunderbolt displays per thunderbolt connection.

 

[thekev]

One of the main reasons I bought an MP was that I need dual display. Now with thunderbolt, you can run 2-3-4 displays off of one MBP with the ATI card. I'm not saying the MP has no purpose, I have 3 of them and I bought all 3 new so believe me it pains me to say this - but the MBP Sandy Bridge, is VERY, VERY fast. If you don't need PCI-E or RAID, I honestly can't see many reasons for buying an MP.

(obviously, when the E5 MP is released, it will //BLOW AWAY// the MBP 2011 and previous MP's)

It's kind of silly that speed is no longer a feature of the mac pro in its starting model relative to the other lines. Other oems are still forced to use those same cpus, but the machines that employ them typically cost considerably less. I think they've actually been trying to deter people from the mac pro.

That's the kicker. If your work demands it, you can write it off, or it does not cost you anything anyway then by all means, who cares right? But if someone is to buy now for personal use the end of cycles in Appleland make zero fiscal sense. You can build a PC with exact same HW for under 1800.00. Maybe even less than that. I like my "OS X Tax" to be maybe a couple hundred bucks only over bare HW which in Appleland is start of cycle.

Even if I write it off, it's a significant amount of money. I'm just not entirely confident in the ROI of buying a new machine today as opposed to waiting for the next refresh.

 

[derbothaus]

Cool that your MacBook Pro laptops are running so fast! You should run the Photoshop test here and see if you can beat those other scores! I only got 11.7 seconds with my Mac Pro. It would be cool to see you beat that 8.4 second time! There's a 2011 MacBook Pro with a Vertex 3 SSD on there that ran it in 18.3 seconds, but yours should do it in maybe 10 seconds? Try it!

11.5 - 12.5 seconds. I do not trust my reflex's though. So somewhere in those numbers. See sig for Mac Pro, also have OWC 240GB SSD and 600GB Velociraptor for data Disk. 12GB 3x4GB 1333MHz. RAM was barely touched in the test.