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Base 4-core sweet spot for Photoshop/Lightoom and light gaming?
- Thread starter wildmac
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They are using it in PS6.. can't find any info on LR. And yeah, my PS is still at 5.5, but LR is current, due to the CC stuff.
But still a good point, and more of a reason to put the video card savings from the D500 into RAM instead.
yup sorry for that. I'm also thinking of rMBP when I'm typing and all my laptop age for fast that I give up trying to do anything on laptop other then surf net and use MS office.
I do a fair amount of gaming on both the Mac OS and Windows 7. I was looking for best combination of cores and GPU's. I had kind of settled on the 6 core with the D500 using he old adage that you should buy the best GPU you can afford. It seems like a 4 core with the D700 might be a better choice?
Cores still depend on what your apps use. I asked someone to test WoW for me, and see if it uses more than 4 cores on the Hex (it does use all 4 on my old rig).
But for the GPU, the real choice seems to be the D300 vs the D700.
Right now I'm leaning strongly towards ditching the D500 for the D300, and putting that $ into more ram.
I have read many pages on the various threads and have yet to see much discussion on the D300. Mostly the D700. The D300 would save a ton of money if it is decent. I currently have a 2006 Mac 1.1 and have replaced the GPU 3 times just to try and keep up with new games (and the original fried). While there is some indications that the GPU might be replaceable in the nMP, that still seems an open question. I plan on keeping this Mac Pro for a long time so trying to weigh initial cost against longevity.
Im also looking at going for at least the 512SSD if not the 1T.
At least based on the Heaven tests, and a few of the other one-off results, it looks like the percision GFlops are where the D500 would be better, but only if your apps really use them.. so if you are doing 3D..
A lot of us 1,1 folk here...
also, meant to write this earlier but LR is using 8 cores on my MP. you would benefit from 6-cores. PS doesn't make as much use of those cores on my machine, but depending on your needs the 6-core is not without *some* value.
I am in a condrum right now. I have no need for the power of the mac pro but getting the imac means i can't run 4k in the future which is a huge no no. I even have extra 32gb 1600mhz ram sticks for imac but it makes no sense to get an imac without 4k. At the base nmp's price, the imac is a more powerful machine, can be specced with 512 gb, and comes with keyboard and mouse/trackpad and LCD, its a better machine for my needs but 4k totally nufflies it.
i know it is not considered a 'pro' feature, but one reason the nMP interests me is because i do value a quiet space. i find i am way more productive when it is utterly silent.
the iMac is more prone to fan noise when you are throttling the system; for me, the nMP will operate well below its threshold in most of those situations that cause the iMac to rev up, so that means more quiet.
perhaps it is silly, but the increase in productivity and satisfaction is, for me, valuable -- despite the fact that i can't really measure it the way we can CPU and GPU benchmarks.
Hmm... the flip side of this is that with the front page news that the OWC folk have successfully changed a cpu in the nMP... makes it a bit safer to get the 4-core if you wanted to save..
yep--there was confirmation of that a few days ago and it is great to see it actually done.
makes the MP a bit more future-proof .except that the socket used may be somewhat of a dead-end, and the CPU arms race may be slowing down.
would be much more interesting if this were at the start of a socket cycle.
the older MPs were upgradable in this way, though with a bit more difficulty.
one could upgrade CPUs on the 3-, 4-, and 5,1 to increase their service life.
Ok, it's over, I'm done... the CPU changeout really sealed the deal.
Cancelled my hex/d500/16G/512SSD...
Ordered the Quad/D300/32G/512SSD. That should be enough for me for a few years at least. So I saved $500 off my previous order, which will more that pay for the external storage.
Done.
Cancelled my hex/d500/16G/512SSD...
Ordered the Quad/D300/32G/512SSD. That should be enough for me for a few years at least. So I saved $500 off my previous order, which will more that pay for the external storage.
Done.
This pretty much pushed me to finally choose as well. The only time a 6c would benefit me is when I'm exporting/generating previews in Lightroom and that only takes up 20% of my time at most currently.
Actually if you are doing 20% of your time i think you would benefit hugely from the 6c. You might be one of the few people who can substantiate a 6c
Congrats, i am still thinking about the purchase. There two options for me 1 is that buy the base mp adn the other is skiping this generation of macs and wait for the next ones.
Imacs that do 4k, mac pros that will have 1150 sockets that could last 2 generations. I think if I wait my options might be much better.
If I was on a 4,1 or 5,1 I'd consider waiting for the next round, but my 1,1 is too damn old, and I've been waiting too long... and who knows how long it will take Apple to upgrade to that.
yeah...i was going to say $500 to speed up what you spend 20% of your time doing seems worthy.
$500 divided by 52 weeks * 5 days * 2 years = <$1/day, with good likelihood that over the course of those 2 years more applications will use more cores.
if he keeps it 3-4 years it is even less.
You probably have made a lot off the 1,1 because you didn't upgrade it often. Your way way overdue for an upgrade, your best decision is to buy the nmp now in my opinion.
Oh, sorry to see that. I think the only chance to see better Lightroom performance is with the hex. With the quad I think you'll be only slightly better than what a current Mini can do.
He can upgrade the cpu himself if he needs to, and the mac mini can't do 4k 60hz or get more than 16 gb of ram.
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Oh noes, i read this from the anandtech review.
"Im not sure if the Mac Pros GPU hardware can drive upcoming 4K single stream panels or not as AMD specifically lists that as a feature of the new Radeon R9 series."
So when single panel 4k monitors arrive the mac pro won't drive them?
"Im not sure if the Mac Pros GPU hardware can drive upcoming 4K single stream panels or not as AMD specifically lists that as a feature of the new Radeon R9 series."
So when single panel 4k monitors arrive the mac pro won't drive them?
what a joke and you are only thinking of just CPU, while the mini using HD4000 GPU, plus limited Max memory.
Beside you sure the Mac mini late 2012 2.7ghz i7 just slightly better then the nMP 4 core 3.7ghz? Geekbench show Mac mini score 2933, 11521 and nMP 4 core is 3270, 12973.
A 11% speed different in single core and 12.6% different in Multi core is call slight?
Even opening any application the Mac Pro can beat the mini anything with such a big diff from a PCI-E SSD with 900mb/s to a HD in Mini even DIY to SDD is only just SATA3 6G speed only.
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