Considering Mac Pro single vs dual processor....

[zmttoxics]

I received my single CPU Pro day before yesterday, was too busy to set it up that night (man that was annoying), set it up last night and put it through it's paces.

Details: 8gb RAM, Samsung Spinpoint 1tb, ATI 2600

Initial impressions: Yeah, it's fast. I think I beachballed once, when I fired it up with the the default 2gb RAM, and had five file copies running from an external FW drive while simultaneously installing OS X updates, installing another app, while Spotlight was indexing the drive, and launching Safari another app or two. I'm impressed. It seems to be at least twice as fast as my old tower for the 'sustained' stuff, and a lot snappier on the immediate stuff.

It's perceptively snappier than my Macbook Pro at work. So much so that I'm glad I sprung for the tower at home. The power makes up for the lack of portability.

The video isn't as crisp and fast as my Macbook Pro though. When I use Spaces or Exposé, it looks like it has a lower 'framerate', and I push a 30" screen at work. Illustrator is still a bit of a dog, but I think only Nehalem will solve that.

I'll find out more this weekend after I finish setting it up and dig into some real work.

Congrats man! Sounds like a killer rig for sure. If video is an issue, the 8800 *may* help but I gather it has bad drivers under OS X causing less then stellar performance.

 

[schnee]

Congrats man! Sounds like a killer rig for sure. If video is an issue, the 8800 *may* help but I gather it has bad drivers under OS X causing less then stellar performance.

Yeah, I'm gonna wait a bit and see how it shakes out. I can hold off until the new ATI hits, and see if the rumored OSX 'Snow Leopard' changes anything either.

 

[Silencio]

Excellent! You will have to report back on how you like it! Congrats!

Just received my single-quadcore Mac Pro two days ago and started migrating everything over from my G5 yesterday.

Put an extra 4GB of RAM in there to start, added a 640GB Western Digital drive for boot/apps/users, pulled the two drives out of my G5 and popped them into the third and fourth drive bays in the Mac Pro to copy data over, and turned the stock 320GB drive into a Time Machine dump to back up my boot partition (I run Retrospect on the machine to back up everything else locally and on the rest of my network). Also moved my old Lightscribe DVD burner into the lower optical drive bay.

And yep: the Mac Pro is dramatically quieter and cooler-running than the G5. Certainly smooth as silk running multiple file copies between the internal drives and some Firewire 800 externals, installing software, updating my databases and all of that more or less at once. I'll have to wait until the weekend to do some video encoding tasks, but so far I'm loving it.

 

[hadleydb]

I've been tossing around the 3.06 Ghz iMac and the 4 core 2.8 Mac Pro. I just sold my 8 core 2.8 so I could buy a storage shed, and a cheaper Mac. It hurt, but I am dealing with it in a 12 step program... Anyway I called my local Apple Store and they said it was a standard configuration. I always thought it was a custom order. The guy said they would have them in stock. So if I go tomorrow to get one will I find that it is a CTO? I don't know if the guy knew what he was talking about. I repeated 3 times the 4 core not the 8 core. And he said yes we have them. I thought it was a custom thing and not a stock machine. I've read this thread and found most people custom ordered online.

Thanks in advance for any answers. I don't want to drive an hour to find the dude didn't know what he was talking about.

 

[sash]

Anyway I called my local Apple Store and they said it was a standard configuration. I always thought it was a custom order. The guy said they would have them in stock.

4-core Mac is a standard configuration, which you can also buy as CTO or BTO. If the guy said they've got them, than so it is... Hope they'll still have their stock as you come.

sash

 

[osin]

I've been tossing around the 3.06 Ghz iMac and the 4 core 2.8 Mac Pro. I just sold my 8 core 2.8 so I could buy a storage shed, and a cheaper Mac. It hurt, but I am dealing with it in a 12 step program... Anyway I called my local Apple Store and they said it was a standard configuration. I always thought it was a custom order. The guy said they would have them in stock. So if I go tomorrow to get one will I find that it is a CTO? I don't know if the guy knew what he was talking about. I repeated 3 times the 4 core not the 8 core. And he said yes we have them. I thought it was a custom thing and not a stock machine. I've read this thread and found most people custom ordered online.

Thanks in advance for any answers. I don't want to drive an hour to find the dude didn't know what he was talking about.

the same thing happened to me couple days ago. I called the store, guy said that they have quad core 2.8 in stock (why not he asked) and gave me the price $2299. I was so happy... drove to the store asked for the computer and... nobody knows who said that they have it :O they had only a 8 core 2.8 and 3.2 where 8-core 2.8 is a standard... lucky me I didn't have to drive more than 15 minutes...

 

[Roy]

4-core Mac is a standard configuration, which you can also buy as CTO or BTO. If the guy said they've got them, than so it is... Hope they'll still have their stock as you come.

sash

According to the Apple Store, 8 cores is the standard configuration:

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/mac_pro?mco=MTE3MDQ
Mac Pro



8 cores standard, up to 3.2 GHz

Start building your Mac Pro with our suggested configuration: Two 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Harpertown” processors 2GB memory (800MHz DDR2 fully-buffered DIMM ECC) ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics with 256MB memory 320GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7200-rpm hard drive1 16x double-layer SuperDrive

 

[sash]

According to the Apple Store, 8 cores is the standard configuration

Hi Roy,

Both 4x and 8x could be either standard or build to order. If they have it in stock (4x or 8x, doesn't matter) in a real physical store (not online), it would be a standard configuration. On the other hand, you can customise 4x as well as 8x core system.

But you right, Apple does offer certain config as a basic one, and it's 8 x 2,8 at the moment.

sash

 

[sash]

Start building your Mac Pro with our suggested configuration: Two 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Harpertown” processors 2GB memory (800MHz DDR2 fully-buffered DIMM ECC) ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics with 256MB memory 320GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7200-rpm hard drive1 16x double-layer SuperDrive

At the moment you alter the 'standard' configuration, let's say by ordering 500 GB instead of 320 GB, the standard configuration becomes customised. Same with single Quad-Core...

sash

 

[hajime]

comparing MatLab drives between the mac pro at home and the dual core 2.66Ghz computer at work is a laugh. Just look at the image provided, this exact same script took approx. 5.5 times longer on the HP. This just shows that there already are usage for more power, on some places you just CAN'T have enough computing power. More power = less time.

I heard that the majority of codes in Matlab and toolboxes are not optimized for multicores processing. How is the performance gain by having a dual processor? Can you show benchmarks?

 

[Roy]

At the moment you alter the 'standard' configuration, let's say by ordering 500 GB instead of 320 GB, the standard configuration becomes customised. Same with single Quad-Core...

sash

I could be totally wrong, as my wife tells me when I disagree with her, but I thought that the Apple stores only stocked standard configurations. And using the example of a standard configuration Mac Pro (in an Apple Store) with a 320 GB HD, if I wanted the Apple store to exchange the 320 GB for a 500 GB HD, then at the Apple Store they would charge me $200 for a 500 GB rather than the $50 at the on-line Apple Store. The idea being that the 320 GB was used and they couldn't sell it as new to someone else.

 

[zmttoxics]

Just received my single-quadcore Mac Pro two days ago and started migrating everything over from my G5 yesterday.

Put an extra 4GB of RAM in there to start, added a 640GB Western Digital drive for boot/apps/users, pulled the two drives out of my G5 and popped them into the third and fourth drive bays in the Mac Pro to copy data over, and turned the stock 320GB drive into a Time Machine dump to back up my boot partition (I run Retrospect on the machine to back up everything else locally and on the rest of my network). Also moved my old Lightscribe DVD burner into the lower optical drive bay.

And yep: the Mac Pro is dramatically quieter and cooler-running than the G5. Certainly smooth as silk running multiple file copies between the internal drives and some Firewire 800 externals, installing software, updating my databases and all of that more or less at once. I'll have to wait until the weekend to do some video encoding tasks, but so far I'm loving it.

I went even cheaper then a quad pro and got a PMG5, lol. Its a late 2005 model, VERY quiet. My speakers hum louder then the computer. Its exactly what I wanted so I am happy.

 

[vder]

I had visted the Apple store and the sales rep. that I had checked and all that they carry is the standard config. with the dual cpus. The local Apple store to his knowledge have not carried the single cpu.

In the end I went with the dual cpu for futue proofing. Was it worth it ? Time will tell.

Have not have time to set the machine up yet. Can not wait to kiss Vista GOODBYE

 

[Roy]

Nehalem Mac Pro: single processor?

Since the topic is on single processors vs dual processors, does anyone know if the suggested upcoming Nehalem Mac Pro will support a single processor? From what I gathered on the forums, the original Mac Pro could not, but the current ones can and Apple opted to offer a single processor Mac Pro as a customized option from the on-line Apple Store.

 

[zmttoxics]

Since the topic is on single processors vs dual processors, does anyone know if the suggested upcoming Nehalem Mac Pro will support a single processor? From what I gathered on the forums, the original Mac Pro could not, but the current ones can and Apple opted to offer a single processor Mac Pro as a customized option from the on-line Apple Store.

From what I read it does support single cpu configurations. Each cpu can come in 4 or 8 cores. Making for: single quad, dual quad, single 8, dual 8 configurations. I could be wrong though...

 

[sash]

I could be totally wrong, as my wife tells me when I disagree with her, but I thought that the Apple stores only stocked standard configurations.

Hi Roy,

Same here, I could be totally wrong. All they could stock, can only be standard.

sash

 

[Roy]

From what I read it does support single cpu configurations. Each cpu can come in 4 or 8 cores. Making for: single quad, dual quad, single 8, dual 8 configurations. I could be wrong though...

Hi Roy,

Same here, I could be totally wrong. All they could stock, can only be standard.

sash

Ah, so you both know my wife!

Thanks for opinions, right or wrong.

 

[schnee]

I could be totally wrong, as my wife tells me when I disagree with her, but I thought that the Apple stores only stocked standard configurations.

This is true.

Apple Stores do not stock the single CPU at all. If you ask for one in-store, they tell you (nicely) to go buy it online at apple.com.

Customized things can't be refunded or returned on the online Apple store, either. So, you'd better be pretty sure you want it.

 

[Roy]

This is true.

Apple Stores do not stock the single CPU at all. If you ask for one in-store, they tell you (nicely) to go buy it online at apple.com.

Customized things can't be refunded or returned on the online Apple store, either. So, you'd better be pretty sure you want it.

That's the reason I grit my teeth every time I read where someone posts that you always have the 14 day return policy with Apple and they leave out the part you just mentioned.

 

[hadleydb]

So what I am gathering I will be okay getting a 4 core 2.8 Mac Pro for light photoshop work, Some iMovie rendering, podcast production, kind of iLife suite stuff mainly? I'm sure even the iMac would work for what I do. I just like how fast my 8 core 2.8 Mac Pro was, and I'm kind of frightened to get anything lighter than the Mac Pro. Now as for resale I'm sure the 4 core isn't going to be as great down the road. Those of you with quad cores are you happy generally with its performance?

 

[sash]

[/COLOR] That's the reason I grit my teeth every time I read where someone posts that you always have the 14 day return policy with Apple

I could be terribly wrong, but that's how the things are going in Belgium (maybe in Europe as a whole, I'm not sure). I've ordered my first G5 as BTO -- and returned the thing after appr. 10 days, getting another one as a replacement.

Is that different in the US?

 

[dchao]

Those of you with quad cores are you happy generally with its performance?

Yes, very happy with it.

As well as the software you mentioned, I also run VMware, which can only use TWO cores max. The only time when the CPU utilization reached 100% is on the 2nd pass of the x264 encoding, not even the first pass can use all the cores.

I don't feel any urge to go 8-core today, I am sure when the time comes, there will be options to upgrade *both* of my Xeon processors.

 

[gauchogolfer]

I heard that the majority of codes in Matlab and toolboxes are not optimized for multicores processing. How is the performance gain by having a dual processor? Can you show benchmarks?

I don't have benchmarks, but from my experience the Matlab code that I have is more stressed by RAM than by cores. Matlab indeed will use as many processors as are available (here's a screenshot)

As you can see it's not maxing out each core, but does take advantage of RAM (thanks 64 bit!, this is on Vista).

 

[Boomhowler]

running "bench(30)" @ work yields the following results (mean of all runs) [dual core 2.0 GHz, "4"Gb RAM, Vista 32bit]

Each value corresponds to the following operations:
LU LAPACK. Floating point, regular memory access.
FFT Fast Fourier Transform. Floating point, irregular memory access.
ODE Ordinary diff. eqn. Data structures and M-files.
Sparse Solve sparse system. Mixed integer and floating point.
2-D plot(fft(eye)). 2-D line drawing graphics.
3-D MathWorks logo. 3-D animated OpenGL graphics.

0.1410 0.2656 0.2002 0.4312 0.4439 0.2378

also, got an average "speed score" of 55.

I'll run the same thing on my home computer later today..

 

[gauchogolfer]

running "bench(30)" @ work yields the following results (mean of all runs) [dual core 2.0 GHz, "4"Gb RAM, Vista 32bit]

Each value corresponds to the following operations:
LU LAPACK. Floating point, regular memory access.
FFT Fast Fourier Transform. Floating point, irregular memory access.
ODE Ordinary diff. eqn. Data structures and M-files.
Sparse Solve sparse system. Mixed integer and floating point.
2-D plot(fft(eye)). 2-D line drawing graphics.
3-D MathWorks logo. 3-D animated OpenGL graphics.

0.1410 0.2656 0.2002 0.4312 0.4439 0.2378

also, got an average "speed score" of 55.

I'll run the same thing on my home computer later today..

I'll run this now on my Vista work machine (see sig below for details) running Matlab 7.5.0 r2007b

Update:
LU 0.0957
FFT .2075
ODE .2015
Sparse .4435
2D .3875
3D .7381