8-core Mac Pro - list of Multithreaded apps?

[THX1139]

... with a RAID 0 drive setup along with my Raptor boot drive and got the x1900xt. Wow, did this stuff make a difference!!! My computer just feels so much "snappier".

How noisy is that Raptor boot drive? I thought about going the same route but I've been reading that the trade off for price vs. size vs. noise factors make it a bad deal. However, the general concensus that using two Raptors for RAID was really nice. I'm thinking of sticking with a 500GB WD for boot and storage, but if the Raptor really does make a difference, and isn't too noisy then I may reconsider. A 500GB drive is actually cheaper than a 150 Raptor!

 

[dkoralek]

Asking about a specific number is a bit pointless I agree with you but whether an app can efficiently take advantage of multiple cores is a software design not OS issue, as is up to a point, how many. FCP may have 12 threads but when's it's crunching video how many can it split that work into? People aren't looking to buy 8-way boxes so finder is on a different proc to their widgets.

bingo. and that certainly is application dependent, which was what i was implying with my post above. because 8-core desktops are few and far between, there hasn't been much desire to develop software that really makes use of more than 4 cores for desktop apps. sure, the os can split threads up, but you may be wasting more on the overhead than getting anything tangible out of it. stata, which has been developed simultaneously for mainframe usage, gets about 1.5x performance when moved to 2 cores, although some functions exceed the theoretical 2x gain. and of course, you need more ram for the data to boot.

though, i think the main gain for most people moving up to 8 cores will be to be ability to perform simultaneous tasks using separate apps without degrading performance.

cheers.

 

[PowerMike G5]

Youre a man after my own heart PowerMike

I feel the love

 

[PowerMike G5]

How noisy is that Raptor boot drive? I thought about going the same route but I've been reading that the trade off for price vs. size vs. noise factors make it a bad deal. However, the general concensus that using two Raptors for RAID was really nice. I'm thinking of sticking with a 500GB WD for boot and storage, but if the Raptor really does make a difference, and isn't too noisy then I may reconsider. A 500GB drive is actually cheaper than a 150 Raptor!

I do notice a definite speed increase with the Raptor. In terms of noise, it is no louder than my RAID 0 internal drive. It is surprisingly quiet to me.

I highly recommend the Raptor!

 

[PMG5Quad]

Ok, well I guess my question is ... is it worth it to upgrade to the 8-core Mac Pro when it comes out?

I have a friend that wnats to buy my current 3.0Ghz Mac Pro setup and I won't really be losing anything off the purchase. So should I sell now and buy the 8-core or just hold on to my current Quad core setup?

I have a C2D Macbook Pro that I can use in the meantime if I sell ... what would you do?

You have a good setup the software will be there when the cores are as will

be your boot drive & hard drives. I really think they will work with the new

8 core when it gets here.

But I would say if you can get 100% of your money back & want a 8 core

(Which may be out soon or however long) You will not get 100% back when

the 8 core is out. I would sell only if I could live with out my Mac Pro. I my

self, could not do that, but if you can do it. And you will have lost nothing

when the day the 8 core comes out. I would keep the MP 3Ghz & sell it at a

loss when the new one I wanted was out. I know I will.
Good Luck what ever your choice

 

[PMG5Quad]

OpenGL HT

So I am contemplating the eventual coming of an 8-core Mac Pro. Can anyone list software that is multithreaded that would take advantage of more than the 4 cores currently available with the Mac Pro.

I have the Quad 3Ghz Xeon currently ... would 4 cores at 3.0Ghz be better than 8 cores at 2.66Ghz (the fastest Clovertown)? I mainly use Final Cut Pro, so I am always looking for top performance ... but is Final Cut Pro a porgram that'll take a performance gain from more lower clocked cores?

You will want as many cores as you can get when OpenGL HT (use's as many cores as you have) take a look http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/08/16/multithread/index.php

This will make you want 8 cores since, multicore processors and multiple processors aside, there’s still just a single graphics processor on a Mac Pro? Because Mac CPUs still spend quite a bit of time helping OpenGL process information. So by offloading OpenGL to multiple threads, the Mac’s CPU—or CPUs, it the case of the two-chip Mac Pro—can process OpenGL that much quicker. In other words, multithreading reduces the CPU’s “bottlenecking” of OpenGL performance.

The difference in performance for applications that support multithreading in OpenGL can be dramatic, according to early reports. There are two important caveats, however. First, Apple is offering this as an “opt-in” technology for developers. And second, multithreaded OpenGL is limited specifically to the Mac Pro.

It’s up to game and 3-D application developers to specifically support this feature. Why? Sources tell Macworld that depending on how the application works, it may have to be tweaked or massaged in order to work right with a multithreaded OpenGL implementation. And Apple would rather not break a core operating system technology, for obvious reasons. So the company is giving developers the choice of working with multithreaded OpenGL.

Glenda Adams, director of development for Aspyr, said, “We are very interested in testing with it and seeing which games make sense to enable support for it. For the games that are very graphics bound it could give us some very nice frame rate boosts.”

 

[ammon]

I just found another multi-threaded app:

iPhoto


Yep! That is right! And it is massively threaded! I was importing a few thousand photos into iPhoto and I brought up the Activity Monitor just for fun.

I had no idea that iPhoto could use 350% of my 4 cores! When I wasn't capturing the image it was up at 370-385%. WOW!


So, I guess if you do a lot of importing into iPhoto, the 8 cores could help out!

 

[trainguy77]

Well almost all apps are threaded in some manner. However, it has to do if the things that take alot of CPU power are threaded. You can see how many threads each application out there has, but sometimes only 1 of those threads does the CPU intensive work.

 

[Catfish_Man]

I just found another multi-threaded app:

iPhoto


Yep! That is right! And it is massively threaded! I was importing a few thousand photos into iPhoto and I brought up the Activity Monitor just for fun.

I had no idea that iPhoto could use 350% of my 4 cores! When I wasn't capturing the image it was up at 370-385%. WOW!


So, I guess if you do a lot of importing into iPhoto, the 8 cores could help out!

My guess is that iPhoto's importing process basically looks like:

Spawn worker thread pool equal to number of processors
Queue up all the images
Have each thread pop images off the queue until nothing's left to work on

Pretty classic "easy to thread, big payoff" task. This particular workflow pattern will get a lot easier to write soon.

 

[ammon]

Spawn worker thread pool equal to number of processors
Queue up all the images
Have each thread pop images off the queue until nothings left to work on

You are probably right. But still, I wouldn't have thought Apple would take the time to multi-thread a simple non-power-user application. Obviously I was wrong!

 

[electronbee]

Quad Core Proc's Price$

$1029.00 xeon quad core e5345 2.33ghz
$481.38 xeon quad core e5320 1.86ghz
$342.00 xeon quad core e5310 1.6ghz

These are the one you could buy right now... not seeing much of an advantage for the price.